CHAPTER XIII.

HOME.

DURING my residence in Canada, I had read so much, had heard so much, and had preached so much about "The OLD Country," that as the New York packet in which I was returning approached its shores, I quite made up my mind to see, in the venerable countenance of "my auld respeckit mither," the ravages of time and the wrinkles of old age. Nevertheless, whatever might prove to be her infirmities, I yearned for the moment in which I might exclaim

"This is my own, my native land!"

I disembarked at Liverpool on the 22nd of April, and, with as little delay as possible, started for London on the railway, which had been completed during my absence.

Now, if a very short-sighted young man, intending to take one more respectful look at the picture of his grandmother, were to find within the frame, instead of canvass,

"A blooming Eastern bride,

In flower of youth and beauty's pride,"

he could not be more completely-and, as he might possibly irreverently term it agreeably — surprised than I was when, on the wings of a lovely spring morning, I flew over the surface of "Old England."

Everything looked new! The grass in the meadows was new—the leaves on the trees and hedges were new-the flowers were new-the blossoms of the orchards were new-the lambs were new-the young birds were new-the crops were new-the railway was new. As we whisked along it, the sight, per minute, of an erect man, in bottle-green uniform, standing like a direction post, stock still, with an arm extended, was new; the idea, whatever it might be intended to represent, was quite new. All of a sudden, plunging souse into utter darkness, and then again into bright dazzling sunshine, was new. Every station at which we stopped was new. The bells which affectionately greeted our arrival, and which, sometimes almost before we even could stop, bade us depart, were new.

During one of the longest of these intervals, the sudden appearance of a line of young ladies behind a counter, exhibiting to hungry travellers tea, toast, scalding-hot soup, sixpenny pork pies, and everything else that human nature could innocently desire to enjoy and then, almost before we could get to these delicacies, being summarily ordered to depart; the sight of a crowd of sturdy Englishmen, in caps of every shape, hurrying to their respective carriages, with their mouths full,—was new. In short, it was to new and merry England that after a weary absence I had apparently returned; and it was

not until I reached Downing Street I could believe that I really was once again in "The OLD Country;" but there I found everything old :—old men, old women, old notions, old prejudices, old stuff, and old nonsense, and, what was infinitely worse, old principles; in fact, it appeared as if the building in which I stood was intended to collect and remove to our colonies all worn-out doctrines that had become no longer fit for home consumption; and although I was somewhat prepared for almost any unwholesome prescription that might be administered by it, yet I certainly was altogether overwhelmed with astonishment when I was gravely informed that Her Majesty's Government had just despatched to Quebec a Lord High Commissioner, in order, for the fourth time, to inquire into, and, if possible, explain to Her Majesty the grievances of the Canadas, and of her other North American colonies!!

So long as Monsieur Papineau and Mr. McKenzie, masking, or rather casting a transparent veil over their real designs, had asked only for "reform," there might have been something like an excuse for Old England stoutly disbelieving the various administrators of the Government who for the last twenty-five years, in different voices, had one after another been opposing the poisonous concessions to democracy which the home Government, under the name of "domestic medicine," had been pouring upon the free, the happy, and the loyal inhabitants of a New world. But the "Reformers" of our North American Colonies had lately, of their own

accord, dispelled all mystery or misunderstanding on this subject; and accordingly, in much clearer terms than any which a Lord High Commissioner could venture to use to the Queen, they had themselves printed and published placards and proclamations, explicitly revealing, for the information of Her Majesty and of all her subjects, their simple secret, namely, that separation from the mother country-in short, that rebellion, and not reform, had been their object. But besides this valuable information, they had statistically, supplied Her Majesty with a true and faithful list of all their own names; and on the other hand, of the names, trades, and occupations of that overwhelming majority who had long professed, and who had just proved, themselves ready to die in defence of her authority and of British institutions.

They had shown Her Majesty that the British population in her North American Colonies, with a few contemptible exceptions, were loyal; and that there might be no mistake, they concluded by explaining to Her Majesty, that as the principal leaders of what they had termed "their glorious minority" had absconded to the United States, the portion left behind were as small, as insignificant, and practically as harmless, as the spots in the sun.

But while the inhabitants of our North American colonies had not only suppressed domestic rebellion, but had repelled foreign invasion; in what state, I beg leave to ask, was the mother country? Why, when I returned from Canada, Wales was in a state

of insurrection-Ireland on the point of rebellion— there were fires at Manchester-riots at Birmingham, and even in the agricultural districts there were disturbances which were seriously alarming the Government.

If, therefore, a Royal Commission were at that time to be established, would it not have been infinitely more reasonable that three or four of the most intelligent of the native-born inhabitants of our North American colonies should have been appointed by the Queen to probe, examine, and report to Her Majesty what were "the grievances" of the mother country, than that any one member of a population so dreadfully diseased should be ordered to prescribe for that portion of their fellow-countrymen whom I had just left in the enjoyment of robust health?

However, the great physician had already sailed; and now comes the brief abstract of a political story, the most hysterical that has ever been acted on our colonial theatre, and which is occasionally so ludicrous, and yet on the whole so melancholy, that it may justly be termed "the comedy and tragedy of

errors.

Whether it was that the weight of responsibility that had been imposed upon him was specifically more than his mind could bear-whether it was that the exalted pinnacle on which as Lord High Commissioner he was suddenly placed, made his head giddy or whether it was that the unexpected reversal by the British Parliament of an illegal