12 DR. DANIEL WILSON : INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
that of the great Elizabeth, —will be associated in future ages, with an era of pre-eminent 
distinction in letters and science. 
In conclusion, I may be permitted to add, as in no degree foreign to the legitimate 
objects of a section which embraces History as well as Literature, that, whatever may be 
the new relations, or the modified organization of this Dominion: “far on in summers 
that we shall not see,” the confederation which has thus sprung into being from the ex- 
tension of responsible constitutional Government by Great Britain to the united Provinces 
of British North America, under a vice-regal representative of the Crown, presents features 
which cannot fail to awaken interest in the thoughtful student of history. What we look 
for in vain in the relations of Pheenicia, Carthage, Greece, or Rome, to their provincial 
states and colonies; and what Venice, Portugal, Spain, France and Holland, have alike 
failed to achieve in modern centuries, has become for us an accomplished fact. The colonies 
of Greece were indeed bound to the Hellenic centre by community of language, race, and 
faith ; even as the republican Anglo-American cannot, if he would, wholly alienate him- 
self from the old land and race with which he shares in common 
“The tongue / 
That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals holds 
Which Milton held.” 
But history has no parallel to this novel experience of a free people, the occupants of a vast 
region stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, enjoying all constitutional rights, elect- 
ing their own parliaments, organizing an armed militia, controlling customs, immigration, 
and all else that pertains to independent self-government, while they continue to cherish 
the tie which binds them to the Mother Country, to claim a share in all her triumphs, and 
to render a willing homage to the Representative of the Crown. 
Whatever our aspirations may be, it is surely no mean privilege which we share in our 
relations to the world-wide empire of Britain; to her who has been the exemplar of the 
nations in the freedom of self-government: to have thus far solved, for her and with her, 
the problem of colonial relationship in a free state. We thus present to the world a social 
and political achievement such as, till now, the wisest of ancient and modern nations had 
alike failed even to aim at; and so have wrought out, on a true basis, a system whereby 
the colonies and dependencies of Britain, scattered as they are on every continent, and in 
farthest oceans, may perpetuate their relations with the Mother Country, while partaking of 
all the blessings of her well-regulated freedom ; or may be trained to emulate her example 
as independent states. : 
