358 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



The future 

 belongs to a 

 World 

 Empire. 



Convicts and 

 vagabonds 

 make good 

 colonists. 



A French 

 colony 

 should be 

 like a 

 Dutch 

 colony, but 

 better. 



help each other to grow. The mother country founds 

 the colony and protects it. The colony enriches the 

 mother country with the products of the earth, and 

 provides work and wages for more artificers, manufac- 

 turers, fishermen, and seamen. Thus from its colonies 

 a European Nation should gain increased wealth, increased 

 population, and increased Power of the Sea ; and one can- 

 not too often say in France, and in 1756, that " he who 

 is master of the Sea is master of the Land." In short 

 the future belongs not to the European Nation as it is, 

 but to the European nation expanded by colonization 

 into a World Empire. 



And, to descend from high to low, there is one particular 

 way in which mother country and colony should be useful 

 to each other. A State, like a house, requires a sewer. 

 There must be some arrangement for the discharge of 

 uncleanness, and the outlet should be placed at a reasonable 

 distance. If the matter is properly managed the unclean- 

 ness disappears, and nothing remains save the fecundity 

 it has given to the soil. A criminal is intolerable in a 

 civilised community, but he may render good service 

 in a young colony, and may eventually become a respect- 

 able freeman. Rome herself was founded by a gang 

 of bandits. Griminal women would be especially useful 

 in this way ; for " a woman who bears a child each year 

 is a treasure to an infant colony." Common beggars and 

 vagabonds will also be useful colonists, and Foundling 

 Hospitals will be a " species of reservoir distributing 

 streams of population to the colonies." It would not 

 be wise to found a colony with this material. But, when 

 a colony has been established, the deportation of criminals 

 will greatly increase its prosperity. 



As for the Spanish Empire, it is not a model to be copied, 

 but an example to be avoided. Frenchmen should take 

 their lessons not from the Spaniards but from the Dutch, 

 who have generally aimed, not at conquest, but at commerce 

 and cultivation, and who have made their colony at the 

 Cape one of the most agreeable and rich possessions in 

 the world. In the cantons of Terra Australis, Frenchmen 



