PORT ESSI^'GTON. 359 



in the light simply of an isolated military post. 

 And, certainly, whatever may be its actual resources, 

 little or nothing has, as yet, been done to ascertain 

 them. We are still reduced to base our opinions 

 on conjecture and hypothesis ; we know nothing of 

 the amount of commerce that might be carried on 

 with the islands of the Indian Archipelago, — nothing 

 of the productions of the main land, — nothing of the 

 extent to which colonization might be carried in 

 the neiofhbourhood. Without data of this kind it 

 is impossible, with any pretensions to accuracy, to 

 estimate the probable future importance of our 

 settlement at Port Essington, the value of which 

 does not depend on the fertility of Coburg Peninsula, 

 any more than that of Gibraltar on the productive- 

 ness of the land within the Spanish lines. Victoria, 

 if we regard its own intrinsic worth, might be 

 blotted out of the list of our possessions without 

 any material detriment to our interests ; but its 

 importance, as a commercial station, is incalculable. 

 It is, indeed, to the country behind, — at present 

 un visited, unexplored, a complete terra incognita, — 

 and to the islands within a radius of five hundred 

 miles, that we must look if we would form a correct 

 idea of the value of Port Essington to the Crown. 

 At present it may seem idle, to some, to introduce 

 these distant places as elements in the discussion 

 of such a question ; but no one who reflects on the 

 power of trade to knit together even more distant 

 points of the earth, will think it visionary to suppose 

 that Victoria must one day — insignificant as may be 



