Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/359

 a strong Government could be formed out of it. I stated the case in a paper, which I had reason afterwards to know the Cabinet in London regarded as entitling me to a dissolution. But after the fall of Sir Charles Darling we had got an impoverished peer for Governor, whose business in the colonies was to increase his balance at the banker's. He allied his family with that of a shipowner and squatter. I was assured in various directions that a majority could not have been obtained but that the Governor's son-in-law had whispered to the leaders of the Opposition, that they need have no fear of a dissolution as the Governor would not grant one. The Governor, on behalf of his son-in-law, denied this allegation; but that was a matter of course. It was not disputed on any hand that an appeal to the people would have given us a decisive majority. But the one solitary power which a Governor has been permitted to retain, and which has not once in a long reign been exercised by the sovereign, was employed to betray the interests of the community to the opulent minority. Mr. Francis, who had made a fortune in Van Diemen's Land, supplemented by Victorian squatting, became Chief Secretary in a Government in which fierce Free Traders and devoted Protectionists sat side by side. When the Ministerial elections were over, the Governor wrote to me saying the Secretary of State had authorised him to offer me a Companionship of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. I had much satisfaction in refusing the offer, which I considered little better than an insult. A day or two after he wrote again, informing me that he had been authorised to offer me a Knighthood. It would have been a pleasure to me to decline this offer also, but some of my late colleagues were of opinion that my doing so would be greatly misunderstood; that the distinction was the same which had been conferred on Sir James McCulloch, and that