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discountenanced by the more enlightened citizens of the more 
civilized nations of the world in our time ; and hence the work of 
acclimatisation is comparatively easy, and a gratifying reciprocity of 
feeling and effort is exhibited by its friends, in different countries. 
In applying ourselves to the work in this colony, we may be animated 
by such a retrospective glance as that which I have taken at what 
has been effected in this way, with a view to multiply the means of 
subsistence and the modes of enjoyment, as well as to augment the 
attractiveness of the natural scenery and the charms of social life, in 
England. Coming into the inheritance of these things, both as a 
matter of custom and right, as such of us did who were born there, 
we are very apt to hike it for granted that they existed from time 
immemorial, and to think no more of them than we do of the common 
blessings of light and air. But when we find, upon inquiry and 
reflection, that the energy, the enterprise, and the forethought of 
acclimatisers in the sixteenth century mainly contributed to make 
England the picturesque garden which it is in the nineteenth, we 
may not unreasonably ask ourselves whether it is not in our power 
to confer similar obligations upon those who are to come after us in 
Australia. When we are invited to make some little sacrifices of 
time and money for posterity, we should reject as a malignant insult 
the sneering rejoinder of “ What has posterity done for us Y' The 
question which each generation has to propose to itself under such 
circumstances is this, What have preceding generations done for our 
own ? And if any man will deliberately sit down and compute the 
sum of his obligations — the magnificence of the inheritance he enjoy3 
— the legacy bequeathed to him in art, literature, and science by the 
illustrious dead ;—if he will take into account the inventions which 
have virtually trebled the term of his existence — which have multi¬ 
plied his delights and mitigated his sufferings — which have given 
the day labourer of to-day the command of comforts and enjoyments 
inaccessible to the most powerful monarchs two centuries ago — which 
have made life infinitely happier and more beautiful for all, than it 
was formerly possible to be to the most favoured children of fortune 
—if he will honestly calculate this debt, “ the long result of time,” 
he will bo startled by its magnitude, and will feel that nothing but 
the basest ingratitude or the most degrading selfishness could 
influence him in refusing to bestow upon posterity the slender pittance 
it may be in his power to offer, not in requital, but in acknowledge¬ 
ment, of what he owes to those who have departed “ to join tho 
majority.” 
