EXPLANATION OF THE ANNEXED MAP. THE whole that is marked with the shades of GREEN, constitutes the present United States of America. The darkest shade of Green shows the present extent of the Old Thirteen States who declared themselves independent in 1776. The next shade shows the extent of the States and Territories that have been added to the Union since the year 1783, when the United States were by us acknowledged to be independent. The lightest shade of Green shows the Wild Lands belonging to the United States not yet constituted Territories according to their system. The RED shows the extent of the English possessions in North America. On the GREEN, there are now dwelling nearly 25,000,000 of souls-excluding Indians. On the Red, there are less than 2,000,000 of souls, also excluding the Indian Tribes. THE COLONIES OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. -A COLONY, WHAT? - ENGLISH OBJECT OF THE WORK THE object of the present work is to bring into some thing like a system the principles which ought to prevail in the government of some portion of our colonies. Hitherto, those of our possessions termed colonies have not been governed according to any settled rule or plan— caprice and chance have decided generally everything connected with them; and if success have in any case attended the attempts of the English people to establish colonies, that success has been obtained in spite of the mischievous intermeddling of the English government, not in consequence of its wise and provident assistance. In the following pages an attempt will be made to discover, if possible, a means of preventing the continuance of this evil system-if system that can be called which has no B rule or order. I shall endeavour to ascertain the mode in which the metropolitan authority can be best employed in the planting and government of those communities which we term colonies, so that they may be rendered prosperous and happy, in so far as their prosperity and happiness are dependent on the government to which they are subject-and while thus flourishing within themselves, may become useful to the mother country from which they have sprung. A Colony-what? There are many dependencies under the control of our Colonial Office which are not colonies in the present English acceptation of that term. Ceylon, the Ionian Islands, Malta, are not considered colonies. The idea of settlement is not connected with them. Their lands are already occupied. They have for their limits a sufficient, a dense population, which population are not emigrants from another land, but belong to the country in which they live, and look to no mother country, no metropolis for which they feel affection, and to which they are willing to render obedience. There are two leading ideas which enter into our conception of a colony-the one is, that the territory itself is, or within recent memory has been, for the most part, wild and without inhabitants; and the other, that the inhabitants for which it is eventually destined, or which it has in part already received, are to go to it from our own country, or have gone from us or from some other mother country. The relation to, and supervision by, the mother country is the great distinctive mark of a |