that the path of imperial ambition is henceforth open to them.”  It was a direct answer to the appeal which had been so eloquently made on more than one occasion by the Honourable Joseph Howe[27] of Nova Scotia, to extend imperial honours and offices to distinguished colonists, and not reserve them, as was too often the case, for Englishmen of inferior merit.  “This elevation of Mr. Hincks to a governorship,” said the Montreal Pilot at the time, “is the most practicable comment which can possibly be offered upon the solemn and sorrowful complaints of Mr. Howe, anent the neglect with which the colonists are treated by the imperial government.  So sudden, complete and noble a disclaimer on the part of Her Majesty’s minister for the colonies must have startled the delegate from Nova Scotia, and we trust that his turn may not be far distant.”  Fifteen years later, Mr. Howe himself became a lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, and an inmate of the very government house to which he was not admitted in the stormy days when he was fighting the battle of responsible government against Lord Falkland.

Mr. Hincks was subsequently appointed governor of British Guiana, and at the same time received a Commandership of the Bath as a mark of “Her Majesty’s approval honourably won by very valuable and continued service in several colonies of the empire.”  He retired from the imperial service with a pension in 1869, when his name was included in the first list of knights which was submitted to the Queen on the extension of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for the express purpose of giving adequate recognition to those persons in the colonies who had rendered distinguished service to the Crown and empire.  During his Canadian administration Lord Elgin had impressed upon the colonial secretary that it was “very desirable that the prerogative of the Crown, as the fountain of honour, should be employed, in so far as this can properly be done, as a means of attaching the outlying parts of the empire to the throne.”  Two principles ought, he thought, “as a general rule to be attended to in the distribution of imperial honours among colonists.”  Firstly they should appear “to emanate directly from the Crown, on the advice, if you will, of the governors and imperial ministers, but not on the recommendation of the local executive.”  Secondly, they “should be conferred, as much as possible, on the eminent persons who are no longer engaged actively in political life.”  The first principle has, generally speaking, guided the action of the Crown in the distribution of honours to colonists, though the governors may receive suggestions from and also consult their prime ministers when the necessity arises.  These honours, too, are no longer conferred only on men actively engaged in public life, but on others eminent in science, education, literature, and other vocations of life.[28]