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 splendid thing in the world for all nations if all would agree to carry it out.

The next point to which I must direct your attention is the growth of the British Empire. Soon after Victoria became Queen a cry for ‘self-government’ began to be heard from the Colonies. There were five-and-forty British Colonies all told, and the joke went round that they were governed by three-and-twenty clerks of the ‘Colonial Office’ in Downing Street, London. This was not quite true, as most of our colonies had little councils of their own, which in some cases were even elected. It was in Canada that the cry for a more free system first arose. Many of the inhabitants of its two provinces were of old French descent, and spoke, as they still speak, French. These had been nobly loyal to Britain and had twice repelled American invasions; and there were also descendants of American loyalists, who had fled to Canada in 1776–83 rather than live under a foreign flag. But there was a danger of such feeling wearing out, and there were, in 1840, mutterings of rebellion and threats that the Canadians would join the United States. In order to prevent this and to satisfy the Canadians, the experiment was tried of giving them the beginnings of a regular Parliament like our own, with a ministry responsible to that Parliament and named by a Governor representing the Crown.

The gradual extension of the Dominion of Canada to include the territories known as Ontario and British Columbia right up to the island of Vancouver, was the work of the middle period of Victoria's reign; and during the same period the United States of America were extending Westwards and ever more Westwards