COLONY. 



.747 



Modcrm 



olonits. 



7en? were soldiers, and formed a strong rmt-poet for the 

 defence of the territories between them and the parent 

 city. This system of colonization, exercised at first on 

 a small scale, and directed chiefly against those trouble- 

 tome neighbours of Rome, the JRqu\ and Volsci, was 

 progressively extended, and continued even after the fall 

 of Roman liberty. Among other colonies, it is on re- 

 cord that Julius Ctesar led one to Carthage. No fewer 

 than 16t colonies were successively established within 

 the limits of Italy, in the period between the foundation 

 of the city and the death of the Emperor Augustus. 



It does not appear, that any of the Roman colonies 

 gave evidence of a progress remarkably superior to that 

 of old settled states. This inferiority to the Grecian 

 ettlements, may be ascribed, partly to the almost ex- 

 clusive attention of the parent state to military affairs, 

 and more perhaps to the circumstance of the Roman 

 establishments taking place in districts already occupied 

 and cultivated. The new settlers were consequently in- 

 corporated with the mass of former inhabitants, and were 

 more likely to imbibe their manners than to succeed in 

 introducing those habits of economy and exertion, which, 

 in general, are characteristic of emigrating citizens. The 

 Roman colonies have some resemblance to the Indian 

 settlements of modern Europeans. The native popula- 

 tion predominating greatly over the new comers, the 

 latter arc to be considered in the light of a garrison to 

 an out-post, maintained for the benefit of the mother 

 country. 



Carthage, approrching in her policy, much more than 

 any other ancient state, to the habits of the maritime 

 powers of modern timrs, we are enabled to trace a cor- 

 respondent resemblance in her colonies. There is no 

 reason to assign their origin to scarcity of subsistence at 

 home, since the fleets and treasures of Carthage could, 

 without difficulty, import an abundant supply of corn. 

 Her colonies, therefore, seem to have been military sta- 

 tions, chosen for the purpose of commanding tribute, or 

 appropriating the commerce of a particular district. The 

 two mercantile treaties between Carthage and Rome, 

 preserved by Polybius, imply an earlier attention on the 

 part of the Romans to maritime affairs, than is common- 

 ly.imagined. On the part of the Carthaginians, these 

 curious documents discover a mercantile jealousy, which 

 strongly reminds as of the prevalence of the same feelings 

 in our own days. 



Modern Colonies. The Gothic ages, unfavourable to 

 every kind of improvement, have nothing to boast of in 

 respect to colonies. The crusades, though conducive, 

 in several respects, to the removal of European barba- 

 rism, appear to have led to few useful establishments of 

 the kind which we are now discussing. We meet ac- 

 cordingly with no examples of colonization, sufficiently 

 general to mark an xra in history, until the comparative- 

 ly recent discoveries of America, and of a passage to 

 India by the Cape of Good Hope. It is fully three 

 centuries since the progressive extension of the labours 

 of the leading navigators opened the East and West to 

 the enterprise of colonists from Spain and Portugal. In- 

 dia, the imaguii-d depot of incalculable wealth, was the 

 common obj- ct of the vuyagers of either country. Co- 

 lumbus, sufficiently instructed, even in that illiterate 

 ag., to be convinced of the spherical form of the earth, 

 calculated that the longer the distance to India was by 

 an eastward course, the shorter it would be by the west. 

 This argument formed the ground-work of his various 

 applications to maritime powers for the equipment of a 

 tunable squadron ; and, in defence of any miscalculation 

 OT his part, it is proper to state, that the diitance of In- 



dia to the east had been magnified, beyond all bounds, 

 by the reports of travellers. It was in consequence of 

 India being uppermost in the thoughts of Columbus and 

 other navigators, that the name of West Indies, or, as 

 the French call them the Little Indies, was given to 

 the Windward and Leeward Islands ; and the appella- 

 tion of Indians, bestowed, in the most comprehensive 

 sense, on the savage aborigines of the immense conti- 

 nent of America, 



The boldness and perseverance of Columbus, have, in 

 connection with the selfish conduct of the court of 

 Spain, after the death of his royal patroness Isabella, 

 procured for him a large share of public sympathy, and 

 have made the politic part of his proceedings attract a 

 smaller portion of attention. He displayed, however, 

 all the thoughtfulness of an Italian, along with that ac- 

 tivity and power of rendering circumstances subservient 

 to his plans, which characterise the authors of great en- 

 terprises; He continued to give the name of India to 

 his discoveries, after it became perfectly clear that the 

 two countries had nothing in common ; and he made, in 

 a public procession, a splendid parade of the gold and 

 the products imported from these new regions. By way 

 of interesting the Spanish government in the labour of 

 the mines, he proposed, that no less than half the metal- 

 lic treasures found in them should belong to the crown. 

 This proportion was soon found exorbitant, and progres- 

 sively reduced to a third, a fifth, a tenth, and eventually 

 to a twentieth. The precious metals were long the sole 

 object of attraction to the emigrants from Spain ; to set- 

 tle in their new territories with a view to cultivation, be- 

 ing for many ages foreign to their thoughts. The 

 Portuguese, likewise, pursued mineral and. metallic trea- 

 sures in India, and the difference of conduct in the two 

 nations, proceeded less from a diversity in their plans or 

 intention!!, than in the power and civilization of the coun- 

 tries which they respectively invaded. Mexicond Pe- 

 ru, defended by a feeble and unskilful race, offered little 

 resistance to bands of enterprising adventurers ; while 

 India and her islands possessed sufficient population to 

 call forth all the courage and exertion of the Portuguese 

 commanders. 



The motives which led to the establishment of the 

 Spanish and Portuguese colonies, were thus considerably 

 different from those which actuated the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans. There was here no complaint of deficient subsist- 

 ence at home ; no necessity to separate one portion of 

 the population to serve as an outpost to the rest. In 

 the case of India, the hope of a lucrative traffic ; in that 

 of America, the expectation of valuable mines supplied 

 the decisive impulse to emigration. Nearly a century- 

 elapsed before either Spain or Portugal encountered se- 

 rious opposition in their new territories. Portugal, in 

 consequence of the encouragement of navigation by the 

 government, and Spain by the absorption of so many 

 maritime provinces under the sovereignty of Charles V. 

 and Philip II., had taken decidedly a lead in the naval 

 affairs in Europe. France, torn by internal dissension, 

 and better fitted by situation for inland than foreign com- 

 merce, was no formidable competitor ; and England was 

 only beginning to feel her own strength. At last, the 

 long continuance of good government under Queen Eli* 

 zabeth, and the discomfiture of the Spanish arm tda. open- 

 ed to our countrymen the prospect, not merely of annoy- 

 ing the Spaniards in the western hemisphere, but of ap- 

 propriating a portion of these regions in permanent oc- 

 cupancy. Still the schemes of the intended colonist! 

 were directed much more to the search of gold and sil- 

 TIT, than to the cultivation of the soil. It wa very ge- 



