COLONY. 



323 



ductions previously peculiar to them. The slave- 

 trade was also abolished (1806). 



France acquired colonies later than the Dutch and 

 English. Her colonies, and what, at first was 

 thought indispensable for them, commercial com- 

 panies, were the work of Colbert. He purchased, 

 on several West India islands, as Martinique, Gua- 

 daloupe, St Lucia, Grenada, and others, settlements 

 already formed by private persons (1664), and, in 

 the same year, sent colonists to Cayenne. But the 

 settlements on a part of St Domingo by the piratical 

 state of the Buccaneers became the most important. 

 The West India company, erected likewise in 1664, 

 survived only ten years. Sugar and cotton, and, 

 since 1728, coffee (first introduced into Martinique), 

 have been the most important productions of the 

 West Indian colonies, which, by the great commer- 

 .cial privileges granted them in 1717, and by the 

 smuggling trade with Spanish America, soon obtained 

 the ascendency over the English. Though France, 

 by the terms of the peace of Paris (1763), lost some 

 of its smaller islands, it was indemnified by the riches 

 of St Domingo, which furnished, in the years pre- 

 ceeding the revolution, an annual gross revenue of 

 170,000,000 livres almost as much as all the rest of 

 the West Indies together. In 1791 and the succeed- 

 ing years, St Domingo suffered terribly, but it has 

 risen again under an entirely new form. (See Hayti.) 

 In 1661, France possessed Canada, Acadia or ISova 

 Scotia, on the continent, and the island of Newfound- 

 land. These colonies, however, made but slow pro- 

 gress. The last was ceded to Britain by the treaty 

 of Utrecht (1713) ; the two first, with Cape Breton, 

 in 1763. Louisiana, declining in prosperity, was 

 given up to Spain (1764), and Cayenne could ill atone 

 for these losses. Louisiana was afterwards restored 

 to France, but sold by her, in 1803, to the United 

 States of North America. The French did not meet 

 with much better success in their attempts to es- 

 tablish themselves in the East Indies. In 1664, 

 Colbert founded an East India company. After 

 fruitless attempts to form a colony in Madagascar, 

 Pondicherry was founded on the coast of Coromandel 

 in 1670, and soon became the chief seat of the French 

 East Indies. But the company fell into decay. In 

 1719, it was united with the Mississippi company, 

 but still remained feeble. On the other hand, the 

 French took possession of Isle de France and Bour- 

 bon, in 1720, which had been abandoned by the 

 Dutch, and which attained a flourishing condition 

 under the administration of Labourdonnaye (com- 

 mencing in 1736), by the cultivation of coffee, whilst 

 Dupleix, as governor-general of Pondicherry, had 

 the direction of affairs in the East Indies. Here the 

 arms of the French had been successful since 1751 ; 

 but the peace of 1763 deprived them of their con- 

 quests, and the East India company was dissolved in 

 1769. The French now possess only Karical and 

 the demolished town of Pondicherry. By the pos- 

 session of the island of Bourbon alone they have 

 maintained a doubtful influence upon the commerce 

 of the East Indies. 



The Danes and Swedes have likewise had colo- 

 nies ; and there was a time when even Austria endea- 

 voured to partake in the colonial commerce. An 

 East India company was formed in Denmark, in 

 1618, in the reign of Christian IV., which acquired 

 Tranquebar from the rajah of Tanjore, but was dis- 

 solved in 1634. The second company, formed in 

 1670, which survived till 1729, was not more fortu- 

 nate. In 1671, the Danes also occupied the West 

 India island of St Thomas, to which were added, in 

 the first lialf of the 18th century, St John and Santa 

 Cruz, which they purchased from France. In 1734, 

 a West India company was established ; but, on its 



dissolution (1764), the commerce with the West In- 

 dies was made free to every one, and the islands 

 there improved rapidly. The East India commerce, 

 for which a company had been instituted in 1732, 

 was also very lucrative. But the company traded 

 chiefly with China, and ceded their settlements in the 

 East Indies to the crown in 1777. Sweden, though 

 it had no possessions in India, established an East 

 India company, in 1731, in order to engage directly 

 in the tea trade with China, which it carried on with 

 much success. In 1784, by the acquisition of the 

 small island of St Bartholomew from France, it gain- 

 ed a firm footing in the West Indies. Austria was 

 less successful. Under the reign of Charles VI., she 

 attempted to engage in the direct commerce with the 

 East Indies by establishing the company of Ostend 

 (1722), but was obliged, by the violent opposition of 

 Britain and Holland, to dissolve the company in 

 1731. An attempted settlement, in the last quarter 

 of the 18th century, on the Nicobar islands, in the 

 Indian ocean, which were occupied, in earlier times, 

 by the Danes, but abandoned on account of the un- 

 healthiness of the situation, was equally unsuccess- 

 ful. 



A company was first established in Russia, in 1787, 

 for obtaining furs on the Kurile isles, the Aleutian 

 isles, and the north-west coast of North America. 

 An ukase, in favour of this company, forbidding other 

 nations to trade and fish on the coasts of Asia and 

 North America, from 51 North lat. on the Ameri- 

 can side, and the South cape of the island of Urup on 

 the Asiatic, together with the intermediate islands, 

 met with opposition from the United States ; but, by 

 a treaty concluded at St Petersburg, April 17, 1824, 

 it was agreed that the people of both governments 

 should be allowed to trade or fish unmolested in any 

 part of the Pacific ocean or its coasts. It was also 

 agreed that no establishment should be formed on the 

 north-west coast to the north of 54 by citizens of the 

 United States, nor to the south of the same point by 

 Russian subjects. 



While the slave-trade was unobstructed, Africa 

 was of much importance in respect to the colonial in- 

 terests of Europe. The African establishments are 

 mostly single fortified factories along the coasts of 

 Africa. Their chief object was the slave-trade, which 

 was chiefly carried on by privileged companies. A 

 free negro colony was founded at Sierra Leone, by 

 the British (1786), and the abolition of the slave- 

 trade (q. v.), which originated with Denmark and 

 Britain (1802 and 1806), must necessarily affect the 

 African settlements. The discovery of Australasia 

 led, in 1788, to the settlement at Sydney cove, in 

 New South Wales, and those in Van Diemen's land 

 (q. v.), which soon became flourishing colonies. See 

 New South Wales. 



The commerce of the world (see Commerce) re- 

 ceived a powerful impulse from the colonies, and the 

 nations soon perceived that these constituted one of 

 the chief sources of their wealth. It is, however, 

 not to be denied, that the illusions of the mercantile 

 system, so called, and, still more, the great wealth 

 which some colonial powers acquired, and which was 

 attributed exclusively to their colonial trade, caused 

 an exaggerated value to be affixed to this commerce, 

 without sufficient regard to the particular character 

 and genius of the different nations, their geographical 

 and political situation, and the circumstances of the 

 time. Under the influence of this misapprehension, 

 each state endeavoured to exclude all strangers from 

 participating in it ; and a law of nations was formed, 

 with regard to the colonies, which was distinguished 

 from the common European law of nations by its 

 ungenerous principles. Thus the Portuguese and 

 Spaniards endeavoured to exclude all other Euro- 



