The statesmen of the period were against any such schemes.

A deputation of the Friends of Colonization waited upon the Duke of Wellington to urge that New Zealand should be acquired and settled.

The Duke, under the advice of the Church Missionary Society, flatly refused to think of such a thing.

It was then that he made the historically noteworthy observation that, even supposing New Zealand were as valuable as the deputation made out, Great Britain had already colonies enough.

When one reflects what the British Colonial Empire was then, and what it has since become, the remark is a memorable example of the absence of the imaginative quality in statesmen.