The discouragement of colonization is certainly not the feeling of the
great majority of the people of England, and it is equally certain
that it is not the policy of this empire. Whatever may be the fate of
the several British colonies at some future and distant period, it is
something at least to have spread our laws and language, and moral
character, over the most distant parts of the globe. The colonies that
speak the language of Old England--that preserve her manners and her
habits--will always be her best customers; and their surplus capital
will always centre in the mother country. It was not the opinion of
our ancestors, that colonies were an incumbrance; they--good, stupid
souls--imagined that colonies enlarged the sphere of commerce---that
commerce required ships--that ships created seamen for manning the
royal navy, and that the whole contributed to individual wealth, to
the national revenue, and the national strength; and such we believe
still to be the opinion of men of sound practical knowledge, whose
minds are unwarped by abstract systems and preconceived theories, to
which every thing must be made to bend. Such, too, was the feeling of
that extraordinary man, who, with the solitary exception of England,
exacted homage from every crowned head of Europe. This man, in the
plenitude of his power, felt that something was still wanting to
enable him to grapple with one little island, invulnerable by its
maritime strength, the sinews of which he knew to be derived from its
colonies: he felt that, deprived as he was of "ships, colonies, and
commerce," England was able to stand alone among nations, and to bid
defiance to his overwhelming power. That cunning fox, too, by whose
councils he was occasionally guided, knew too well the degree of
strength that England derived from her colonies, which he described to
be her very vitals, and which could only be reached by a powerful
navy. He designated them as the sheet anchor of Great Britain--the
prop that supported her maritime superiority--the strongholds of her
power. "Deprive her of her colonies," said Talleyrand. "and you break
down her last wall; you fill up her last ditch."--_Fas est et ab hoste
doceri.--Quarterly Review_.
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