On this twenty-second day of February I have said but little, I have time left to say but little, of the man by whose birth that day was made memorable. I cannot speak now of the modest virtues of one on whom greatness was indeed thrust, a greatness which consisted, not in the brilliancy of fitful genius, not in the growth of any one gift so as to overshadow and overwhelm others not less needful; but in the equal balance of all, the unswerving honesty, the native dignity, which enabled him to play a worthy part on so many stages, to act wisely and righteously in any post to which the chances of a chequered life might call him. Still less have I time this day to speak of his fellows, of the memorable band of which he was but the foremost, on one of the many sides of his life perhaps hardly the foremost. When we speak of George Washington and his work, the kindred work of Alexander Hamilton must never be forgotten. Shall I, in the course of my office here, ever reach those times? Or shall I keep to my old familiar ground of Sikyôn and Megalopolis, knowing well that there is one among us who can deal better than I can with the federal history of Schwyz and Zürich, that there is another among us who can deal better than I can with the federal history of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island? Be this as it may, we deal this time, this twenty-second of February, with an idea rather than with a man. We look at the man in his work. And we would hold up his work as a model. There are other lands in which his work may again be done, and done more peacefully. No new Bunker Hill, no Saratoga, no Yorktown, would be needed to call into being other independent Englands as free and mighty as either the elder or the younger. Other continents beside Europe and America have become homes of the English folk, and the homes of the English folk in those other lands may not always lag behind the great home of the English folk between the Oceans. The tale of “the English in America” is now in telling, in most worthy telling, here among us. Some other pens in times to come may write the tale of “the English in Australia,” of “the English in Africa,” and they may have to trace the story after the same pattern. Let Federation grow and prosper, so long as no contradictory adjective is tacked on to a substantive so worthy of all honour. Where there is Empire, there is no brotherhood; where there is brotherhood, there is no Empire. I shall hardly see the day; but some of you may see it, when the work of Washington and Hamilton may be wrought again without slash or blow, when, alongside of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America, the United States of Australia, the United States of South Africa, the United States of New Zealand, may stand forth as independent homes of Englishmen, bound to one another by the common tie of brotherhood, and bound by loyal reverence, and by no meaner bond, to the common parent of all. APPENDIX. IMPERIAL FEDERATION.