beyond the seas, is contiguous to, and even inclosed by, the mother-country; yet it is with perfect propriety called a Colony in its first origin, though of course it immediately becomes a mere part of the mother-country. Upon this it is interesting to remark, though I will not dwell on it, but merely point it out and leave it to the further consideration of any who may wish to prosecute the subject, that the Western Provinces of the United States of America—such as Iowa, Wisconsin, &c.—are in their first formation strictly and accurately colonies of the American Union.* No doubt in due time, as in the former instance, when consolidated and fully established, they become integral parts of the original body; but it is provided in the most methodical manner by the American Constitution, that these new states, which are unoccupied districts of the vast Western territories in North America, constantly being replenished by emigration from the teeming provinces in the East, shall, when first formed, and for a specified time afterwards, not become at once members of the Union on the same footing as the others, but shall be governed and educated; so to speak, on the precise principles of the relation between an infant Colony and its parent stock.

A Colony therefore, properly speaking, is fully defined in the terms above stated. But, of course, when we speak of the Colonies of England, we must practically add to that definition, that the colony shall be a transmarine possession-that is, one beyond the seas; as all regular Colonies of this country must be so.

Now, if we bear this meaning of a Colony in mind, we shall see that that long list of forty Colonies so called, * See Roebuck on the Colonies of England, p. 75, &c.

which we adverted to before, must be considerably modified and diminished. Some of those possessions never have been Colonies in fact at all, and in all probability never will be so; others are in a mixed, or in a transition state, being either partly occupied and owned by natives and partly by Englishmen, or passing gradually from this condition to one in which the English shall be mainly, if not solely, the occupiers of the country; and a comparatively small number will appear to be Colonies in the complete sense-lands owned and occupied by English people.

In the first class are to be placed the European possessions of Malta and Gibraltar, which are merely military posts; the island of St. Helena, which is nearly the same; the small island of Heligoland, within a short sail of England on the Danish coast, which is partly a military and partly a trading station; our possessions on the middle coast of Western Africa, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and the Gambia, which were established partly also as military posts and partly as convenient stations for our transactions relative to the slave trade; the Falkland Islands, on the coast of South America; and most of all, the Ionian Islands in the Mediterranean, which I place last, as being properly not even a possession of ours, but nominally independent states, under the protection of England according to treaty.

Strictly speaking, the new settlement of Hongkong, on the coast of China, is to be placed in the second, if not in the third, of these classes. There is a considerable Chinese population on the island, many of whom are landowners. According to this it should be placed in our second class. But as this native population is be

coming more and more migratory, as the land seems to be passing more and more from their hands, and as the English have already built and occupied a large and handsome town there called Victoria, where a Bishop's See has been placed, it might almost be thought that the island was becoming a pure Colony. But though this might be true, if we regarded this settlement simply by itself, it is impossible not to see that practically it is but a small outpost of the huge Empire of China, and that all our transactions upon and connected with it are, in fact, with a view to our relations with that Empire, and not to itself. It is not a Colony, but a commercial station, and therefore, rather belongs to this our first class. Similar remarks may be made, with even more force, as to the recently-formed settlement of Labuan, off the coast of Borneo.

With regard to the second of the above three classes, the West Indies can hardly indeed be said to be in a transition state, as respects the character and origin of their population, as they are among the oldest of our possessions, and have for a long time, if not from the beginning, undergone no material change in this respect. But they are by no means pure specimens of Colonies, according to the definition I have given of a Colony, and must be classed as of a mixed description. Many English are permanently settled there; but the great majority of the population are native Indians, or other coloured persons imported from Africa or Hindostan. There is an important distinction, however, between the West Indies and others of our possessions of a similar mixed character, in respect not of the population but of the land. The whole of the soil in those islands may

be said to belong to Englishmen, whereas in those other possessions the natives own much of it. The English owners, however, are rarely resident-which it is much to be desired that they should be-but are persons living in this country, managing their estates by the means of local resident agents.

Another mixed possession of this kind is Canada, whether regarded as one Province, as constituted by recent enactments, or according to the familiar division of Upper or Western, and Lower or Eastern Canada. Upper Canada may be called a pure English Colony; but the bulk, though not the whole, of the population of Lower Canada is an ancient race of Frenchmen long and firmly established in the country.

In reference to what I have called possessions in the transition state-from being partly or wholly occupied by natives or foreigners, to being wholly, or almost wholly, occupied by English-I would not be understood as saying confidently, that any of our possessions are such as evidently and fully answer to this description. Some of them, however, do so to a considerable extent, among which the most remarkable is the Cape of Good Hope. The great majority of its inhabitants are at present not English, but Dutchmen and natives. But the extreme beauty and salubrity of its climate, and favourableness of its position, will probably continue more and more to attract the emigration thither, and permanent settlement, of persons from this country, who, it may be expected, will gradually more and more overspread the Colony. It is the only one of our possessions, besides the Australian Colonies, to which a regular system of free emigration from England for the

labouring classes has been established by the Government; and a constant stream of such emigration is now flowing from this country to the Cape, which will, of course, in various ways tend towards the consummation which I have mentioned.

The Mauritius, and still more, Ceylon, may be, to some extent, in a similar condition. Large extents of their soil are now owned by Englishmen ; and, in Ceylon particularly, the incomparable fertility and various resources of the land will probably tend, in a great measure, to the establishment of English capital and population there. But, undoubtedly, the enormous number of natives in the island, amounting to near 1,500,000, and other circumstances, make the ultimate displacement of these natives and complete colonization of the country by Englishmen, an indefinitely remote, if not a chimerical imagination.

The remarkable colony of New Zealand belongs to this class; it is occupied and owned, partly by natives, and partly by English. And it might be supposed that it should therefore be placed with the Cape or Ceylon, as one in which the population is in a transition state, and in which, ultimately, nearly the whole may be English. This, inasmuch as the natives are savage, would be according to that remarkable fact which some have called a mysterious law of Providence, others more truly have ascribed to the rapacity and injustice of civilized man, and which, hitherto, has been universal; that wherever civilized white men have come in contact with savages, the savages have, in course of time, decayed, and ultimately disappeared as a race altogether, leaving the white man sole occupant of the land. But we will