Moral.

His moral qualities ran parallel with his intellectual. His high ambition, hampered throughout life, his subjugating will, often thwarted, and his passionate persistency were but the emotional side of his large views. His attributes, with all their defects, were those of the born ruler. His pride was that of the savage chiefs he once ruled over, and it would well have become an absolute monarch, but it made obedience on his part difficult, and co-operation with him all but impossible. The path of his life was strewn with broken friendships, and he was latterly on speaking terms with not one of page 219the colonial leaders. The point of honour once touched, he was implacable. Henceforward, with no moment of weak relenting or relaxed vigilance, he pursued his foe as the bloodhound his quarry, but in a manner fatal to himself as well as to his victim. His self-possession was perfect, and his courage rose as danger thickened, yet it was rather military than civic courage. With a bishop on his right hand and a chief-justice on his left, he was ready to defy Imperial Parliament. With his Ministers behind him, he could flout the Colonial Office. With the people at his back he could have gone from opposition to revolt and from revolt to revolution. Before a blast of unpopularity he was a mere reed. It was as if his foundation were not on the adamant of principle but the quicksands of pride.