Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/113

 2d. blue Mauritius stamp with a view to matrimony."

It was in company with Sir John Pope Hennessy—that stormy petrel of the Crown Colonies—that H. H. first visited Mauritius.

Prior to Pope Hennessy's appointment to the Government of Mauritius, he had been offered and had accepted the Government of New South Wales; but the appointment had been met by so determined a protest on the part of the New South Wales Ministers that the Secretary of State had been compelled to inform him that "the appointment could not be proceeded with."

A new friendship with H. H. inspired Pope Hennessy with the hope that he had found in him a man of sufficient influence over the Press and public opinion in N.S.W. to convert Ministers from their determination not to accept him as Governor.

The following year—1884—H. H., on the invitation of Pope Hennessy, used his good offices with the Colonial Office, and his influence with the Press, in support of a scheme of constitutional reform for Mauritius to which the Home Government was opposed on general principles of policy.

The form of constitution proposed was first set up in New South Wales in the year 1842, and by an Imperial Act of 1850 was extended to all the Australian Colonies except Western Australia. It was a form of Government expressly designed to serve as a bridge over which the Colonies might pass to the full liberties of self-government.

The advocates of the system included two parties: those who desired to see it carried out to what they conceived to be the logical consequence of complete separation from Great Britain, and those who desired