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 attachment to your Royal Person and loyalty to the Throne.

"We learn with profound regret, participated in by all our fellow-colonists, that it has been deemed advisable to postpone the consideration of the proposed new Constitution of this colony for another year.

"We would humbly represent to your Majesty, that the provisions of the Bill for conferring upon us this wished-for boon are so entirely in unison with the views of the most eminent statesmen in England, were passed in this House by such decisive majorities, and gave such general satisfaction to the colonists at large, that, in our opinion, no valid reason can exist for any further delay in the consideration of its details, nor are there any grounds for supposing that, on a review, any alteration would be asked for by the colonists.

"With reference to that portion of the despatch from the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies, which states the intention of your Majesty's advisers to consider all the Bills for establishing new constitutions in the several Australian colonies together, we beg leave to state that we cannot see any necessity for uniformity in the Constitutions of these colonies, the capitals of which are more distant from each other than those of many European nations; but, on the contrary, we are led to believe that it may prove ultimately advantageous to test by trial the relative merits of each plan.