contemplated at the period of establishing their colonies. Such is the happy arrangement of the world by Providence, in this respect, as in every other, that no country can long remain independent of others. It soon requires to buy or to sell. So strong is this necessity that the most perverse and wicked ingenuity of rulers for their own selfish ends has never been able to control its mode of satisfying itself, far less to stifle and subdue it. Whatever, therefore, may have been the motive of any of the modern countries of Europe in establishing colonies, one invariable result of the establishment has been the creation of a new source of commerce,, which the mother country has sooner or later discovered to be a source of great indirect as well as direct profit, and has endeavored to turn to her own

account.

The colonizing countries of Europe have all, in this way, derived more or less of benefit from their colonies in proportion as their trade regulations have more or less departed from the axiom in government which, now at least, is known to be as obvious as any in Euclid, that trade, to be flourishing and prosperous, must be perfectly free from restrictions of every sort.

No nation in modern Europe, with all its pretensions to superiority in science and discovery over the nations of antiquity, ever found out this axiom, until very lately, though they had, one and all, been reading for centuries the histories of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Syracuse, the Greek colonies of Asia Minor and of other states, whose surpassing wealth and splendor had been founded entirely upon the freedom of trade. Each nation was quick enough in torturing its ingenuity to devise means for compelling the trade of its colonies to take that course, and that alone, which it thought would prove most beneficial to itself. But all were alike blinded by their selfishness from perceiving that trade, like the atmosphere, to be profitable, cannot be confined, but must be left to pervade and permeate wherever it can force itself.

Yet, to continue the simile, such are the beneficial effects of trade to all having anything to do with it, that, like the air, you cannot appropriate a portion of it by force, without deriving some benefit, however much, by so doing, you may deteriorate the qualities of what you have so appropriated. Unquestionably, all the colonizing countries of Europe derived commercial benefit from their colonies, notwithstanding they kept them in a state of pupilage and control, as to their internal government, and of positive slavery and abject submission, as to their external relations with other countries. Whether they would not have derived much greater benefits, political as well as commercial, by a course

42

ADMINISTRATION OF BRITISH COLONIES.

of government exactly the reverse, is at this day less than doubtful.

Having taken this cursory view of the nature of the colonies which have been founded by other countries, ancient and modern, and of the advantages which these colonizing countries have derived from their colonies, let us now turn to the consideration of how the colonies of Great Britain have been administered, with a view to ascertain how far that administration has been consistent with the principles of her own constitution, and how far her colonies have in times past contributed to her prosperity in peace and to her strength in war, and how far, in time to come, they are likely to be useful in either of these respects.

CHAPTER III.

CAUSES IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES WHICH PRODUCED THEIR REBELLION AND ULTIMATE

INDEPENDENCE.

THERE can be but little doubt that events, by the dispensation of Providence, happen to nations, as to individuals, "for reproof, for correction, and for instruction," would they but so receive them. Of all the events which have happened to Great Britain, ever since it could truly be called "Great," none has been so grand and so awful as the rebellion and emancipation of her North American colonies ; yet, looking at our subsequent colonial history, how utterly dead did this event fall upon us, either by way of reproof, of correction, or of instruction! If we read the story of that rebellion, by the strengthened light which persistence towards our other colonies in the same errors that produced the American rebellion affords, we shall see how strongly the defects and vices of our colonial system stand out.

Before, therefore, entering upon the subject of our present colonial empire, let us take a short retrospect of the circumstances under which, by the American

i

rebellion, we lost a greater extent of empire than we now retain, and, what is of infinitely more consequence, alienated, for a time only it is to be hoped, the affections of the inhabitants of vast regions, who otherwise might have considered themselves of us, though not among us, and have been, in our intercourse with the nations of the earth, our fastest friends and firmest allies.

Such a retrospect, though unnecessary at this time of day for any purpose of historical information, will nevertheless be useful, as it will show us that the very same causes which produced the American rebellion have been in operation in almost all our other colonies, and have been followed in some by very similar effects, the difference being only in the magnitude of the results.

The passing of an act by the British Parliament, imposing a stamp duty upon the North American colonies, was the immediate ostensible cause of the American rebellion; but we know now that there were many causes of heart-burning in the breasts of the colonists before that statute was even thought of-that there were many open, festering sores, which temporising measures on the part of Great Britain might have skinned over for a time, but which were sure to break out afresh at some early period, and which nothing but emancipation voluntarily conceded, or independence achieved