52 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES. 



By JAMES COLLIER. 

 V.— POLITICAL EVOLUTION. 



THE law that the evolution of a colony repeats the evolution of 

 the parent state would here be logically applied to the history 

 of the relations between colonies and the mother country. These 

 would be shown to have followed a similar course, though with new 

 developments, to those of the mother country with her suzerain; and 

 they would be carried further back and deeper down to those uni- 

 versal animal processes of lactation and rearing which they con- 

 tinue and which explain them. The gradual settlement of a new 

 country would next be exhibited as a repetition (with necessary 

 modifications) of the settlement of the mother country, because 

 guided by the same general laws — that it dispossesses an earlier race, 

 which had followed quadrupeds and birds, which had followed trees, 

 shrubs, and grasses, which again had sown themselves along geo- 

 graphical lines. Chapters on both topics are unavoidably omitted. 

 The law has now to be applied to the political, industrial, and social 

 evolution of colonies. In so wide a subject only apergus are possible. 

 There are traces in several colonies of a state anterior to the 

 establishment of a settled government. According to the unloving 

 Hobbes, such a state is necessarily one of war, and it is sometimes 

 that; according to the humane Rousseau, it is one of peace, and, to 

 the credit of human nature, it is oftener that. There were English 

 settlers in Pennsylvania before the Swedes arrived. The first immi- 

 grants to Plymouth found predecessors on the coast who owed no 

 allegiance. Seventy years after the foundation of North Carolina 

 the inhabitants still led the lives of freemen in the woods. Prior 

 to 1702 New Jersey was considered one of those provinces " where 

 no regular government had been established." The Tasmanian 

 farmers who colonized Victoria lived for some time without any 

 form of government, and lived peacefully. Pastoralists were found 

 on the Canterbury plains before the advent of the Pilgrims, and 

 were content. When the Pilgrims got into collision with the cen- 

 tral government, they said bitterly that they would do better with 

 none. Where it is otherwise the circumstances are exceptional. 

 Gold and silver fields everywhere are at first, and often to the last, 

 scenes of wild disorder, where a man's safety depends on his ability 

 to defend himself. Escaped Australian convicts, runaway sailors, 

 adventurers, and natives made up a community which turned the 

 natural paradise of the Bay of Islands into an earthly hell. Parts 

 of Texas in very recent days were the seat of anarchy. Government 



