THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES. 457 



more for a time personally administered tlie colonies they led. 

 When a genuine enthusiasm excites a whole people, the nobles share 

 in it, and three hundred of the twelve hundred who formed the first 

 expedition to Darien were of the best Scottish families, while some 

 members of the second were Highland chieftains. Several baronets 

 and sons of peers took part in colonizing ISTew Zealand, and a baronet 

 led the Jamieson raid. Only a few years ago an ancient English earl- 

 dom threatened to become extinct in South Africa through misce- 

 genation. 3. The great middle class, seat of the solid qualities in 

 every country, was long the chief fountain of emigration. It alone, 

 or it chiefly, had the means to emigrate, and the intellectual and 

 moral energy to make the emigrant's life a success. " The immense 

 majority of American families," Bancroft tells us, in both JSTew Eng- 

 land and the South, belonged to this class. Far the larger proportion 

 of unassisted emigrants to British colonies during the present cen- 

 tury has had the same origin. 4. Now that emigration is com- 

 paratively easy, the greater number of emigrants are artisans, 

 laborers, and domestic servants, who thus assimilate colonies to the 

 ratios of the mother countries. 



V. Priestcraft did not emigrate, says Bancroft of the North 

 American colonies generally. Yet, when a colonizing enthusiasm 

 takes possession of a community, especially if the settlement is to be 

 formed on church principles, clergymen often make great sacrifices 

 to participate. The colonies of New England, Canterbury, and 

 Otago were well supplied. A minister was sent out with the Darien 

 colonists. In ordinary emigrations they are apt to be in defect. A 

 bounty was offered in Virginia to immigrating clergymen. The 

 hard country, the poor pay, the cavalier treatment, and the rough 

 life deter even a " stickit minister." Those who succeed as emigrants 

 are therefore of tough fiber, and possess the hardihood of character 

 needed to hold their own with an untender race. As the colony 

 develops, the more average members of the profession find their way 

 out, and to a late stage in its history the majority in all the profes- 

 sions are of home birth or education. 



The author of the Scarlet Letter ascribes the lack of physicians 

 in New England to the undoubted materialism of the profession, 

 Avhich prevented them from sharing the impulse to emigrate. But 

 the scarcity was not peculiar to the medical profession, nor was 

 it confined to New England. Surgeons were as rare in Erench 

 Canada, where " there was not a man who could set a bone." They 

 are equally lacking in young colonies at the present day. The colo- 

 nists are too few, too scattered, too poor, and too healthy to require 

 or to Le able to pay for them. Many a colonial township has starved 

 out a succession of would-be medical residents. Those who thrive 



VOL. LIII. — 32 



