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Rh would strive by training and education to raise men in the social scale, and so acquire fresh ornaments for Native society. He would recognize fully all territorial classes or individuals who had retained a rightful position. He was ever stirring them to actions worthy of their rank. He awarded to them the meed and guerdon of honour, whenever they did deeds of public usefulness. But he would not make over to them, nor permit them to appropriate, the rights and property of others in the land; and when the controversy reached that point he would put his foot down upon the line. He would not then be deterred by threatenings of political discontent; but would say fiat justitia as between two important classes of our Native fellow-subjects.

By some of those who differed from him he has been called an innovator. But really there was no spirit of innovation in him, though his mind was ever bent on progress and improvement. On the contrary, his instinct was to conserve: to adopt old institutions, and if possible to render them available for present use, to take the antiquae viae as his starting-point, and by conciliatory proceedings to draw men gradually into the groove of advancement. He used to say to an intimate friend — Henry Carre Tucker — 'support old institutions and do not distract the people by attempting a new one.' To his daughter he once wrote 'It is in the old family servants that I glory.'