abroad, and which I remember hearing well stated by Mr. Craufurd, the Rector of this parish, at a meeting here many years ago of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The common meaning of a destitute man is a man who cannot get the thing which he is destitute of; he is destitute of food or clothing if he cannot get food or clothing. But in this sense we have no such thing as real spiritual destitution in this country. What we mean by spiritual destitution in a district is, that in proportion to the number of inhabitants there are not Clergy enough to look up the people, to teach them and their children, and take care of them. And this is bad enough, and fully deserves all that can be done to remove it, inasmuch as the obvious difference between this and physical want is, that whereas the spiritual need is far worse than the physical, he that suffers under the former does not know that he is in want, and the more entire the destitution the less does he care to remove it, and it must therefore be brought home to him by others; while the man who wants food and clothing cannot but know that he wants them. But still, in England, no one who wishes the spiritual offices of a Clergyman for the good of his own soul, or who desires Holy Baptism for his children, or Christian burial for the dead whom he loves, has the least difficulty in procuring them; and even as to church-room, there is no place where a church is really out of reach, few where it is fairly impossible for one who desires it, to attend the service of God. Not so in many parts of the Colonies, where it is literally impossible for the bestdisposed to enable themselves to receive these blessed gifts, and there is in the strictest sense 66 a famine in the

land, not a famine of bread, not a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.”*

I have now finished what I had to say on the branch of the subject which I have chiefly desired to bring before you. But, though I am sensible that this address has already more than reached its due limits, I cannot conclude without saying a few words-though they must be not only few but also very general in their nature— on the political relation between the Colonies and this country: what it has been, and what perhaps it ought to be. Now this relation has for a long while been very different from what it was in the first beginnings of our earliest, that is, our American Colonies. The Charters given to many of them, as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, established a system very much more resembling the ancient Greek colonization, such as I have described it, than many persons are aware. Almost absolute self-government in all respects was given by those Charters, and the connexion between them and this country was little more than nominal, or rather one of sentiment alone. But this system even, in the case of those Colonies, long since lost, did not last long enough to be fairly and fully tried. The Charters were revoked, and the power of England more and more extended over the Dependencies, though, as was said before, mainly for the single mercenary object of monopolizing a valuable trade, And with regard to our existing Colonies, it can hardly be said that this independent system has ever been in force in them. With

* Amos viii. 2.

+ Grahame's History of the United States, Vol. i. pp. 205, 316; ii. 6.

E

out going into other matters, it is sufficient to remind you of what I said before, that for a long time past the Government of this country has insisted upon what in fact gives an absolute control over the local government of the Colonies, by reserving to itself a general power of disallowance over every single enactment which their Legislatures may pass. If it had been otherwise, I could not have charged this country, acting through its Government, with the responsibility for the well-being of the Colonies; they would have borne it themselves. But having attempted to govern them really from home, we became in good measure accountable for their whole state, physical and moral.

Now the question I would consider is, whether either of these systems, the Greek one of complete independence, or the modern English one of complete control, or some medium between these two, deserves our approval? whether we did right, not in neglecting this responsibility when assumed (which of course was wrong), but in originally assuming it? I cannot, of course, attempt to argue such a question at length; and I shall hardly do more than state my opinion generally, and recommend the subject, as one of much interest, to such of you as may have leisure or inclination to pursue it.

I said before that we should not hastily conclude against that Grecian plan. The idea of a great country sending forth from all classes within itself good and well-selected emigrants, and as it were with its blessing only upon them bidding them go and plant and rear themselves, by their own unfettered and unaided efforts, into a flourishing and independent nation, is surely a

grand one; and indeed I have no hesitation in far preferring it to our present system of governing, or pretending to govern, distant Colonies by an official Department at home. For the evil of this system is that, while it is to a great extent only a pretence of government, it has for the Colonies many of the evils of the most arbitrary government, and hardly any of the advantages of any government. We cannot, but in the most imperfect way, govern in England countries divided from us by thousands of miles of ocean; but the continual attempt to do so, and the partial success it meets with, is abundantly enough to stunt and starve the self-developing energies of the Colony, and to infect it at once both with an enfeebling spirit of dependence upon us and a constant irritation against our control. Moreover, can it be expected that communities of our own race and spirit will in these days acquiesce in a system of government in which they have no share? Some great authorities have spoken of a Colony being treated by us in all respects as if it were an English county; but such an idea is a delusion, from the obvious circumstance that they are not and cannot be represented in Parliament. They are thus in a position of permanent inferiority, and, if they are not, still they are ever liable to be, the victims of legislation made by the omnipotent power at home for its own sole benefit. The ancient Colonial system, as it was called, for the regulation of trade between England and the Colonies, was so strong an illustration of this actually being the case, that I will notice it; and to show how ingrained it was into the English political mind, I will give it in the words, spoken with no sort of disapproval, of one who was great in all respects, but who as to trade

is considered to have consistently held opinions more liberal than on any other subject: I mean Burke. He says: "These Colonies were evidently founded in subservience to the commerce of Great Britain. From this principle the whole system of our laws concerning them became a system of restriction. A double monopoly was established on the part of the parent country 1st, a monopoly of their whole import, which is to be altogether from Great Britain; 2dly, a monopoly of all their export, which is to be nowhere but to Great Britain, as far as it can serve any purpose here. On the same idea it was contrived that they should send all their products to us raw, and in their first state, and that they should take everything from us in the last stage of manufacture."† And no less a man, Lord Chatham, said "that the Colonists had no right to manufacture even a horse-shoe for themselves." Could any one really expect that a system of undisguised selfishness like this could be lasting? If the Colonists were children, or of some inferior race, it might be so: but with men equal to ourselves! Nor has it been lasting, though only lately abolished; and the Colonies are now at liberty to trade when and where they please.

* Brougham's Memoirs of Statesmen of the Time of Geo. III. 1st Series, Vol. i. p. 167.

+ Observations on the State of the Nation: Works, Vol. ii. p. 156.

This is asserted by Bryan Edwards (Hist. of the West Indies, Vol. ii. p. 467, quoted in M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, Art. Colonies, p. 330). But he refers to no authority; and in Grahame's History (Vol. iv. p. 234) the words, as attributed to Lord Chatham, are somewhat less strong.