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 the debate raised by Mr. Arthur Mills, then member for Taunton, on the question of Colonial defences. At this time Professor Goldwin Smith was raising the great controversy as to the mutual benefits that would flow from England's recognising the complete independence of her self-governing colonies. The discussion in Parliament was devoted to the minor point of the advisability of withdrawing English troops from these dependencies. Sir Henry confesses himself little edified, and was compelled to beguile the tedium by counting the House, which, however, was an easy task, for, "including Mr. Childers," there were only twenty-seven present. All the time, he tells us, he was on the qui vive to hear the once famous author of Sam Slick, "with his Nova-Scotian instincts," on this Colonial question; but when Haliburton rose "he said just nothing, and that nothing in as uninteresting a way as any other old gentleman with a portly figure and well-used countenance could well adopt."

It is characteristic that Sir Henry Parkes devotes little of his correspondence to the great Exhibition of 1862. As a newspaper correspondent for the time being, he recognises his remissness, saying that he was never fond of running with the crowd,