CONCILIATION
359
tempts the milder methods of concession and persuasion. ‘ Python,’ he says, ‘ in days when I was ignorant and unjust I struck you down and bound you. I left officers and men with you of my own race to watch you, to teach you, to rule you; to force you, if your own nature could not be changed, to leave your venomous ways. You have refused to be taught, you twist in your chains, you bite and tear, and when you can you steal and murder. I see that I was wrong from the first. Every creature has a right to live according to its own disposition. I was a tyrant, and you did well to resist; I ask you to forgive and forget. I set you free; I hand you over my own representa tives as a pledge of my goodwill, that you may devour them at your leisure. They have been the instruments of my oppression; consume them, destroy them, do what you will with them; and henceforward I hope that we shall live together as friends, and that you will show yourself worthy of my generosity and of the freedom which you have so gloriously won.' A sun-god who thus addressed a disobedient satellite might have the eloquence of a Demosthenes and the finest of the fine intentions which pave the road to the wrong place, but he would not be a divinity who would command the willing confidence of a high-spirited kindred. Great Britain will make the tie which holds the colonies to her a real one when she shows them and shows the world that she is still equal to her great place, that her arm is not shortened and her heart has not grown faint. Men speak of the sacredness of liberty. They talk as if the will of everyone ought to be his only guide, that alle giance is due only to majorities, that allegiance of any other kind is base and a relic of servitude. The Americans are the freest people in the world; but in their freedom they have to obey the fundamental laws of the Union. Again and again in the West Indies Mr. Motley's words came back to