perpetual struggle with dullness until the fair again came round, but begged for an intermediate excitement (like a relaxation in Lent) no matter what, nor how humdrum, only something that should vary the tedium of their one-coloured every-day life. It would then be proposed that a lecture should be given, not that instruction of any kind was particularly wished for on its own account, but because, if divided into two parts, it admitted of an amateur performance, vocal and instrumental, being introduced between them.
At the close of one such entertainment an old colonist, who was member of the Honourable Council and a leader of the Wesleyan body, on the plea of thanking the lecturer, stood up to make a speech, when, instead of diverging into religion as was the general expectation, he launched out into political economy, probing the point on which most of his hearers were feeling very sore, "the withdrawal," as he expressed it, "of the convict element from amongst us," meaning in plain English, that the colony was no longer to enjoy a large and increasing convict expenditure. Having got thus far, he took it for granted that his hearers would ask him for the benefit of his advice, so assuming to himself the character of the god in the fable, and assigning to them the part of the man in the mud, he went on to say, "My nephew has been lately in England, and has brought back a song—one that I like, for it contains an idea;—it is called 'I have paddled my own canoe.' That's what you have all got to do now,—as my nephew's song says—Paddle your own canoe!"
With the help of this quotation, falling back on it as
