New South Wales Assistance to Great Britain.

Well, a great series of events took place in Africa, and England lost many gallant officers and many gallant men, and failed, after all, to save the hero of the time, General Gordon. (Loud cheers.) More disasters than successes overtook our forces. Again this new being to whom I have referred took the lead, and the generous offer of assistance to Britain attracted the attention not only of Great Britain, but of the whole civilised world. They felt, in fact, that a new, Empire had sprung into existence—a united Empire. And now, you must bear this in mind. No hero can be born into a nation without elevating that nation — giving rise to heroic thoughts, inciting other men to follow his example, and in that way doing a great amount of good. The young nation gives an example of that kind. That is far beyond the example of a single hero. In fact, it makes a movement which may determine the destinies of an entire Empire (cheers); and that movement has been made. And where has it been made? In New South Wales. And many people will say, "What did New South Wales owe to England of gratitude?" It was founded, they will say, as a convict colony, where the lash was for ever heard, and men were flogged almost out of the semblance of humanity, until they said themselves that the hearts of page break men had been taken from them, and the hearts of brutes had been put in the place of human beings. (Cheers.) And you would have thought—you would have imagined in your own mind—that that was the last place from which such a movement of gratitude would come. Bear this in mind, that when we talk of convict colonies, we little understand what were the customs of the times in which those colonies were founded. People were then transported at the will of two Justices of the Peace for seven years—two ordinary Justices of the Peace—for crimes which would now be punished with a few days imprisonment. (Cheers.) Girls, as I have heard, were transported for gathering a few bunches of shrubs in the domain of some great noble, thereby setting a bad example. Patriots were banished, as in the case of those men from Scotland who were looked upon as martyrs, and monuments were now erected to them. Do not conceive that they were all bad. But whether bad or not they were all badly treated. Hence we find, partly from the necessity of the occasion—for amongst them of course were some who were bad, and who might have had recourse to many acts of violence, and those to restrain them were but few in number, and mutinies were dreaded, and fear creates tyranny on all occasions, and they were, in point of fact, subjected to indiguities, to punishments, which I could not speak of before this mixed assembly, and underwent very great suffering undeservedly and unjustly. Therefore, I tell you, you must recollect that that nation was not a nation of convicts such as we should speak of now, but a nation in some instances of most deserving persons, and having amongst their convicts really great and good men. (Cheers.) Therefore, do not let us wonder at what New South "Wales did. Let us rather admire their conduct—that, forgetting all the past, the good prevailed in their hearts, and that they came forward with a great and generous offering which has moved I may say every heart in the British isles, and has made all other nations look with envy upon Great Britain at the present moment. (Cheers.)