676 OUR COLONIES. 



"What mighty master-spirit furnished the code for its government? 

 what civil and military engines were employed to control subjects 

 scattered over the entire face of the globe ? what was the wisdom 

 which governed its executive ? These are questions which the 

 philosopher and historian of future time will ask of himself; and 

 these questions he will endeavour to answer, by examining whatever 

 records may be handed down from the present day. He would in 

 the first instance appeal probably to the government records, as 

 these, though often of little value, have at least the merit of being 

 long-lived. Would he discover any thing amongst them to throw 

 light upon our Colonial policy and our Colonial government? No; 

 he would find an immense heap of undigested reports, official com- 

 munications, and letters of advice : but he would find no elaborate 

 and sagacious digest, no philosophic and profound code of laws, no 

 evidence, indeed, that the control of our immense external kingdom 

 had ever occupied the minds of statesmen or legislators. What then 

 was the power, he will exclaim, which procured this kingdom, and 

 held it in subordination ? 



This is a question which may be asked with equal pertinence 

 by ourselves. Little is known generally of our Colonies, little of 

 their extent, little of their resources, little of their inhabitants, Httle 

 of the links which bind them to us, and little of the causes which 

 may destroy their connexion with us. 



Till the appearance of Mr. Martin's work, our literature presented 

 the striking and painful anomaly of an utter absence of any Colonial 

 history. The Briarean and gigantic arms which spread out on all 

 sides from the leading state, and whose motions and struggles have 

 reacted powerfully upon it, were u n described, as a whole; we felt 

 their influence, but we neither knew their exact extent, nor their actual 

 bearing. To this work, therefore, we should be under considerable 

 obligations, had it done no more than offered us a general sketch a 

 connected view of our wide empire. But it has done greatly more 

 than this. Mr. Martin is not a desk historian : he draws his remarks 

 in the generality of cases from actual observation, and has very skil- 

 fully worked up personal experience of men, manners, and things, 

 with the purely statistical portions of his work. In doing so, we 

 think he has acted wisely, and shown a very proper sense of the 

 mode of conveying information, and of attracting popular attention. 

 He is, also, a man of wide philanthropy, of shrewd sense; and, as a 

 politician and a statist, has worked for himself a high and im- 

 perishable reputation. It is men like him who ought to be placed 

 in situations of trust, with regard to our Colonies. Can any good 

 thing be expected in the government of our foreign possessions, when 

 not one man amongst the officials connected with them at home, 

 possesses a single atom of knowledge of the spirit of their people, the 

 bearing of their peculiar national institutions, the resources of their 

 soil and produce, or of the ameliorations and improvements of 

 which one and all of these are capable. What can be expected 

 from a Colonial government, the leading members of which are mere 

 political playthings, here to-day and gone to-morrow? Thus in 

 a very brief space of time, we have had no less than five Colonial 



