He would remind his audience that in the thirteenth century Richard, Earl of Cornwall, afterwards King of the Romans, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Saracens who held him at ransom: and that by the promptness with which the Cornishmen of those days, rich and poor together, made voluntary contribution and discharged the price, they earned their coat-of-arms of fifteen gold coins upon a sable ground, as well as their proud motto "One and All." It had been said (I forget if in my hearing), that the days of chivalry were past.

Here was an opportunity to disprove it and declare that the spirit of their ancestors survived and animated the Cornishmen of to-day.

(A Voice--"How about the Millennium ?") He would pass over that interruption with the contempt it deserved.

They were not met to bandy personalities, but as citizens united in the face of calamity by affection for their common borough.

As stars upon the night, as the gold coins on their Duchy's sable shield, so might their free-will offerings spell hope upon the dark ground of present desolation.