THE PAST AND PRESENT ADMINISTRATION OF THE BRITISH COLONIES. INTRODUCTION. No sovereign, ancient or modern, ever possessed dominions so extensive as those over which the Queen of Great Britain reigns; and no nation, ancient or modern, had more just reason to be proud of its acquisitions than the British nation has, both as to the mode in which the acquisitions have been gained, and as to the character in which they have been governed. However equivocal may have been the motives with which Great Britain, like other nations of that period, set out for the discovery of the western hemisphere, or with which some of her people, for their own individual benefit, took the first steps, which have resulted in her vast empire in the eastern hemisphere, it is through the active industry and persevering activity of her inhabitants that she has acquired by far the greater part of her dependencies throughout the earth. B Extension of commerce, spreading the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and diffusing the blessings of civilized life, by just, equal, and enlightened principles of government, has been the character in which Great Britain has undoubtedly ruled her acquisitions, although, through inherent defects in her system of colonial administration, she may occasionally have miscarried in some of these respects. Yet, with all this reason for just pride and exultation, there may be reason why we should pause in our career of glory, and reflect whether this very extent of our dominions is a source of true power, or is not rather one of positive weakness, the forerunner of decay and ultimate dissolution; whether our empire, like those which have preceded it, from Nimrod's downwards, has not attained that culminating point in its power, whence it must descend, ultimately to sink below the horizon, like the empires of antiquity; whether treating the empire as arborists do trees of excessive luxuriance, it would not be wise to lop and prune it to the very stem, in order to stop the diffusion of sap through too distant extremities, and thereby preserve its vigor and ensure the prolongation of its vitality. Though it be true that the colonial dependencies of Great Britain have been ruled by able, virtuous, and enlightened statesmen; though it be true that the broad system of her colonial polity has been untainted by selfishness, however individuals may have turned the working of that system to their own profit; though Great Britain, including her colonial dependencies, is governed by the accumulated wisdom of many senators, and is not, like other countries less kindly dealt with by Providence, ruled after the arbitrary will of an individual sovereign : yet, if we do not go into details, but confine ourselves to a general survey of results, it would seem as if these are little better than they would have been had our colonial administration been dictated by an ignorant, capricious, prejudiced, and narrowminded sovereign. We recognize in the nations of Europe the distinctions of race, and we are justly proud of our Saxon blood, and the ardent love of freedom and independence shown by the nations in whose veins it flows. But, in our intercourse with our colonies -with those limited bodies of our fellow-countrymen who have gone out from us to found for themselves new states-we have ignored our origin, and treated them as if we and they were sprung from eastern races, instead of being, one and all of us, the sons of freedom. It is true that a change has lately shown itself in our colonial, as in our commercial, policy, attributable, probably, to the superior enlightenment of modern politicians in the principles of political economy, and especially to the magnanimity and modest propriety of our present noble sovereign, who has not allowed any petty, personal feeling to interfere with what her ministers have represented to her as necessary to the proper government of her empire, who, if she have the lust of dominion and the love of power, vices inherent almost universally in human nature, has wisely and nobly subdued them, and made her own happiness dependent on promoting the happiness of her subjects-the true aim of a wise and virtuous sovereign. But it seems very doubtful whether this change in our colonial policy is universal, reaching to all its points; for it does not seem to spring from scientific and philosophic principles of government, which, being wrought out to their legitimate conclusions, will be certain to produce the end apparently desired. The motley character of our colonial government, when we consider the constitution accorded to one colony, as compared with those which have been imposed upon others, puzzles the mind to discover on what principle the differences are founded, and leads it rather to the conclusion that the force of circumstances was the true motive for whatever has been done in each particular case. Yet, if it be so, one cannot blame those to whom our colonial destinies have been entrusted, from time to time. If all the beneficial changes in our colonial |