were very numerous, however. Mr. Flood, afterwards long a member of the Parliament created by the new constitution, announced that he had granted me a rent charge which was duly registered, to enable me to be elected for any constituency in New South Wales, and my remaining there was treated as a matter of course. But from the engagements made in Victoria, perhaps somewhat prematurely, I could not escape with good faith. In my speech I laughed at the contest between the old and the new colony, and cited some lines which were thought pertinent to the controversy:—
"Although our treacherous tapster Thomas
Hangs a new Angel three doors from us,
As fine as glittering gold can make it,
In hopes that strangers way mistake it;
We think it still a shame and sin
To quit the good old Angel Inn."
Perhaps the most notable circumstance of the evening was that Henry Parkes had the courage to declare that if he were an Irishman, and had witnessed the same calamities and misgovernment which had befallen Ireland in recent times, he would have done all that Mr. Duffy was blamed for doing to defeat and abate them.
On a much-mooted point I took a decisive stand. Some of the Liberals thought that to amend the constitution and enlarge its powers was the first business to which the legislature must apply itself. I exhorted them to prove their fitness for government by using the powers conferred upon them to develop the great resources of the country, and increase its prosperity before enlarging their boundaries. Next morning Mr. James Martin—afterwards Prime Minister and finally Sir James Martin, Chief Justice—called on me to express his satisfaction that I had discouraged rash and irrational projects, and at his table I afterwards met many of the more moderate politicians. I introduced two of my friends to him, whom the jealousy of political parties had hitherto prevented Martin from knowing, one was Edward Butler—afterwards his competitor at the bar, and finally for the office of Chief Justice—the other William Bede Dalley, who later became in politics his colleague, and in social life his brother-in-law. Dalley was a young man full of gaiety
