638 Notes of the Month on [Junr, 
pleasant promises of royal revenue in the handicraft management of 
our governors from Manchester, should have been embarrassed to 
a degree that threatens total extinction. The tale which we have 
to offer to posterity, is that in the allotment of the territory on the 
west coast of New Holland, a brother of Mr. Peel had the 
modesty to apply for no less than a province of four hundred 
square miles, and the good fortune to have his request most graciously 
acceded to. The future sovereign doubtless felt the sentiments belong- 
ing to his high rank; had already contemplated the movement of an 
army into the interior ; the conquest of some thousand square miles 
more in a campaign or two; a fleet to act against the coffee-coloured 
sovereignty of the Sandwich Islands ; a dozen of the islands for himself ; 
a standing army, with a kangaroo corps, for his Majesty’s guards; a 
peerage, and a revenue on sharks’ fins, seals’ blubber, Indians’ ears, and 
English land-bargaining. Unluckily, the plan escaped from the secre- 
tary’s desk, and found its way to those universal tell-tales, the newspapers. 
Discussion, the direst foe of family arrangements, followed ; and even the 
ministry were driven to the reluctant necessity of “attempting to 
explain ;” defence was out of the question. The result is, that the job 
is likely to end in nothing—that the grant is, probably, about to be aban- 
doned by the grantee. There was connected with Mr. Peel in the 
grant, a member for a county, who, holding a quantity of land in 
New South Wales, was desirous of being appointed governor of that 
colony, and who offered to go out in a similar capacity to the Swan 
River. There was also connected with the grantee a gallant colonel ; 
but those individuals, finding that their principal in the affair did not 
answer their expectations, have declared off, and expressed their deter- 
mination to have nothing to do with the Swan River. Mr. Peel’s 
method of settling was to sell leases for life ; but buyers were not ripe, 
and some who had come into his terms have backed out, on the ground 
that he had withheld from them the stipulations on which the grant had 
been made to him. The family scheme of providing for this younger 
brother at a distance, is thus likely to fall to the ground, and his rela- 
tions will still enjoy the satisfaction of having him near them. 
If all this be true, we congratulate the country. Fallenas England is, 
she has still some power of awaking the fears, if she cannot awake the 
principle of her masters. If this cotton-spinning family must be fed at 
the expense of the state, let them be fed at home. The younger brood 
have never exhibited the slightest degree of public ability, ’tis true ; of 
the head of the house the nation has long settled its opinion, and consi- 
ders his talents to be ofthe same rank as his honesty. Of the whole 
generation besides, what living man knows any thing, except that they 
have all got places, or commissions, or livings, or something or other, 
which they had no right under heaven to get? But, if it be the law of 
degeneracy that they must be provided for, let them be provided for at 
home ; here they will be in some degree harmless: they will feel them- 
selves under the eye of a*Dictator who will permit no minor tyranny, cor- 
ruption, or misgovernment. They will lounge at their desks, mend their 
pens, read the newspapers, long for the coming of quarter-day, when it 
has come, rejoice that they have lived to it, and hope that they may find 
favour in their military master’s eyes to be allowed to live and draw 
another quarter’s salary. They will be like the Arbuthnots, the Plantas, 
the Dawsons, the whole militia of official mediocrity, the whole sappers 
and miners, corps of the army of Whitehall, the band of gentleman pen- 
—e 
