in every age and country, mankind have been driven abroad from the luxuries and endearments of home, to seek better fortunes in distant landsthey are the institutions, at the same time, which have rendered it most difficult to prevent those colonial settlements from breaking off in anger from the parent state. Such was the smothered discontent which prevailed in all the colonies of the republics of antiquity, that, on the first serious reverse to the parent state, they all proclaimed their independence, and the vast colonial dominion was at once dissolved. The revolt of all the Athenian colonies, after the disaster of Argospotamos; of the Spartan confederacy, after the defeat of Leuctra; of the Roman colonies, after the slaughter of Canna; of the Carthaginians, upon the overthrow of Zama, have all their parallels in modern times; when, on the first serious reverse to more recent republics, their whole colonial dependencies at once proclaimed their independence, and, so far from supporting the mother country, fearfully swelled the ranks of its enemies. Upon any considerable reverse to Venice, Florence, or Genoa, the cities of which they formed the head broke off from a subjection which they hated, to destroy that invidious authority in which they were not permitted to bear any part. The American war, and loss of her magnificent transatlantic possessions to Great Britain, is another instance of the inherent tendency of democratic societies to lose their fullgrown offspring, at the very time when they have arrived at the period of life when they might zealously expect from them efficient assistance, and some return for the long anxieties and protracted solicitude of maternal

care.

No person who surveys with a dispassionate eye the relative situation of Great Britain, and her astonishing colonial empire, can entertain a doubt that we are on the verge of a similar catastrophe, and that nothing but the long duration of European peace, and the halo of renown which England has inherited from the deeds of other days, prevents a general separation of her colonies from taking place. Canada, though in profound peace, has twice broken out into open revolt; albeit provoking, by so doing, the undivided strength of a nation which, five-and

twenty years ago, hurled Napoleon from his throne. Jamaica is in such a state of exasperation, that Government have deemed it necessary to bring forward two different bills for the suspension of its constitution, and the entire subjection of its inhabitants to the rule of a despotic Governor and Council. New South Wales is brooding over injuries which absorb almost the whole ample columns of their local press; and a spirit of discontent is there awakened, which only requires a little more strength to make that distant colony break off the connexion with the mother country, even at the hazard of losing that extraordinary prosperity which, in twenty-five years, has augmented its shipping and commerce above thirty-fold. Such is the dissatisfaction prevalent at the Cape, that not only has the emigration to that noble settlement nearly stopped, but the settlers are actually crossing over with their herds and families to the Caffre territories, and voluntarily incurring the risks of savage rule, rather than the protracted insolence and injustice of civilized democratic government. Even the Ionian islands have fallen into a state of discontent; and Sir Howard Douglas has just followed the common example of dissolving the House of Assembly in Corfu, on account of the rebellious spirit of our Greck subjects. If any man imagines that a colonial empire, agitated by such passions, suffering under such evils, is in a tranquil state, or possessed of the cohesion and moral attachment requisite to make it hold together under the shocks of adverse fortune, he is little versed either in the history of mankind, or its secret spring, the workings of the human heart.

It is remarkable that this tendency to break off from the mother country, and separate into a multitude of independent states on the first serious national reverse, is peculiar to the colonial dependencies of democratic governments, and does not exist in any degree in firm or strongly cemented monarchies. Such monarchies have none of the inherent vigour and energy which is requisite to produce proper colonial offshoots; but in the dominions which they have acquired by conquest, or succeeded to by inheritance, there is none of that restless desire of emancipation, which forms so strong a feature in the character of

dependencies. Deep and apparently fatal were the wounds inflicted at different times by the arms of Napoleon on the Austrian monarchy; but not a symptom of impatience at the imperial rule was manifested, when the French eagles approached Vienna, in any part of its multifarious empire; on the contrary, the most animating episodes of modern history are to be found in the heroic efforts made by the Tyrolese, and the mountaineers of Croatia and Carinthia, to preserve their connexion with their beloved Kaisar, even after he was driven from the palace of his fathers on the banks of the Danube. Did Russia exhibit any symptoms of dissolution-did her provinces rise up in rebellion against the Moscovite rule-when the eagles of Napoleon approached the Kremlin, and the fortunes of the empire were apparently wrapped in a funeral conflagration in the flames of Moscow? Certes, the legions of Napoleon felt the reverse amidst the ruins of Malaroslavitz, in the snows of Krasnoi, on the banks of the Beresina. Did Spain fall to pieces, and each province declare its inde pendence, when Madrid was occupied by the battalions of Murat, and the insurrection of its brave inhabitants quenched in innocent blood? The ramparts of Saragossa, the walls of Gerona, the unconquered bastions of Cadiz, proclaim the contrary. Examples of this sort are common in all ages; they are scattered down the stream of time, and form the bright spots which console the historian for his labours, and fascinate the eye of the reader in the dark and turbid waves of human events.

Is any man sanguine enough to believe that a similar devotion, in its distant colonies, would illustrate the British empire, if assailed in its heart by similar dangers? Would Canada become a La Vendée, Jamaica a Tyrol, Australia a Saragossa, India a Spain, if Nicolas had laid his iron grasp on the arsenals of Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Plymouth? If a Russian fleet of thirty ships of the line lay across the Nore-if Portsmouth and Plymouth were closely blockaded, and the estuaries of the Mersey and the Clyde were closed by hostile fleets-we should

look long enough before we saw friendly sails from the St Lawrence, the Gulf of Mexico, or the shores of Australia, arriving to raise the blockade of the heart of the empire. Now all this is possible-all this might happen without the once powerful, but now democracy-paralysed, empire of England being able to fit out a fleet for its defence; and yet we are doing nothing either to strengthen our means of national defence, or secure the allegiance and co-operation of those numerous colonial settlements, on the prosperity and connexion of which not only our welfare, but our very existence as a nation, de pends.

*

Mr Hume has explained, with his wonted sagacity and wisdom, the reason why the remote provinces and colonial dependencies of a despotic empire are always better administered than those of democratic societies. "The reason," says he, " is, that an absolute sovereign, being equally elevated above all his subjects, and not more dependent on one class than another, views them all, comparatively speaking, with equal eyes; whereas a free state is ruled by one body of citizens who have obtained the mastery of another, and govern exclusively the more distant settlements of the empire, and are consequently actuated by personal jealousy or patrimonial interests in their endeavours to prevent them from obtaining the advantages of equal and uniform legislation." It is in this circumstance the government of one body of citizens in one part of the world, by another body in another -that the true cause of the general discontent and exasperation of democracyruled colonies is to be found. monarch equally interested, from the security and strength of his throne, in the prosperity of all his subjects, whether in one part of the world or another, may rule them all with equal justice and equity: but it will always be found impossible to make a body of citizens in one country-the tenpounders of England, for examplesacrifice their own interests or inclinations to those of the distant colonies of the empire. It was the stern refusal to give them a share in the representa

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tion of the empire by the British Commons, which brought about the American Revolution: it was the reckless sacrifice of the whole British West India Islands to the dreams of immediate emancipation, which has occasioned the present deep-rooted exasperation of the white inhabitants of those possessions; and nothing is wanting but the oft-projected and apparently approaching homage to the ten-pounders of England, by the equalisation of the duties on Baltic and American timber, to fill to the brim the cup of Canadian discontent, and convert the Anglo-Saxon race, hitherto the firm supporters of the British connexion, into its most powerful and inveterate enemies.

But although the sacrifice of their material and patrimonial interests to the jealousy, selfishness, or caprice of their numerous rulers in the parent state, is one cause, and a most prolific one, of the discontent of the colonies of all republican communities, it is not the only, nor, in some cases, the most powerful. It is the denial to one part of the empire of the privileges and forms of government which are enjoyed by another-the stern resolution to deny to one class of citizens the privileges which themselves enjoy-which is often the more immediate cause of the rupture. Power is more dearly prized than even property; to forms of government an ideal importance is attached, greater than belongs even to the actual realities of life. When the inhabitants of the colonies of a republican government read the debates in the ruling councils of the commonwealth, and the effusions of its daily press, they see nothing but praises of the unbounded blessing of popular rule, and the incalculable advantages, social, political, and moral, which ever spring from the practical application of the great principles of general freedom and selfgovernment. Great as are these advantages, where sufficient strength is at the same time provided for the framework of government, they are magnified to the imagination of the colonists by distance and want of experience, and the desire for them rendered uncontrollable by the perception of how rapidly they would all fall into their hands, if the great step of separation from the mother state were once accomplished. So natural is the tendency of the human mind to become

inflated with these wishes, and actuated by these principles, that it may safely be asserted, that in progress of time they will become irresistible; and that the independent spirit, engendered in the parent democratic state, will in all cases rend the colonial empire asunder, if due attention is not paid to it, in the cautious but steady concession of privileges analogous to those enjoyed by the inhabitants of the ruling power to its colonial dependencies.

The most obvious way of effecting this object, would be the extension at once of the central constitution to the colonial dependencies; and the conferring of a seat in the great council of the nation on a certain number of representatives from all its colonies, wherever situated. But, though the equity of this has much apparently to recommend it, and the principle of some sort of representation in the central parliament appears by no means unworthy of attention; yet experience has every where demonstrated, that it is by the appointment of a local legislature, elected on prin ciples suited to the varying circumstances of each colony, that both its wishes are most likely to be attended to, and its interests best consulted. Such is the variety of character, physical circumstances, intellectual cultivation, and original race or intermixture of blood in different colonies, that no uniform system of representation could be established without speedily throwing the empire into combustion; and, if the representatives of all the colonies were to sit in the ruling assembly, the result would inevitably be, either that its time would be entirely absorbed in discussing details of great local but little general importance; or that the most material separate concerns of each colony would be overlooked and forgotten in the vehemence of party strife, or the vast national concerns of the whole empire. The ruinous effects which have already resulted from the extension of the same repre sentative system to Ireland as Great Britain, and the woful obstruction of general business which has resulted from the magnitude of its separate concerns, sufficiently demonstrates the extreme danger of overlooking the vast difference in the preparation of different races or nations for free institutions, and the risk of the utility of a

general assembly being in a great degree destroyed by the magnitude of the subordinate details thrown upon it from a particular part of the empire.

But although, for these reasons, the establishment of separate local parliaments, or houses of assembly, in different colonies, is probably the only way of combining their multifarious interests and wishes with one central ruling government; yet it must ever be recollected, that the utmost delicacy is requisite in dealing with these separate and in some degree independent assemblies; and that, if the central legislature, trusting to the force of the national strength, relying on the omnipotence of the general government, requires absolute and implicit obedience in the provincial assemblies, a discontent fatal to the integrity of the empire will speedily be generated in all its colonial dependencies. The more democratic that the central parliament is the more popular the system of election in the mother state-the more indispensable it is that a corresponding spirit should be tolerated in the colonial assemblies for it is from the heart of the commonwealth that its wishes and public opinion comes, and the subjects of a democratic legislature will reasonably expect that the home parliament will concede that liberty to others which they take to themselves. It may be true that it is difficult to do this; it may be true that no rulers are so despotic in their administration-so peremptory in their demands -so tyrannical in their measures to any but their own constituents-as those who are elected under the most popular institutions; and that Aristotle's maxim still holds good, that the rule of a mob is the worst of tyrannies. All this may be perfectly true; but it will not alter the nature of things-it will not remedy the internal weaknesses of a popularly governed colonial empire-it will eradicate none of the seeds of dissolution which are sown in all establishments where the interests and passions of one body of men are brought to bear directly upon the welfare of another.

The West Indies, with respect to that vital point of colonial prosperity -a constant supply of agricultural

labourers-stand in a very peculiar situation; and the magnitude of the injustice which they have experienced from the legislation of the parent state cannot be appreciated, unless the singular circumstances of their situation in that respect is taken into consideration. Devoted chiefly to the cultivation of an article of rude produce, which can be reared only in a tropical climate, and yet has become an article of necessity to most European nations, they cannot carry on its cultivation but by means of negro labourers, or others equally habituated with them to bear a tropical sun. Experience long ago proved, what recent attempts have still more clearly substantiated, that the European race is, generally speaking, incapable of labouring in the fields in the West Indies, and that field hoeing of the canes, without which no crop of sugar could be reared, speedily proves fatal to the descendants of Japhet. Among all the varied expedients which the necessities of their situation have compelled the West India proprietors of late years to adopt, in order to supply the vacuum occasioned by the measure of negro emancipation, the obvious expedient of supplying their place by the redundant population of Ireland has never been thought of; because every body practically acquainted with the subject knew, that their transportation would be merely lost money; and that the yellow fever and marsh miasmata would speedily consign even the most robust of them to an untimely grave.

It is historically known, and matter of common notoriety, how the desideralum of finding labourers capable of cultivating sugar in the West Indies, and producing the immense addition which it was capable of affording to the national wealth, was supplied. Negro slaves were, under the authority of various royal proclamations and acts of parliament, imported from Africa into the West India islands; and to such a length was this traffic carried, that not only did it for a long time occupy a considerable part of the British commercial navy, but it at length transferred above seven hundred thousand Africans to the oppo

site side of the Atlantic. There is hardly to be found another example in the whole history of the species of so considerable a removal, without the aid of increase in the new settlements, of the human race from one part of the world to another.

Enormous as are the evils-heartrending the sufferings-of slavery, when consequent upon the removal of mankind from their native seats, and the subjection of the blacks, for the purposes of profit, to the temporary rule of white task-masters, there was one circumstance in the condition of the negro race, when the hideous transposition was accomplished, of inestimable importance, which promised in the end to deprive slavery of its bitterest pangs, and rear up in the British West India Islands a happy, industrious, and contented people. This was-they had become STATIONARY. The pangs of separation from kindred and home were over; the horrors of the middle passage were past; they had become permanently located on fixed estates; they had acquired homes, and all the endearments and enjoyments of domestic existence. Experience has abundantly proved, that the negro race is capable, not only of maintaining its own numbers, but of rapidly augmenting, on the opposite side of the Atlantic: for the American slaves, it is well known, increase faster than the European inhabitants in the southern provinces of the Union; and one of the great dangers which threatens the transatlantic republic, is the fearful disproportion, which is every day augmenting, between the sable labouring, and the fair-haired dominant, race. When the British Government therefore, in 1807, adopted the humane, and at the same time judicious, step of putting a peremptory stop to the slave trade, they necessarily rendered the safety and welfare of the negro race an object of solicitude to the white proprietors; because the cultivation of their estates could not be maintained but by their propagation; and their numbers could not increase but under the influence of marriage, home, and domestic comfort. The promiscuous concubinage and disorderly manners consequent on their first settlement, necessarily gave way before the wants and necessities of the masters, not less than the native feelings of the slaves; and slavery became, what it

So

has ever been in other parts of the world-the necessary state between savage manners and civilized industry; -the transition state necessarily endu. ring several centuries, during which the working classes, the property of their superiors, are indebted to them for the protection and subsistence which they could never otherwise obtain ; and the habits are slowly acquired, through successive generations, necessary to enable man at length to bear generally the destitution, the excitement, and the power of freedom. irksome is constant labour to uncivilized man-so repugnant is severe toil to the savage, in all ages, climates, and countries-that it never has been overcome in any part of the world, but by the introduction and long continuance of slavery; and when the easy supply of animal wants by the chase, or the spontaneous fruit of the earth, is exhausted, the human race would every where perish or become stationary, if, before the moral chains of artificial wants were thrown around civilized, the physical restrictions of servitude were removed from savage, man:

Under the influence of these causes, the stoppage of that hideous blot on Christian civilisation, the slave trade, did all that was necessary to secure the ultimate prosperity of the negro race in the West Indies, by identifying their preservation an increase with their masters' interests, by giving them the same ever-powerful motives to protect them which they have to preserve their cattle or houses, and converting the very desire of gain, the mainspring of the original frightful traffic, into the certain bulwark of their ultimate welfare. Under the influence of these causes, the African race not only maintained their own numbers in the West India islands, but were advancing, before the disastrous era of their emancipation, with rapid strides in the career of industry, comfort, and usefulness. It is well known, that in opulence and well-being they were, in general, superior to any peasantry in Europe. Dwelling in cottages which, by a prescriptive usage, had become in a manner their own; surrounded by their gardens, their fruits, their children, they exhibited, generally speaking, a spectacle rarely witnessed in this world of care, and to which the eye of the philanthropist might turn with pleasure even from the brightest scenes of European civili