not see, perhaps they did not all see themselves, that to give the Colonies complete freedom, and to insist upon their providing, except so far as the Navy was concerned, for their own defence, would strengthen, not weaken, the tie.  In proof of his theory he produced some singular evidence, comprising one of the strangest stories that ever was told.  He heard it, so he informs us, from Sir Arthur Helps, and reproduces it in his own words.

“A Government had gone out; Lord Palmerston was forming a new Ministry, and in a preliminary Council was arranging the composition of it.  He had filled up the other places.  He was at a loss for a Colonial Secretary.  This name and that was suggested, and thrown aside.  At last he said, ’I suppose I must take the thing myself.  Come upstairs with me, Helps, when the Council is over.  We will look at the maps, and you shall show me where these places are.’”

If Froude’s memory of this anecdote be accurate, Helps must, for once, have been drawing upon his imagination.  As Clerk of the Council, he had no more to do with forming Cabinets than with appointing bishops.  Palmerston was never Colonial Secretary in his life; and among his faults as a Minister, which were positive rather than negative, ignorance of political geography was certainly not included.  Many people, however, especially the Tariff Reform League, will consider that the passage which immediately succeeds proves Froude to have been in advance of his age.  For he argues that trade follows the flag, because “our colonists take three times as much of our productions in proportion to their number as foreigners take.”  A tour through the Colonies for the purpose of conversing with their most influential statesmen had long been one of his cherished plans.  Hitherto he had got no farther than the Cape, where, as we have seen, he became entangled in South African politics, and had to repeat his visit.  Now he was bound for Australasia, and on the 6th of December, 1884, he left Tilbury Docks, with his son Ashley, in an Aberdeen packet of four thousand tons.  His love of the sea, Elizabethan in its intensity, was heightened by his enjoyment of Greek literature, especially the Odyssey, which he considered ideal reading for a ship, and, as it surely is, on ship or on shore, an incomparable tale of adventure.

Before the end of the year Froude was at Cape Town, renewing his acquaintance with familiar scenes.  Many of his former friends were dead, and his courteous enemy, now Sir John Molteno, had left Cape Town as well as public life.  The Prime Minister was Mr. Upington, a clever lawyer, afterwards Sir Thomas Upington, and the chief topic was Sir Charles Warren’s expedition to Bechuanaland, which happily did not end in war, as Upington apprehended that it would.  Sir Hercules Robinson was Governor and High Commissioner, a man after Froude’s heart, “too upright to belong to any party,” and thoroughly appreciative of all that was best in the Boers.  This time