THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 87 
it is transplanted. In the native country of the bureau- 
cracy a great many of the affairs of life are conducted 
in accordance with usages established by immemorial 
custom. Such usages have a certain presumption in 
their favour, as adapted in some degree to the circum- 
stances of the country; the bureaucracy must be to 
some extent checked or guided by them, and its capac- 
ity for mischief is so far limited. But when the same 
system of government is transplanted to a new country, 
its course of procedure is largely a matter of experi- 
ment in pursuance of some general or a priori theory ; 
and experiments of this sort have always failed. No 
government that has ever yet existed has possessed 
enough wisdom to found a prosperous society by any 
amount of arbitrary administration. When, there- 
fore, the forms and machinery of a centralized despot- 
ism are sought to be reproduced away from their 
connections with the peculiar local traditions amid 
which they have grown up, it is but the dead -husk 
that is transplanted instead of the living kernel. 
While the French colonies in America thus throve 
so feebly in spite of the anxious care of their sovereign, 
the English colonies, neglected and left to themselves, 
were full of sturdy life. The settlers had been accus- 
tomed to manage their own affairs at home, instead of 
having them managed by prefects and intendants. Had 
their king attempted to deal with them as the benevo- 
lent Louis XIV. dealt with his subjects, they would 
have cut off his head or driven him into exile. In 
America they conducted themselves very much as 
they would have done in England, save that they were 
much freer from interference. Having gone into vol- 
untary exile themselves, they were relieved from the 
