True, he was returned to South Africa, which clamoured angrily at his recall, but, as he said, 'It was with strict injunctions to stop my federation schemes, for these would not be tolerated.' They were a generation too soon. Yet, their author had already drawn on posterity in order to develop English colonies. Was it right to tax posterity? High talk turned on this at a dinner in London, where Sir George met Gladstone, Macaulay, and other celebrities. 'Certainly,' Sir George argued, 'if some large expense is undertaken which will benefit those to come after us, as well as those already here, it is more equity that the former should be charged with their share.' The principle had been put into practice in the Colonies, and he imagined that this dinner helped its advance in the Old Country. Especially, he applied that opinion to the taking over, by Government, of the English telegraph lines. 'I recall very well,' Sir George stated, 'the picturesque way in which Macaulay expressed our common trait of being interested in trifles that affect us closely, to the neglect of large happenings which are distant. "Here," he said, about some item of news, "is a mandarin in China who has beheaded a thousand people in a batch. I was quite shocked when I read of it this morning. During the day I contrived to cut one of my fingers. I'm ashamed to confess that I thought so much about the finger, that I quite forgot the massacred Chinamen! That was Macaulay's illustration." 'As the dinner party was breaking up, I stood for a minute with him. He had not been enjoying very good health. When I congratulated him on his seeming revival in strength, he showed me his hand, which was puffy and blown, and answered: "Oh, I'm not so well as you might think." Poor fellow, the remark was too true, for he died within a fortnight from that evening.' To South Africa, soon after Sir George Grey had resumed duty there, came a member of the Royal family. This was Prince Alfred, later the Duke of Edinburgh, now the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Sir George suggested the visit, and he believed it had excellent results. It delighted the colonists to have a son of the Queen among them. Seeing him the natives could exclaim, 'Again, the Queen loves us or she would not send us her son!' The visit drew out the regard of South Africa towards England and its Sovereign. Certainly the federal idea! 'Prince Alfred,' Sir George made an appreciation of him, 'was a nice, frank, handsome boy; an excessively taking little boy. In his honour, we had perhaps the largest hunt that ever took place in South Africa. It was calculated that he shot more deer in fifteen minutes, than his father would have shot in the Scottish Highlands in a season.