are required for friends and dependants in England; and
in the race of competition, what chance of success has
a colonist?

I made up my mind at once to forward her memorial as
requested, but pondered on the propriety of adding to it
a recommendation. It could do no good. At most, it would
only be the certificate of an unknown man; of one who
had neither of the two great qualifications, namely,
county or parliamentary interest, but it might do harm.
It might, by engendering ridicule from the insolence of
office, weaken a claim, otherwise well founded. "Who the
devil is this Mr. Thomas Poker, that recommends the prayer
of the petition? The fellow imagines all the world must
have heard of him. A droll fellow that, I take it from
his name: but all colonists are queer fellows, eh?"

"Bad news from home?" said Mr. Slick, who had noticed
my abstraction. "No screw loose there, I hope. You don't
look as if you liked the flavour of that ere nut you are
crackin' of. Whose dead? and what is to pay now?"

I read the letter and the memorial, and then explained
from my own knowledge how numerous and how valuable were
the services of my deceased friend, and expressed my
regret at not being able to serve the memorialist.

"Poor woman!" said Mr. Hopewell, "I pity her. A colonist
has no chance for these things; they have no patron. In
this country merit will always obtain a patron--in the