ST6 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



one's house, depend for their excellence on the croudedness 

 of the neighbourhood. It is far better to attract a million of 

 men into a province, than to disperse them over an empire. 

 But there are cases in which extent of empire is itself the con- 

 dition of condensing the populousness of its parts. A toll-gate 

 road from Stabroek to Paramaribo is within the competence of 

 the established authorities : but the thoroughfare along that 

 road would be doubled, if it extended in the one direction to 

 San Thomas, and in the other to Cayenne. While Cayenne is 

 French ; the worse the communication by land with Parama- 

 ribo, the more agreeable to the European metropolis ; if Cay- 

 enne appertained to the same sovereign, his interest is then to 

 facilitate the communication. The like principle may be 

 applied to the extension of a common interest across the 

 French into the Portuguese territory. 



What difficulty could Great Britain have to fear in under- 

 taking a negotiation with the court of Lisbon for the cession 

 of that part of Guyana, which lies between the Oyapoco and 

 the Maranyo ? A large grant of money, or a tribute for 

 twenty years, would no doubt be thought an equivalent, for 

 ceding a nominal right of sovereignty, over a part of the Bra- 

 zilian empire, to which the force of its protection, and the in- 

 fluence of its circulation, does not yet extend. The Maranyo, 

 or river of Amazons, is the practical boundary of Portuguese 

 ascendency; the missionaries and pedlars, who visit its northern 



