This
threatened appendix to the State Calendar may have existed only in
the imaginations of the reporters, yet inspired some uneasy
apprehensions in the minds of many well-wishers to the Maltese, who
knew that--for a foreign settlement at least, and one, too,
possessing in all the ranks and functions of society an ample
population of its own--such a stately and wide-branching tree of
patronage, though delightful to the individuals who are to pluck its
golden apples, sheds, like the manchineel, unwholesome and corrosive
dews on the multitude who are to rest beneath its shade. It need
not, however, be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert himself
to preclude any such intention, by stating and evincing the extreme
impolicy and injustice of the plan, as well as its utter inutility in
the case of Malta. With the exception of the governor and of the
public secretary, both of whom undoubtedly should be natives of Great
Britain and appointed by the British Government, there was no civil
office that could be of the remotest advantage to the island which
was not already filled by the natives, and the functions of which
none could perform so well as they.
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