2-913-738 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the First Cape Parliament, in the State-Room, Cape Town, 1854. Ceremony in at Government House - Charles Henry Darling, Lieutenant-Governor of the Cape Colony (in what is now South Africa), makes his maiden speech to the colonial parliament.. '...the Legislative Council, headed by their President, Sir John Wylde, in his robes, arrived and took their seats, when the Castle guns announced the approach of the Lieutenant-Governor. [His speech] certainly bore a much stronger resemblance to an American President's Message than it did to a Queen's Speech...the Lieutenant Governor adverted to the war with Russia [Crimean War], rendered necessary by "a desire to save Europe from the preponderance of a Power which has violated the faith of treaties, and defies the opinion of the civilised world"'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.