BROUGHAM’S INQUIRY INTO COLONIAL POLICY. ! 
323 
Agr. XXVIL The Possession of Louisiana by the French considered, as it affects the In- 
tercsts of those Nations more immediately concerned: viz. Great Britain, America, Spain, 
and Portugal, By G. Orr, £sg. 8vo. 
THE best thing for Louisiana would 
have been to belong to Great Britain, 
whose superfluous capital and popula- 
tion would more rapidly have settled 
the country than that of the Americans. 
The next best thing for Louisiana is, 
to belong to the United States, whose 
“equitable legislation and pacific habits 
render them the most excellent sove- 
reigns on the face of the earth. 
During the anti-jacobin administra- 
Art. XXVII. dn Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers. 
Henry Braouciam, Jun. Esq. F.R.S. 
THE antiquities and theory of colo- 
- nial policy have already engaged many 
‘celebrated pens. M. de Bougainville 
composed a valuable work Sur des Devoirs 
reciproques des Metropoles et Colonies Greques. 
M. de Saint Croix, with greater minute- 
ness, investigates the colonial systems 
of the ancients in his book De /’ Eiaé et 
du Sort des Colonics des anciens Peuples. 
Heeren, among the Germans, lias treated 
the subject with exhaustive erudition, 
and * Barron, ameng ourselves, with 
scanty condensation. Concerning the 
modern state and government of the 
European settlements, works abound in 
every language: in none more than in 
our own. 
It does not appear to have been the ob- 
_ ject of Mr. Brougham to excel or super- 
' sede his predecessors in antiquarian re- 
~ search, or in statistical information ; but 
_ rather in speculative commentary. His 
inquiry announces great talents and creat 
acquirements; but it hasthe fault(ifiault 
it “iM being drawn up in too profes- 
sor-like a manner. The prcliminary in- 
formation is far-fetched and comprehen- 
sive; but it includes notorious and tri- 
vial intelligence. ‘The subdivisions of 
the subject are methodical and nume- 
ous; but they allot places, like a ma- 
rine packing-chest, to ordinary utensils. 
\ The walk is through a suite of apart- 
» ments admirably distributed and suffi- 
ciently furnished: but room succeeds 
room with needless repetition, before 
one reaches the apartments, in which* 
acquaintance can be formed with the 
personal and peculiar mind of the au- 
thor. Asa book for vernacular instruc- 
pp. 45. 
tion the first event might have taken 
place without much difficulty: during 
that of Mr. Addington, the second has 
taken place. 
It is folly to repine at the unalterable; 
but it is not folly to endeavour to obtain 
ministers, who will seize those oppor- 
tunities of aggrandizing their country, 
which events present once, but not 
again. 
By 
8vo. 2 vols. pp. about*600 in each vol, 
tion it is copious and well-devised: as 2 
manual for the statesman it wants con- 
densation: itaims rather at exhausting 
than at advancing a particular branch 
of political theory; and resembles a 
course of lectures more than a fit of re- 
search. In stock of fact tt does not 
abound: but in the speculations of 
hypothetical and inferential reasoning 
much time is passed. Yet the data of 
experience, to which appeal is made 
are so well selected as to imply an ex- 
tensive knowledge of historical event, 2 
great command of fact: while the me- 
taphysical generalizations display such 
a fibrous branchiness of argument, as 
leave no doubt of the luxuriance of the 
writer’s logical powers. / 
The first book treats of the relations 
that subsist between a state and its co- 
lonies. The following commentary on 
the colonial policy of the Carthaginians 
is further corroborated in a learned note. 
«© Jt is remarkable how exactly the his- 
tory of the Carthaginian monopoly resem-‘ 
bles that of the Eurcpean nations who have 
colonized America. At first, the distant 
settlement could admit of no immediate re- 
straints, but demanded all the encourage- 
ment and protection of the parent state ; and 
the cains of its commerce were neither suf- 
ficiently alluring to the Carthaginian mer- 
chant from their own magnitude, nor neces- 
sary-to him from the difficulty of-finding 
employment for his capital in other direc- y 
tions. At this period, the colony was left 
to itself, and was allowed to manage its 
own affairs in its own way, under the super- 
intendance and care of Carthage, which pro- 
tected it from foreign invasion, but neglected 
its commerce. In this favourable predica- 
* History of the Colonization, of the Free States of Antiquity.” 
Y 3 
