SAINT MICHAEL AND SAINT GEORGE.

99

General ^Remarks.

Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance relating to the Order of SaintMichael and Saint George is, that it should have been created for solimited a purpose as that of rewarding the Natives of a little State, not evenbelonging to Great Britain, and the Inhabitants of one of the smallest of herColonial possessions; while the civil merits of all other classes of the Sove-reign’s subjects (except a few in the highest rank of Peers), whether at Homeor Abroad, fail to obtain so gratifying a testimony of the Royal favour.

But however extraordinary may have been the Institution of an Order for aparticular locality, it is satisfactory to observe that the Order of Saint Michaeland Saint George, fully accomplishes the object for which it was founded; andit may, perhaps, at no distant period, become the Civil Order of Merit of thisCountry.

Every event in the Order having been related, and the important changewhich took place in its constitution in August 1832, when the inconsistenciesand defects in the former Statutes were removed, and the Order raised to itsproper position among the other British Orders of Knighthood, having beenfully described, few points remain for observation. The only existing anomaly,is in the Title of the Third Class,—Natives of the Ionian Islands and of Malta,being called “ Cavalieri,” while those of Great Britain are styled “ Com-panions but this arose from the propriety of not giving to the latter a different,and (if translated) a higher designation than the Third Class of the Order ofthe Bath, though it was deemed expedient to allow the former to retain thename usually borne by Members of Foreign Orders.

Upon the absence of all Fees on admission into the Order, which is one ofits characteristics, some remarks have already been made. 1

Vide p. 86, antea.O 2