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 COLONIAL EMPIEE OF GREAT BRITAIN, 
 
 ESPECIALLY y^^ ^^^^^^l^^ 
 
 IN ITS RELIGIOUS ASPECT. 
 
 A LECTURE, 
 
 ADDRESSED, 
 
 IN THE TOWN HALL, AT STOURBRIDGE, 
 
 AMBLECOTE CHURCH OE ENGLAND 
 YOUNG MEN^S ASSOCIATION, 
 
 ON DECEMBER 3, 1849. 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD LTTTELTON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SIMPKIN, BIARSHALL, & Co.: 
 
 STOURBRIDGE: 
 
 THOIMAS BIELLARD,
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 In publishing the following Lecture I wish only to remark, 
 that I have thought it best not to advert in it to any quite recent 
 events, especially of a disturbing nature, in the Colonies of which 
 it treats : — such as the annexation movement in Canada, the com- 
 mercial embarrassments in the West Indies, or the pohtical 
 discontents in Australia. The importance of these events is 
 unquestionable, but it seemed most suitable to the occasion to 
 endeavour to regard the Colonies in what may be considered on 
 the whole their normal state for the last few vears.
 
 - uiuc . 
 \ /
 
 LECTURE. 
 
 When I had the honour, some time ago, to jjreside at the introduction, 
 annual meeting of tliis Association, a wish appeared to be enter- 
 tained by some of its members that I should follow the example 
 set by many of its friends since its formation, by delivering a 
 Lecture on some subject of general interest. At the time I did 
 not much expect that I should ever be able to comply with that 
 wish. Li my view, the due performance of such a function im- 
 pHes a systematic knowledge of some subject involving some, not 
 inconsiderable, amount of research and reflection : and the course 
 of my life, wliich has mainly been one of practical duties in various 
 directions, has not been favourable to the acquisition of such 
 knowledge. It recently, however, occui-red to me that there is 
 one subject concerning which, from particular circumstances, I 
 happen to have been called to think and inform myself, far indeed 
 from completely, yet stiU perhaps to a greater extent than most of 
 those whom I am now addressing : and I immediately felt, as I 
 need hardly say, that it would be a great pleasure to me if I could 
 confer any, even a shght, benefit upon the Association, by calling 
 their attention to it in the form of a Lecture. That subject is the 
 one which has been announced to you, namely our Colonial Em- 
 pire, and that especially in its rehgious aspect and condition. 
 
 I must say a few words at the outset on both parts of tliis 
 designation. I have not said simply our Colonies, but our Colonial 
 Emphe : nor that again generally, but mainly in its rehgious as- 
 pect. To advert first to the latter point : it is clear that there are 
 several reasons, in the consideration of such a question on an oc- 
 casion hke this, for Hmiting in some measure the scope of the 
 inquiry to some one prominent part of the subject. The whole 
 subject of our Colonial Empire is too large to be completely gone 
 through, both in respect of my own powers and of your time. I 
 might indeed have attempted to do this with respect to some one 
 Colony. But such information as this is within your reach with- 
 out much difficulty from Various pubhcations : and my object
 
 view. 
 
 6 
 
 being ratlier to endeavour to set before you some general princi- 
 ples relating to Colonies and their relation to the mother country, 
 it seemed clear that that could be better done by treating of our 
 Colonial dominions as a whole, than by confining myself to only 
 one part of them. 
 Religious Jj^ considering then in what point of view it would be most 
 
 view. ^ -L 
 
 suitable to place the subject, I could have no hesitation in fixing 
 upon the one which I have named, namely the rehgious view. 
 Por this there is a general reason, that it is the most important 
 one, and therefore entitled to the preference when a selection is to 
 be made. But there is also a special reason, derived from the 
 character of the body whom I am addressing. I doubt not that I 
 am but expressing a feeling common to all its members, when I 
 say that it is the peculiar happiness and pride of this Association 
 that a strong and distinctive religious character is of its very 
 essence, and is that which in its collective utterances it would 
 always place in the strongest light and the most leading position. 
 I cannot be mistaken in this, for it is no more than has been re- 
 cognized in the prominence given to what I lately read with hearty 
 ap]3roval and satisfaction, the first sentence in your last Report. 
 " The Committee of the Amblecote Church of England Young 
 Men's Association desire to present their sixth annual Report, 
 with humble thankfulness to Almighty God for the continued 
 progress of the society, and with earnest prayer that its progress 
 may be attended by that holy influence on the hearts and lives of 
 its members, without wliich no prosperity can be truly valuable or 
 lasting." This alone would therefore have justified the arrange- 
 ment which I have proposed. 
 Not the I by no means, however, intend to confine myself wholly to the 
 rehgious, or to any other distinct part oi the question, it is, 
 again, a happy incident of the constitution of this Association, 
 that its members are not precluded, within the limits of propriety 
 and fair discussion, from reference to any matter which may tend 
 to elucidate the subject before them. It would be indeed, if not 
 contrary to positive rule, still probably unadvisable, to introduce on 
 such an occasion as this, what is commonly understood by the term 
 party politics. But the pohtics of Colonies, or rather the pohtics 
 concerning the relation between the Colonies and this country, do 
 not seem to fall within this designation: and I intend, occasionally, 
 to advert to them. 
 
 I have only to add on this point, namely, the rehgious aspect 
 to be given to the question, that though I am aware there are 
 some I address who are not members of this Association, I must 
 regard myself simply as addressing that body. I say this, be- 
 cause, though I hope to say notliing that will be offensive to any 
 
 only one.
 
 person or party, I shall have to make several remarks in which I 
 can look for the sympathy, perhaps for the assent, only of mem- 
 bers of the Church of England. 
 
 To turn now to the former part of the designation which I Definition 
 have given to tliis subject. I have brought before you our 
 Colonial Empii'e. In introducing to you some remarks on this 
 point, the first thing to do seems to be, to state clearly what we 
 mean by a Colony : to give some definition of it. For we shall 
 find that considerable inaccuracy prevails in the common notions 
 and expressions about this. People speak of forty Colonies be- 
 longing to England, or thereabouts : Avliich, without specifying 
 them all, are classed as the North American, the West Indian, 
 the Austrahan Colonies, the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, the 
 Mamitius, the ^Mediterranean possessions of Malta and Gibraltar, 
 Sierra Leone and the others on the West Coast of Africa, and a 
 few besides. But it is clear that there is some inexactness in 
 this plu-aseolog}', from one simple consideration, that, (besides the 
 Hudson^s Bay Company's territories in North America, to which I 
 shall not further advert,) the East Indies, our great Indian Empire, 
 are not included in this popular list : whereas the Mamitius for 
 instance, and the island of Ceylon still more, which is nothing 
 but a part of the East Indies, are in themselves, and in the natm*e 
 of their relation to England, just the same as India ; and if the 
 former are rightly called Colonies, so should the latter be. There 
 is a difference in the political machinery by wliich India is govern- 
 ed, namely, through the East India Company, from that by which 
 Ceylon is governed, Avhich is tlirough what is called the Colonial 
 Office ; but this is the only difference. It has happened, perhaps 
 from this, that the popular meaning of a Colony is what I have 
 just indicated, a distant possession governed immediately by the 
 Home Government through one of its departments, the Colonial 
 Office : whereas if it is otherwise governed, as by a Company, it 
 is not called a Colony. But it is plain that this is no definition 
 at all. A Colony of a country indicates that there is some actual 
 connexion between the substance or body, so to speak, of the 
 Colony, that is the people who form it, and that of the mother 
 country. If England happens to become possessed of a distant 
 country inhabited by certain natives, and merely sends a 
 few official people to govern that country, lea\ing the natives 
 occupying nearly the whole of it, as is mainly the case in India, 
 Ceylon, &c. or if England occupies some post for purposes of 
 military defence, with just enough force for that purpose only, as 
 Gibraltar or Malta, such countries do not become Colonies : they 
 remain nearly as they were, only with a different government. 
 We see tliis immediately when we look at the words that are kin-
 
 8 
 
 dred to the word Colony : " to colonize," for example. To colonize 
 is not the same as to conquer and occupy, which it must be if 
 IMalta and Heligoland were rightly called Colonies. A conquered 
 country may remain uncolonized. So also, a colonist is never 
 understood to mean simply an inhabitant of one of our foreign 
 possessions. The German in Hehgoland, the frenchman in the 
 Mauritius, or even in Lower Canada, is no colonist of ours, A 
 British colonist must be of British race. 
 
 This immediately points to the essential part of the definition 
 of a Colony, which I may now proceed to give. The pure and 
 rigid definition of a Colony of a given country is this : a previously 
 unoccupied district, peopled and inhabited by emigrants from that 
 country, or their descendants. Of course this definition would 
 include a district previously occupied by aborigines, but from 
 which they are exterminated or removed, as it becomes un- 
 occupied before the emigrants inhabit it.^^^ 
 It may be You wiU obscrvc that this definition does not require that the 
 contiguous. Colony should be separated by the sea, or by anytliing else, from 
 the mother country, which is no essential part of the idea of a 
 Colony. It may even be contiguous to the mother country. We 
 have aheady derived some benefit in the explanation of the sub- 
 ject, as is continually the case in all subjects, from the usages of 
 language : and what I have just said wiU be at once made clear 
 by a recourse to the same principle. Tor an expression, familiar 
 probably to all of you, is that of Home Colonization : it indicates 
 a system to which great importance is attached by its promoters, 
 by which much of the distress existing in tliis country and in 
 Ireland should be reheved by the transplantation of considerable 
 numbers of persons from the over-peopled districts of the land to 
 the waste or unoccupied territories existing within it. Here the 
 Colony, far from being beyond the seas, is contiguous to, and 
 even inclosed by, the mother country : yet is it with perfect pro- 
 priety 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 wiU 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 pro- 
 vinces 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 
 
 (1) It is also hardly necessary to observe, that it is not essential to this definition, 
 that the emigrants should be literally the iole occupants of the district. It is suflRcient 
 that they should form the great and preponderating majority. 
 
 (2) See Roebuck on Colonization, p, 75, &c.
 
 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, wliich 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 lu'st 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 Three classes of 
 that that long list of forty Colonies so called, 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 transi- 
 tion state, being either partly occupied and owned by natives and 
 partly by Eughshmen, or passing graduaUy from this condition to 
 one in which the English shall be mainly if not solely the occu- 
 piers 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 First class. 
 Malta and Gibraltar, which are merely mihtary posts : the island of 
 St. Helena, which is uearly the same : the small island of Heligo- 
 land, 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 Hongkong, 
 of China, is to be placed in the second, if not in the third, of these 
 classes. There is a considerable Chinese population on that island, 
 many of whom are landoAvners. 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 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 more and more from their handsj and as the Enghsh have akeady 
 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 tliis 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 
 ^vith that empire and not to itself. It is not a Colony, but a com- 
 mercial 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, on the coast of Borneo. 
 Second class. With regard to the second of the above tliree classes, the West 
 West Indies. Indics cau 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 EngHsh are permanently 
 settled there : but the great majority of the population are native 
 Indians, or other coloured persons imported from Africa or Hin- 
 dostan. There is an important cUstinction, however, between the 
 West Indies and others of oiu* 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 
 Enghshmen, 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 per- 
 sons living in this country, managing their estates by the means 
 of local resident agents. 
 Canada. Auother mixcd possession of this kind is Canada, whether re- 
 garded 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 Erenchmen long and firmly 
 established in the comitry. 
 
 In reference to what I have called possessions in the transition 
 state, from being partly or whoUy occupied by natives or foreigners 
 to being wholly or almost whoUy 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 
 Cape of Good tlicm, howevcr, do so to a considerable extent, among vrhich the 
 Hope. jj^Qg^ remarkable is the Cape of Good Hope. The great majority
 
 11 
 
 of its iuhabitants are at present not English^ but Dutchmen and 
 natives. But the extreme beauty and salubrity of its cKmate, and 
 favourableness of its position, will probably continue more and 
 more to attract the emigration thither, and permanent settlement, 
 of persons from this country, wlio, it may be expected, -niU gradu- 
 ally 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 estabhshed 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 consum- 
 mation which I have mentioned. 
 
 The Mauritius, and stdl more, Ceylon, may be to some extent The Mauritius 
 in a similar condition. Large extents of their soil are now owned ^""^ ceyion. 
 by Enghshmen : and in Ceylon particularly the incomparable fer- 
 tility and various resources of the land wUl probably tend in a 
 great measure to the estabhshment of English capital and popula- 
 tion 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 New Zealand, 
 is occupied and owned, partly by natives, and partly by EngHsh. 
 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 tran- 
 sition state, and in wliich, ultimately, nearly the whole may be 
 EngHsh. This, inasmuch as the natives are savage, would be 
 according to that remarkable fact which some have called a mys- 
 terious law of Providence, others more truly have ascribed to the 
 rapacity and injustice of civilized man, and Aihich hitherto has been 
 universal: that wherever civilized white men have come in contact 
 with savages, the savages have in course of time decayed and ulti- 
 mately disappeared as a race altogether, leaving the wliite man sole 
 occupant of the land. But we wiU by no means assume this 
 of New Zealand : on the contrary, it has hitherto been, and it is 
 hoped and intended, if possible, that it shall continue to be, a sig- 
 nal exception to tliis supposed law. At present the settlers and 
 natives are H\dng together in complete harmony and constant in- 
 tercourse : the natives, much the most intelligent as well as most 
 powerful race of savages that have ever been discovered, are rapidly 
 being converted to Chi'istianity, and submitting themselves to 
 English laws and customs : and if successive Governors and Bishops 
 of New Zealand shall have the spirit in this respect that animates 
 the present holders of those important offices, we may hope that tliis 
 great experiment, one of the most interesting that has ever been
 
 12 
 
 made iu the course of human iraproveuieut, whether a savage race 
 can be raised from its savageness and enabled to live with Europeans 
 on a footing of equality and not of slavery^ will meet with lasting 
 success. We therefore class New Zealand as a mixed Colony in 
 respect of population. 
 Third Class. You wiU thus pcrceivc the truth of what I said above^ that 
 ^nd'AultiaUa? numerically speakings the real Colonies of England, constituting 
 the third of the above-named classes, are but few out of the whole 
 number of the countries popularly so called. Eor we have gone 
 through the whole list, and shewn that all we have mentioned are 
 at present to be otherwise regarded than as Colonies in the full 
 sense, with the two great and important exceptions which I now 
 proceed to advert to, the North American, (all but Ijower Canada,) 
 and the Australian Colonies. You Avill see at once why I have said 
 that it is oidy numerically speaking that these Colonies form but 
 a small part of the whole number of om* foreign dependencies. 
 Reckoned by weight and not by tale, they are far more important 
 than all the rest of the Colonies put together. Their names are 
 soon said: Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward^s 
 Island, Newfoundland and the Eermudas, in North America : 
 New South Wales and Port Philip, South Australia, Western 
 Australia, and Van Dieman^s Land, in Australia. But no one can 
 estimate either Avhat advantages and what glory to England these 
 vast regions may or might now bring, or to what a height they 
 may not in future ages advance the power and the renoM'u of the 
 British race. 
 
 Both these groups of Colonies, may be called pure British Colo- 
 nies, that is composed of natives and descendants of natives of 
 Great Britain or Ireland. Yet even between these some distinc- 
 tion may be made. In North America we have already excepted 
 Lower Canada from this description : and in the other contiuental 
 Colonies, those of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, I believe 
 there are also some few natives of Prance and other countries 
 intermingled. But throughout the whole of the Australian Colo- 
 nies properly so called and excluding New Zealand, the inhabitants 
 are of unmixed British origin. There are indeed a few natives, 
 of whom I may hereafter say a little more : but they are quite 
 removed from what is commonly understood as the settled and 
 inhabited parts of those Colonies, which are entirely occupied by 
 British. In this respect, therefore, as being so entirely sprung 
 fi'om ourselves, as well as in respect of their youthful energy and 
 hopefulness, their remoteness from and consequent independence of 
 all other nations, and their immense capabilities of development in 
 all the elements which form great and free communities, there is 
 probably no part of the empire which more demands and Mill more 
 amply requite the wisest care on the part of England, and would
 
 13 
 
 more deeply condemn her neglect or ill-usage^ than these vast 
 possessions in the Southern Ocean. 
 
 1 have thought it might be interesting and useful in this man- 
 ner to lay down accurately what properly speaking are alone 
 Colonies of England, and what are not. But it will not be 
 expedient, in pursuing the subject, to look solely at these, namely, 
 the North American and Australian Colonies. We may include subjeccts to be 
 all those where any considerable number of British subjects have considered, 
 permanent interests in the land as residents or owners : excepting 
 however Ceylon, which, though in some degree answering to this 
 description, is in fact a part of India, and ought not even by 
 common parlance to be reckoned among our Colonies. And 
 according to this, our Colonial Empire may be said to consist, 
 mainly, of the North American, the West Indian, and the 
 Austrahan Colonies, and the Cape of Good Hope. Now when 
 we so look upon it, and always bearing in mind our definition of 
 a Colony, we may first be struck with the idea, that no other 
 nation at present but England -has a Colonial Empire, Other j^^ p,,,^,, 
 nations have Colonies, as France, Spain, Holland; though perhaps ^nsuuce of 
 not Colonies in the fuU and proper sense. But an Empire Emph-e!" 
 implies something great, if not vast; and these comparatively 
 small possessions do not deserve that name. Again, other nations 
 have large foreign possessions, that is, removed from the land they 
 themselves occupy, as Russia and Turkey : but they are in no 
 sense Colonies. But I think we may go further, and say that with 
 very few exceptions, there is no instance recorded in history of a 
 Colonial Empire such as England possesses. The chief exception 
 is, the Spanish possessions in America, subsequent to the discovery Spanish 
 of that quarter of the world. By a course of the most merciless ^''^°"'*'- 
 barbarity the Spaniards almost entirely exterminated the natives 
 whom they found in those countries, and occupying them with 
 their own people, constituted what may fairly be called a 
 Colonial Empire. Perhaps the same may be said of the Por- 
 tuguese, or the Dutch, and, during some part of its history, of 
 the Moorish Empire : but with these reservations there is not 
 even an apparent exception to be found in modern history to what 
 I have said. In ancient history I need only briefly advert to the 
 cases of the Greeks and the Romans. 
 
 With regard to the latter, the Romans can hardly be said to have nomana. 
 been a colonizing people in the complete sense of the Avord. Italy 
 indeed was in great measure colonized from Rome: but that coun- 
 try is rather looked upon as itself the Aome of the Roman Empire, 
 and although throughout the vast extent of that empire there were 
 what were called Colonies, (as we read in the Acts of the Apostles 
 that Philippi was a Colony,) ^^^ and although they were partly occu- 
 
 i\) Acts xvi. 12.
 
 14 
 
 pied by natives of Italy, yet they seem rather to have been foreign 
 possessions held and governed from Rome for political purposes, 
 but in which the bulk of the people were still foreigners, than 
 off-shoots from Eome as a parent country. 
 Greeks. On the other hand, the Greeks were eminently colonizers in 
 the fullest sense. Our word metropohs is a Greek word of 
 wliich we have changed the sense ; in the original it meant simply 
 what we call the mother country. Now you may have observed 
 that I did not include in the definition of a Colony any political 
 connection, any connection of government, between the Colony and 
 the country from which it was settled. It is no necessary part of 
 it. We are in the habit of talking of Colonies and dependencies 
 as if they were the same thing : but a Colony may be quite inde- 
 pendent. The Greek Colonies can scarcely be said to have been 
 dependencies at all. The Greeks, especially the Athenians, 
 founded great and flourishing Colonies in Asia Minor, Italy, and 
 elsewhere. They did so in the most systematic and deliberate 
 manner, by sending out from themselves large and organized 
 bodies, prepared to establish in the vacant lands which they went 
 to occupy, communities and constitutions in all respects resem- 
 bHng what they had left behind. But when so estabhshed, their 
 coimexiou with the country from which they sprung became one 
 almost of equality, instead of being one of dependence. They 
 made their own laws, and supported their own institutions : and 
 were bound by little beyond a general obligation to be friends 
 with the parent state, and to be her allies in war. 
 Modem Now wc shall uot hastily conclude that tliis system was an inferior 
 fysfem! onc to the Colonial system of modern times, as usually administered, 
 especially in the most recent days of English history. That system 
 is the exact reverse of the Greek system in the important particulars 
 to which I have referred. We attempt to govern the whole of 
 our Colonies immediately from home, by a Government department 
 sitting in London. More so indeed in some cases than others. 
 Those of our Colonies in which elective representative bodies are 
 part of the local legislature, do to a much greater extent ad- 
 minister their own afi'airs than the others, called the Crown 
 Colonies. But in all of these there is not a law or ordinance 
 that can be passed which does not require the consent of the 
 Home Government to give it validity : and, on the other hand, in 
 many of the Colonies the expense even of their civil institutions is 
 in part defrayed out of taxes raised at home. I shall say a httle 
 more on this question presently: in this place I m\\ only point 
 out to you how it illustrates in another way what I said before, 
 that we have hardly any parallel case in liistory to the British 
 Colonial Empire. Rome had a vast empire, but not properly 
 Colonial. The Greeks had Colonies extensive enough, relatively
 
 15 
 
 to the parent states^ to be called an Empire : but an Empire im- 
 plies a central power as well as large extent, and that did not in 
 fact exist in the Greek system. 
 
 In these last considerations we approach the most serious part ., .. , 
 
 1 ■ 1 • 1 T ■ 1 -11 1 National 
 
 of the question, to which, as was said, 1 wish especiaUy to draw responsibuity. 
 your attention this evening: I mean the moral, the rehgious, 
 responsibihty of this country with regard to its Colonies. Such a 
 responsibility, in the case of nations or governments as well as 
 individuals, is of course determined and measured by the amount 
 of power and of influence which the superior party reserves and 
 exercises over the inferior. Xow this moral responsibility, in the 
 Greek system, may be said to have ceased with the foundation of 
 the Colony. The Greeks were of course answerable for the cha- 
 racter of those whom in the first instance they sent forth, and the 
 manner in which they sent them : but not, except as involved in 
 this, for the subsequent career of themselves or theii- descendants. 
 On the contrary, by retaining its Colonists in real dependence on 
 itself, the Government of tliis country, and this country through 
 its Government, assumed as much responsibihty, whatever that may 
 be, for the welfare of Canada and New South Wales, as it did for 
 that of Middlesex and Yorkshire : and this apphes to all our 
 foreign possessions. It is therefore on this country that we in 
 great measure look as accountable, when we consider the motives 
 that led to the establishment of our Colonies, their subsequent 
 career, or their present state. 
 
 jS^ow it seems the proper place here to say, that I have no par- 
 ticular wish, by this lecture, to flatter and inflate, in the minds of prtdeT^ 
 any of us, the feelings of pride and glorification with which we are 
 apt to contemplate our enormous empire. I do not say that all 
 such feelings of satisfaction are wrong, or that much good may not 
 be drawn from them. But they are sufficiently natural and spon- 
 taneous. They need very little pampering and fostering. Eather 
 let us dwell on what I have abeady suggested : the responsibihty, 
 the duties, which this country has assumed when investing itself 
 vrith. this empire. If such a view should fail to inspire, as the 
 other does, nothing but what is pleasant and flattering to our hu- 
 man feelings — if at best it should produce but mixed emotions — 
 I cannot help that. Let us look at the truth. On the Colonial 
 domain of England, it is said, the visible sun never sets. True. 
 On how much, or how httle, of that vast domain, has the Sun of 
 Piighteousness ever risen? 
 
 With such thoughts as these in our minds, perhaps we can do 
 no better than attempt to follow, very briefly and partially, the ar- 
 rangement of the subject just indicated, and notice, with respect 
 to our American and our Austrahan Colonies, and mainly in the
 
 16 
 
 Arrangement rcligious aspcct wliicli we liavc before us, first the motives which 
 of the subject. J^r^y i^g traced in the minds of their first planters,, next their pro- 
 gress, histly their present state. 
 
 On the lirst point it is material to observe that the formation of 
 Colonies most, if not all, of our present Colonies, was the deliberate act 
 the state, of the State of England. In this respect it resembled the Greek 
 colonization, which w'as the act of the collective nation which sent 
 forth the settlers. It is not necessarily so. The Colony must at 
 some step or other,, if it is to be a part of the Empire, be taken un- 
 der the care and government of the m other- country ; but in its 
 first formation it may have originated in the voluntary eff'orts of 
 some of its inhabitants. This was in great measui'e the case in the 
 first plantation of that renowned country, once our Colony, now no 
 longer ours, but to which we will briefly refer, as having preceded 
 the establishment of most of our possessions, aiid as eminently 
 State's'! illustrative of some of the principles which we have in view, the 
 United States of America. As to some of them, indeed, the first 
 settlers from England obtained a royal charter at the very outset of 
 their undertaking, which thus may be said to have become a na- 
 tional one. But with regard especially to the New England States, 
 you are probably aware tliat their earliest origin was in the dis- 
 conlSnt of certain of the Puritans in the 1 7th century with their 
 religious condition at home; who in consequence, with nothing 
 beyond the passive acquiescence of the King,^'^ left their native 
 shores, and founded Transatlantic communities which, whatever 
 we may thiuk of various circumstances in their history, were un- 
 doubtedly imbued in this their beginning with the deepest piety, 
 and the purest wish to exhibit models of Christian Commonwealths. " 
 But this private character, so to speak, only belonged to these Col- 
 onies in their very infancy. England very soon conceived hopes 
 of being able to turn them to her own interest, especially by means 
 of commercial restrictions, and accordingly bound them for this 
 purpose by much closer ties to herself than existed at the time of 
 their foundation. And from this time till the period of American 
 independence, the main features of the connexion between this 
 country and those Colonies, as far as belongs to our present pur- 
 pose, may be said to have been close commercial restriction and 
 monopoly of the Colonial trade, intended for the benefit of 
 England, and neglect on her part of the religious state of the 
 dependencies. Something further will be added hereafter on the 
 former, as part of the general political question of Colonial rela- 
 tion: at present we will only remark that, as is well known, the 
 end of that political system was the loss of the North American 
 Colonies. But the latter, or religious question, is far from being 
 
 (1) Grahanie's History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 188. 190-1.
 
 17 
 
 unconnected with the chain of causes which led to that separation. 
 The spirit in which the pohticiaus of the early part of last century 
 often regarded the rehgious state of North America is illustrated 
 with such extraordinary force by the recorded saying of one of them, 
 that I cannot but quote it ; although in another point of view the 
 anecdote refers not to the operation of this spirit, but to one of the 
 exceptions to that operation wliich the Enghsh Government some- 
 times permitted. His name, which deserves to be hung for ever 
 on the gibbet of history, was Seymour : he was Attorney General Anecdote 
 in the year 1703. The Colonists of Virginia had at length ob- Attomly 
 tained from the Crown that which, after a century and a half, is now general 
 
 ,. -I • ^ 1 -in A t ■ -x Seymour. 
 
 being attempted with more or less success m almost all our Colomal 
 dioceses : the institution of a chartered college in the Colony, for 
 the education of all classes, especially of missionary clergymen and 
 teachers ; and towards its erection, the moderate contribution of 
 £2, 000 from the Government. Against this contribution however the 
 said Attorney-General remonstrated: "£2,000?" he said : "you 
 shall not have £2,000 : why do you want it ? " A delegate from 
 the Colony represented what seems a material and unquestionable 
 fact in the case, that the Colonists had soiJs to be saved as well as 
 their brethi-en in England. His reply has in it a degree of coarse 
 humour, and perhaps on first hearing it we may be struck by a 
 sense of the ludicrous : but I rely on the right feehng of this 
 meeting that they will not for a moment dwell on this aspect of it, 
 but rather think with shame on the truly fiendish spirit wliich could 
 prompt such an answer from a Minister of State, an answer which 
 only embodied Avith singular force a view far too prevalent in this 
 country formerly on tliis subject. He replied " Never mind your 
 souls ! grow tobacco ! " ^'^ 
 
 The spirit of these words is indeed one which is to be traced in 
 every instance where one man makes another a mere macliine to 
 get wealth for him, and not the least often in this country : in the 
 ignorant agricultural labourer, the over-worked domestic servant, 
 the factory cluld ; but never perhaps has it been so undisguisedly 
 put forth as in this truly diabohcal declaration. 
 
 Tliis spirit then, I say, had not a little to do with the alienation 
 of feeling on the part of the North American Colonies towards 
 England, which, when fui-ther roused at a later period by the un- 
 wonted imposition of an imperial tax, led them so readily to wish to 
 abandon their connexion with her. It might be shewn, if I had 
 time to go into details, that wherever the influence of the Church ^"*''i^"'=® ^ 
 of England was most felt in these Colonies, there also was the most of England, 
 loyal feeling towards the Crown of England, and conversely.^^^ But 
 
 (1) Franklin's Correspondence, quoted in Grahame's History of the United States, 
 Vol. I. p. l.'ij. n. The original expression is even stronger, 
 
 (d) See Hawkins's Missions of the Church of England, especially pp. 210. 212. 241—2. 
 25,>— 4. 304—5. 'SiH. 330. 
 
 I shall not be understood as insinuating the slightest palliation for the long course of 
 
 C
 
 18 
 
 what power the State in this country hadj for the extension and en- 
 couragement of this rehgious influence, was never in any adequate 
 Society for the dcgrcc cxcrtcd. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 of'thrGospei. '"'as founded in 1701, as it has continued to exist since, for the 
 very purpose of supplying the lack of national efforts for the estab- 
 lishment of Christianity in the settlements and missions of North 
 America. You will observe particularly that I am not here speak- 
 ing of the general religious condition of these Colonies : but of that 
 condition in respect of the national will of the mother-country as 
 expressed through the Government and through the National 
 Church. Tor in those days these two organs of the nation acted 
 in such matters in a coincident manner. No Government ever 
 thought of actively supporting, though it might passively allow, 
 any form of religion but that of the Church of England : nor can 
 it be said that the nation or the Church acted on any large scale 
 independently of the Government. But it would be very unjust to 
 represent those Colonies as in the same state of religious neglect 
 with respect to other forms of Christian belief, as they were in with 
 respect to the Church of England. ]\Iaryland \vas colonized by 
 Roman Catholics, New England by Puritans, Pennsylvania by 
 other religious Quakcrs : and w^ere all more or less strongly imbued with the dis- 
 tinctive character, and provided with the rehgious institutions, of 
 these various communities. But these were the private efforts of 
 isolated bodies, and in no sense can be said to have proceeded from 
 the nation as a whole. 
 
 I am speaking then here of the Church of England; and it is a 
 singular and lamentable fact, that the frequent and explicit en- 
 treaties of the Churchmen among the Colonists themselves for that 
 which, almost alone, absolutely requires the active consent of the 
 Desire for State, namely that Bishops should be given them, Mas met, espe- 
 Bishops. pjjjjiy ijy ministers of o])enly irreligious, if not atheistical minds, 
 such as Sir li. Walpole,''^ and when the merely political reasons 
 for an ecclesiastical establishment were felt more feebly than at 
 home, by constant neglect and refusal.'"^^ On the importance of 
 this great and fundamental element in our Colonial Church some- 
 thing farther will hereafter be said. 
 First Colonial A sliglit practical acknowledgment of error in this respect was 
 made after the loss of the Colonies now forming the American 
 
 misgovernment on the part of this country towards the Colonies which she so deservedly lost : 
 least of all for the fatal measures which immediately preceded and caused the separation. I 
 speak only of the fact, as above stated. 
 
 This statement is quite consistent with, and is indeed illustrated by, the fact that at a 
 late period of our American dominion, the proposal to introduce Episcopacy into these Col- 
 onics, to be established by law, with a general jurisdiction, and supported out of the public 
 funds of the provinces, met with strong though partial opposition, especially in Puritan New 
 England. [Grahame's History of the United States. Vol. III. p. 301)— li!. Vol. IV. pp. 138. 
 140. 305.] It must be remembered that this writer, though ol signal learning and ability, 
 was deeply imbued with republican and anti-ecciesiastical feelings. 
 
 (1) See Lord Hervey's Memoirs. Vol. II. p. 527. 
 
 (2) See Hawkms's Missions of the Church of England, especially Ch. XVII. and pp. 
 376. 383—6. 
 
 See. 
 
 I
 
 19 
 
 Union, by the establislimeut of the Bishopric of Nova Scotia, the 
 first of our Colonial Sees^ with nominal jurisdiction over our re- 
 maining possessions in that quarter. But with regard to these, 
 Avith the exception of Canada, namely the maritime dependencies 
 of Nova Scotia (afterwards divided into two provinces, called Nova other North 
 Scotia and New Brunswick) and Newfoundland, it must be said cXnUs? 
 that their origin also, like that of the more southern provinces in 
 that continent, as far as the State in England was concerned, was * 
 more from the desire of gainful traffic than anything else, and 
 indeed of traffic exclusively gainfid to this country/'^ The tim- 
 ber and the fishing trade, especially the latter in Newfoundland, Newfoundland, 
 were the most important branches of this commerce: and so much 
 so, that in the time of Burke, though by no means at present, the 
 Newfoundland trade was reckoned the most valuable part of the 
 whole foreign trade of the empire.'-^ But so little was this looked 
 on as constituting a claim on this country for moral benefits in re- 
 turn for these material advantages, that it was not till recently that 
 that large though uninviting Colony was looked upon as more than 
 a mere station, or endowed with either civil or ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions at all commensurate with its condition. ^"^^ And yet to the 
 considerate Christian, it might have been thought, the contemplation 
 of an ignorant and irreligious popvdation of fishermen could not but 
 have suggested those sacred and famihar words : " ToUow me, and 
 I will make you fishers of men."^^^ Of the results of this course 
 of policj^, a little more will be said when we come to speak of the 
 actual condition of these Colonies. 
 
 The title of this country to these possessions was that of original 
 occupation. The case of Canada is different : that^ as you are aware, Canada, 
 was obtained by conquest ; a mode of acquisition which, when the 
 war is a legitimate one, and the acquiring country recognizes the 
 moral obligations of possession as well as its mere rights, is not 
 open to objection. It cannot be said that England adequately 
 fulfilled the latter of these conditions. In Lower Canada indeed, 
 where, as I have said, the population was Erench and Eoman Catho- 
 lic, we were bound by treaty to recognize and allov*' tlie existing 
 Church establishment to remain: and, from the stationary character 
 of that population, I believe its condition in this respect is not now 
 materially different from what it was then. But in Western or Up- 
 per Canada, which may be said to have been colonized and formed 
 almost entirely since the conquest, the religious neglect of which 
 
 (I) The possession of Nora Scotia was long (lisi)uted between Trance and England. 
 But it seems to have been first occupied by the Knfrlish, in the time of Jaines I. 
 Prince Edward's Island was ceded by the French, with Cape Hreton, in 1745. 
 (■^) observations on a late State of the I'.'atiun. [Burke's Works. Vol. II. p. 6G.] 
 
 (3) It was formerly the practice to send as Governor to Newfoundland some naval 
 OflScer, who went in May and returned in November every year. Pennant's Arctic Zoology, 
 quoted in Encycl. Kritann. Art. Newfoundland. 
 
 See also Hawkins's Missions of the Church of England, p. .'U". 
 
 (4) Matt. IV. I'J.
 
 20 
 
 this coantry for a long time was guilty^ was similar to what we have 
 noticed in regard to the other Colonies : and with the less excuse, 
 masmuch as in French Canada the example of a rehgious estab- 
 Hshment, which had been planted there by the care of the Govern- 
 ment of France and the Church of Eome, was remarkably complete 
 and well-organized. I have only time to notice one illustration of 
 this neglect on the part of the English Government. In the change 
 Clergy of the coustitutiou of the Canadas, enacted by what is called the 
 iteserves. Constitutional Act of 1791, passed by Mr. Pitt, a provision was 
 made for the reservation throughout the province of certain lands 
 for the support of the clergy. But this provision was a dead letter, 
 and never acted upon for 50 years; the only effect of it being that 
 these lands were left waste and unoccupied amidst the advancing 
 cultivation of the province, retarding thus instead of advancing 
 its progress in civilization : and it is only of late years, that steps 
 have been taken in earnest to apply these lands to their intended 
 purpose, with this significant difference however, that whereas the 
 framers of the Act unquestionably meant them for the sustentation 
 of Ministers of the Church of England, the altered state of feeling 
 on these points has made it unavoidable to appropriate them to the 
 use of various denominations of Protestant Ciiristians. 
 West Indies. Of the Wcst Indian Colonies, the large and fertile province of 
 Guiana, better known as Demerara, on the mainland of South 
 America, and a few of the islands, as Trinidad and St. Lucia, were 
 obtained by conquest or cession from the French, Spanish, or Dutch, 
 in the last great war. But the greater number of the insular pos- 
 sessions of Great Britain in those seas have belonged to us for two 
 centuries or more : tlie most celebrated of them, Jamaica, was fii'st 
 occupied in the time of Cromwell. Originally, like all those countries, 
 it had fallen to the lot of Spain, in consequence of the fortunate 
 advantage obtained by that kingdom over the rest of Europe in 
 having sent out Columbus under her auspices : and it came into the 
 hands of England by conquest. Others, as Antigua, Barbadoes, 
 St. Kittys, Avcre acquired by unopposed occupation, some of them 
 indeed appearing to have been almost desert at the time when the 
 English took possession of them. The objects in view seem to have 
 been partly, as in the case of other Colonies, the estabhshment of 
 a valuable monopohzed trade, partly the mihtary one of an effective 
 counterpoise, in those possessions, to tlie power of other nations, 
 especially that of Spain, so much dreaded in those times. 
 
 It may be admitted, that in some respects in the West Indies, as 
 
 Reiieious ^'^g^i'ded the free population of the islands, something more of a sys- 
 
 provision. tcmatic religious provision was at one time or another estabHshed 
 
 under the authority of England, than in others of her dependencies. 
 
 Parochial divisions were made, and legal endowments for ministers, 
 
 by the Colonial Legislatures . But the whole history of the connexion
 
 21 
 
 between England and tlie West Indies^ even before tliey came into 
 our possession^ is blurred and blotted by the pervading presence of 
 those accursed elements^ slavery and the slave-trade, it was in the ''^^"" 
 reign of Elizabeth^ while all that quarter of the world was still un- 
 der Spanish sway, that the first ship load of Africans was conveyed 
 by English hands to America, and sold to the Spaniards. The ill- 
 starred speculator who opened thus this fountain of evil, was 
 named Sir John Hawkins. ^'^ It is not certain that he deliberately 
 intended to sell these unfortunate creatures into real slavery: he 
 may have meant simply to transfer them to a scene of suitable 
 and advantageous labour, himself receiving remuneration, as a sort 
 of contractor, from those who engaged them. But this was in 
 fact the beginning of the African slave-trade: and till 3 807 the 
 history of our West Indian Colonies is mainly the history of our 
 share in that atrocious system, which England at length in that 
 year gave up. TiU 1833, when the great Act of Emancipation 
 passed, it is the history of West Indian slavery: a far less evil indeed 
 than the trade which supplied the human subjects of that slavery, 
 but still fraught with evils that cannot easily be exaggerated. 
 
 I am not of course going into any lengthened account of these Their condition, 
 systems. The origin of our West Indian Colonies has been stated: 
 and confining myself to the view which I have formerly mentioned, 
 that of the moral responsibility of this country as to the actual 
 condition of the population subject to its dominion, I will advert 
 shortly to the state, in which, during the far greater part of the time 
 for which we have possessed those islands, this country was con- 
 tent, nay studious, to leave the majority of their inhabitants, 
 namely the slaves. We assume now that these slaves were to be 
 imported, and were to be in bondage, a system of course in itself 
 most deeply criminal : but we look upon them simply as subjects . 
 of England. 
 
 Now the cruelties which, as we know, were often inflicted by 
 slave-owners on their slaves, were never actually countenanced by 
 the law, though the redress provided by it was frequently a very 
 inadequate one : but as to the broad facts of their condition as a 
 population, in reference to our particular subject, it is best described 
 by the simple statement that on the whole they were left in a state "^**^^°"'n- 
 of heathenism. It is impossible from want of time to produce 
 lengthened evidence of tliis fact : but I will quote two passages from 
 an interesting collection of Sermons preached at the Anniversaries 
 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, selected from the 
 whole period of its existence since 1701. The first is from Bishop 
 Butler, writing in 1739: and those who are acquainted Avith the Bishop Butler, 
 peculiar style of that great writer, wiU be aware how much more is 
 conveyed than the mere words taken strictly would signify, in the 
 
 (\) Grahame's History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 16 &c.
 
 22 
 
 grave irony of his expressions. " Of these our Colonies, the slaves 
 ought to be considered as inferior members, and therefore to be 
 treated as members of them, and not merely as cattle or goods. 
 Nor can the highest property possible to be acquired in these ser- 
 vants, cancel the obligation to take care of their religious instruction. 
 Despicable as they may appear in our eyes, they are the creatures 
 of God, and of the race of mankind for whom Christ died : and it 
 is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for which they 
 were made, and the means whereby they may become partakers of 
 the general redemption. On the contrary, if the necessity of the 
 case requires that they be treated with the very utmost rigour that 
 humanity will at all permit, as they certaiidy are, and, f(n^ our ad- 
 vantage, made as miserable as they well can be in the present 
 world, this surely heightens our obligation to put them into as ad- 
 vantageous a situation as we are able with regard to another. "^^^ It 
 is needless to point out what a view this discloses of the temporal, 
 as w^ell as spiritual, condition of the slaves. 
 Bishop Porteus. The secoud extract was written more than forty years later, by 
 Bishop Porteus. " They," (the slaves,) " are, in general, considered 
 as mere machines and instruments to work with, as having neither 
 understandings to be cultivated, nor souls to be saved. To the greater 
 part not so much as the mere ceremony of baptism is administered; 
 and scarce any enjoy sufficient leisure or assistance for a proper 
 degree of instruction in tlie doctrines and the duties of religion. 
 Sunday is, indeed, a day which they are generally indulged with for 
 their own use : but they spend it, commonly, not in attending 
 public worship or receiving private instruction, but in visiting and 
 trafficking with each other, or in cultivating their own little allot- 
 ments of land, for which, except in one island, that of Jamaica, 
 they have seldom any other time allowed them. Thus it comes to 
 pass that, in the British Islands alone, there are upwards of four 
 hundred thousand human beings, of whom much the greatest part 
 live, most literally, without God in the world; without any know- 
 ledge of a Creator or a Redeemer ; without any one principle of 
 natural or of revealed religion, without the idea of one moral duty 
 except that of performing their daily task, and escaping the scourge 
 that constantly hangs over them. The consequence is, that they 
 are heathens, not only in their hearts, but in their lives." '-^ 
 
 No doubt exceptions maybe found to these statements, both in the 
 legislation and tlie maimers of these Colonies in former times. But 
 the importance of those exceptions may in some degree be estimated 
 from the following observation : that in a work written in 1 7 94, in 
 palhation of slavery and the slave-trade, the chapter relating to the 
 existing condition of the slaves in the West Indies contains not a 
 
 (1) Sermons before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1845. p. "6, [Butler's 
 Works, Vol. II. p. -'9:,'.] 
 
 {•■i) Sermons, &c. p. 1.59. [Porteus's Works. Vol. II. p. 396.J
 
 23 
 
 word about their religious state :'^" and their moral state as influ- 
 enced by Christianity may be judged from the fact, that this writer 
 quietly speaks of polygamy as general among the slaves, and says, 
 that its abolition would be inconsistent with their superstitions S^^ 
 
 ATith one word about the Cape of Good Hope, I must pass on to 
 the Australian Colonies. The Cape was conquered and lost more cood'Hope. 
 than once in the French war, but finally ceded to us at the peace 
 in 1815. Of its religious condition it must be said, that at the 
 time when its first Bishop was sent out there, about three years 
 ago, while there was none of our possessions in which Dissenting 
 bodies had shewn greater and more laudable zeal in missions, there 
 was none in which the Church of England had fallen into more 
 feebleness and decay. Of the great improvement, and still greater 
 promise of improvement, that has taken place there since that time, 
 a little may be added hereafter. 
 
 The origin of the Australasian Colonies in New Holland and Van Australasia. 
 Diemen's Land was different from the preceding. It is perfectly 
 simple and indisputable, and easily described. New South Wales 
 was, at its first foundation about sixty years ago, nothing but Avhat 
 is so well known as Botany Bay. The first English settlers in those 
 magnificent regions of the earth, were a small batch of convicts and 
 nothing else, with their keepers, sent to those newly-discovered 
 territories in the stress under which this country then laboured as to 
 the disposal of her criminals, after the loss of the North American 
 Colonies, to which they used to be sent. Anything more opposed, 
 tlian this specimen of Colonization, to the grand idea, and even to 
 the imperfect examples which have been given, of that noble work, 
 cannot well be imagined. Contrast, for a moment, the old Greek 
 emigration, with its freedom, its mixture of classes, its household 
 gods accompanying, — or even the Pilgrim Fathers of Ajnerica, leav- 
 ing the shores of Holland after a solemn united prayer and pastoral 
 address and benediction — with this obscure and ignominious plan- 
 tation of undiluted vice, ^nthout priest or teacher, with no penitence 
 for the past and no care for the future, on that solitary coast ! 
 
 Such was the origin of the Austrahan Colonies : and for some 
 time such also was their progress, for no free settlers went there 
 for several years after their first beginning. It is as if it had been 
 intended, that these nations, for they will be no less, situated as they 
 are in regions boundless alike in extent and capabilities, instead of 
 again symbolizing, as they will do, the oak of centuries, emblematic 
 of their mother-country, were to be but as the ephemeral mush- 
 room, and therefore fitly planted and nurtured, as that is, in the 
 mere filth and refuse of the world. 
 
 The liistory of these Colonies is so recent, that their immense 
 
 (1) Fdwards's History of the West Indies. B. IV. ch. 5. 
 {i) lb. Vol. II. p. 117.
 
 24 
 
 progress and improvement from this foul beginning may be better 
 treated of under the head of their actual condition than otherwise. 
 But with reference to the element which has been adverted to^ and 
 which has marked their condition more or less from the first, namely 
 Convicts, convictism, a few remarks must be made. I said that the origin 
 of the Australian was different from that of the American Colonies. 
 But a dismal sort of analogy may be fancied, iu a religious respect, 
 between Engiand^s treatment of the slaves exported from Africa to 
 America, and her treatment of the convicts transported from home 
 to Australia. The slaves began as heathens, and reinained so. The 
 convicts were worse : beginning as nominal Christians, they fell to 
 a state more guilty than heathenism, and so passed to their punish- 
 ment : and iu tliis state then ^^^ remained. Let the following fact 
 be sometimes remembered by those, whose special dehght it is to 
 dwell on the fair side of the history of tliis country : that till the 
 year 1842, no rehgious provision whatever was made by the Govern- 
 ment of England for the reformation of her transported criminals 
 in Austraha. It is hardly necessary to observe that criminals ac- 
 tually under punishment are both themselves entirely powerless, 
 even if they had the wish, towards their own spiritual improvement, 
 and are almost entirely beyond the reach of any voluntary efforts of 
 indi\'iduals : and that therefore, as here in Eugland the institution 
 of gaol chaplains, paid by the Government, sufficiently proves, the 
 State itself is responsible for the care of them in these respects. 
 What was then done, and has been attempted since, will be refer- 
 Transporta- red to subscqueutly : meanwhile I will only add, that the results of 
 tion System. ^^^ transportation system, in the condition of our convicts, espe- 
 cially in Yan Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island, were so indescrib- 
 ably frightful, that at the present moment the Government, having 
 been forced on this account for a time to suspend transportation 
 to the existiug penal Colonies, find the greatest possible difficulty, 
 a difficulty which I do not believe they will ever entirely surmount, 
 in resuming it to those Colonies, or in establishing it to any others : 
 from the utter repugnance of all of them to admit within their bor- 
 ders what has elsewhere proved to be a germ that was to expand 
 into such a terrible growth of evil ; and without their own consent 
 we could not if we would, and we ought not if we could, to compel 
 them to do so. Some of you may have noticed in the newspapers 
 that at this moment the Cape Colony is in a state of what must 
 almost be called passive rebellion on this account. I am not con- 
 cerned to defend all that the inhabitants of that Colony ha\^e done 
 in tliis matter : and I am bound to state my opinion, though not 
 without much doubt and hesitation, that this feeling in our Colonies 
 is a somewhat exaggerated one, and that under certain regula- 
 tions, which I cannot specify at length, it is not hopeless that 
 transportation might be so conducted as to be even beneficial to
 
 25 
 
 our dependencies, as it is almost indispensable to ourselves : and 
 that it might be no more than a fair contribution on their part to- 
 wards alleviating the general necessities of the empire. ^'^ But I am 
 far enough from wondering at the existence of tliis feeling. On the 
 contrary, I consider it to be one higlily praiseworthy in its nature : 
 founded, as it is, on considerations obviously adverse to the mere 
 pecuniary interests of those who hold it, (as the labour of convicts 
 would be beyond all doubt advantageous to them in that respect,) 
 but resulting from a lofty and generous sense of their own moral 
 dignity as free communities, and a determination to preserve them- 
 selves, and still more their posterity, from pollutions such as from 
 various reasons I can only allude to, but which have been realized 
 to an extent that could not easily be exaggerated, ^itliin the life- 
 time of the present generation. 
 
 I must be careful to point out however, that when I say that the 
 Australian Colonies originated in the transportation of a few con- 
 nets, I mean that the two oldest settlements in that quarter. New 
 South Wales and Yan Diemen^s Land, were planted in that man- 
 ner. That was the beginning of our Colonization there; and if these 
 two Colonies had not arisen it is possible that the remaining ones 
 would not. But the new Australasian Colonies of South Austraha, 
 Western Austraha, and New Zealand, are entirely independent both AuTtr^fa'^aTr' 
 in their origin and progress of New South Wales and A^an Diemen^s ^^"^ Zealand. 
 Land, and have not the slightest taint of convictism. Their inha- 
 bitants are extremely sensitive on this point, and if I were to include 
 them in the remotest manner among penal settlements they would 
 justly call me a libeller. Indeed each of these Colonies has been 
 estabhshed, with the countenance of the Government, by persons 
 and companies zealous for the realization of various theories of col- 
 onization which, whether sound or not, have at least no mixture of 
 anything in them which is not of the purest and loftiest nature. 
 
 I have now gone tlirough, as far as the time and other conditions 
 of this address seemed to permit, the two first parts of this the chief 
 narrative portion of the Lecture, namely the origin and progress of 
 our chief Colonies : with the necessary limitations however, when 
 
 (\) I have said that I give this opinion with doubt and hesitation; and I am satisfied 
 that the more the whole of this ditficuU question is examined by any one, the les3 he will 
 be inchned to advocate any given solution of it in the confident manner which we often hear. 
 Nothing can be more palpable than the evils : nothing less so, in my judgment, than the 
 trustworthiness, in any high degree, of the remedies oSered. 
 
 With regard to the regulations alluded to in the text, without pretending to offer any 
 original suggestions regarding them, I will only venture to adopt so much of what has been 
 propounded by others as may justify the following proposition ; that if ever Transportation 
 could be made comparativtly innoxious, it would be by attention to these principles in 
 dealing with convicts: 
 
 1. A selection at home of convicts for transportation. 
 
 2. Due religious provision for them, both in the voyage and in the Colony. 
 
 3. Dispersion of them to the greatest possible degree. 
 
 4. A preliminary period of reforraatorv discipline at home. 
 
 But I am obliged to repeat that it may be feared, from the feeling of our Colonists, that 
 no such experiments will be tried with their consent: in which case they must be given up. 
 No difficulties are to be put in the scale against the disaffection of our dependencies on so 
 vital a question as this. 
 
 D
 
 26 
 
 it was impossible to do more thau give a brief sketch, that I have 
 mainly adverted to their moral condition, and have wished to 
 direct your attention principally to the part which tliis nation as a 
 nation, and mostly as acting tlu-ough its Government, has taken in 
 the matter. It is true that I have rather presented the dark side 
 of this picture. And I certainly cannot with sincerity express any 
 but this opinion — and I believe any fair inquirer will be led to the 
 same — that former Governments of tliis country have had on the 
 whole but low and unworthy motives to guide them in the founda- 
 tion and conduct of our Colonies. Not indeed that even in this 
 G d faith ^^^^ there is not a better side of the picture. One great merit, 
 observed by wliicli lias always bceu held to be the main ground of our security 
 -ng an . ^^^ ^^^^ possessiou of our vast Indian Empire, that of trutlifulness in 
 public dealings, may also be claimed, and perhaps with more justice, 
 for England, in respect of her Colonies. None of them have been 
 planted or maintained by fraud or trickery, either towards other 
 nations or towards their original natives : what has been done has 
 been done in the face of day. I meant to have dwelt somewhat on 
 Aborigines, the qucstiou of tlic treatment of aborigines in our Colonies : but 
 time will not allow me to say more than that, though, with the 
 signal exception of New Zealand, those unfortunate races have been 
 far too much neglected, they have not been visited with the shame- 
 less fraud and cruelty, such as for example the Spanish Government 
 sanctioned towards the unhappy Americans, after its misused dis- 
 covery of that continent. 
 Present asptct ^^^^ ^<^^^^ ^'^'^^^'^ ^^^^ siiiglc additional remark that this condemna- 
 of the Colonies, tory vicw is to be understood only of the State, and that beyond 
 all doubt the views of voluntary Colonizers and Emigrants from 
 this country have often been of the highest character, — to which, 
 and to the native goodness of the Anglo-Saxon race perpetuating 
 itself in our Colonial descendants, we must attribute it that the 
 faults or short-comings of our national policy on this subject, have 
 to so great an extent been overruled in the actually resulting con- 
 dition of those communities, — I proceed to a short and general 
 survey of the present aspect of the Colonies of which we have 
 treated. And I have had the less scruple in dwelling more on the 
 faults of past times in this regard than the merits, because un- 
 doubtedly in the part of the subject to which we have now come, 
 More favourable, the uiost sigual improvement may be asserted in those very respects, 
 in which before we have pointed out matter for blame. I am not 
 much addicted to large and sweeping comparisons of the present 
 day with former times, such as many persons are fond of making, 
 some in order to magnify, others as much in order to disparage, our 
 own generation relatively to our forefathers. I doubt whether we 
 have the means fuUy to make such a comparison; and I am sure 
 that there is danger in either conclusion : danger of presumption
 
 27 
 
 on the one baud, of untliankfulness on the other. Still,, to a man 
 
 of well-regulated mind, it should perhaps lead to none but good 
 
 results that he should recognize a gradual improvement in the 
 
 progress of mankind, as a whole. It is a great and sober-minded 
 
 writer, ]\Ir. Hallam, who has said^^^ that there is no passage in Homer 
 
 which he more frequently repeats, or with more pleasure, than tliis : 
 
 " We, with our sires compar'd, superior praise 
 Claim justly. "(^) 
 
 At all events what I have said applies only to the whole. It is evi- 
 dent enough that in some respects we are better, in others worse 
 than our ancestors : and there needs be no hesitation in saying that 
 in the religious state of most of our Colonies, and in the feehng on 
 that subject at home, there is at this day a very great improvement. 
 If this be so, and if there be hope of still fiu'ther good progress in 
 the future, we need not fear to feel pride and happiness in our Colo- 
 nies, even though their origin and earlier days furnish much cause 
 for shame and regret. Tew great nations could bear to have their 
 first beginnings traced and laid bare with the minuteness \^itll which 
 those of our Colonies are known. The old Latin Satirist dwelt 
 with indignation on the existing evils of his country, but cared 
 little for the thought that imperial Eome had begun as a place of 
 refuge for runaway slaves and criminals, when he said 
 
 " Still must the search M'ith that asvlum end 
 From whose polluted source we all descend "(3) 
 
 There is still the most ample opportunity and the largest promise 
 of reward, in all the English Colonies, for the exertion of aU the 
 influences of good wliich we can bring to bear upon them. 
 
 I must mainly confine myself, as I have said, to the points 
 wliich I adverted to in the review of former times. In the West west indies. 
 Indies, the e\dl \yhich was mentioned, and which might almost be 
 called the only evil, as being the parent of nearly all others, was the 
 institution of slavery, recognized and encouraged by the mother- 
 country. That, as I need not tell you, has been swept away so 
 that not a vestige of it remains, by the great Act of Emancipation 
 in 1833. I cannot enter into the many collateral considerations 
 which this subject suggests : but with reference to what was before 
 noticed, the actual moral and religious state of the black popula- Kmancipation. 
 tion, I beHeve it may be said that with hardly a single counteract- 
 ing circumstance, the effect of freedom to them has been one of 
 unquahfied benefit. The one mischief that has followed, of suffi- 
 cient magnitude to require to be noticed, is that they certainly 
 are, or have been until recently, an idle population : not willing 
 enough to work. But even this, into the various causes of 
 which I cannot enter, does not seem to have been attended by 
 
 (1) Constitutional History of England. Vol. I. p. 159. n. 4to edit. 
 
 (2) niad. IV. 481. [Cowper's Translation.] 
 
 (3) Gifford's Juvenal. VIII. 396. [.See also 388—393.]
 
 28 
 
 its usual bad results, luxury and profligacy, to nearly such an ex- 
 tent as might have been feared : and such a description as I read 
 to you from Bishop Porteus is wholly inapplicable to those races 
 now. Heathenism can no longer be predicated as the general state 
 of the people, though their Clu-istiauity is often an imperfect one, 
 and even more diversified as to sects and denominations than in 
 England : and as to that most significant feature in the moral as- 
 pect of any people, the relation between the sexes, whereas I stated 
 that among the slaves of old, polygamy was universal, among the 
 free blacks now, marriage is constantly on the increase. 
 
 A parallel change and improvement may be asserted with respect 
 to Australia. I suggested a kind of analogy between the convict 
 population there formerly, and the slave population of the West 
 Indies, as to England's neglect of their moral welfare. In Van 
 Diemen^s Land, which has been the chief receptacle for our con- 
 victs, at least a hearty attempt has been made to produce a similar 
 amelioration among them to what has taken place among the slaves. 
 But it has been made so much more recently, and the evils to be 
 encountered were so much more embarrassing, that it is not easy 
 to speak with confidence as to the real good that may as yet have 
 been done to those unfortunate persons. In the year 1842, how- 
 ever, as I before intimated, a systematic provision was begun on the 
 part of the Government of this country for the religious care of 
 the convicts when arrived in Van Diemen's Land. Eor some time 
 transportation to that Colony was suspended, in order to allow time 
 for these measures to produce good elfect. An Episcopal See has 
 been founded there, by the name of Tasmania : and the emigration 
 of free settlers has been largely promoted, so as at least to qualify 
 the original evil of an unmixed, or preponderating, population of 
 convicts. An earlier, and at present far more complete and effec- 
 tual apphcation of these remedies to the same evils has been made 
 under more favourable conditions to the great Colony of New South 
 Wales, which, as was stated, began as Van Diemen^s Land did, as 
 a mere convict station. I should have been sorry to have spoken 
 as I did, of the foundation and early days of what is now one of the 
 most flourishing and hopeful of all our dependencies, had I not been 
 able to speak as strongly of the contrast to that picture which its 
 present aspect and prospects present. Transportation to New 
 South Wales has now for many years ceased : and though there are 
 still some reclaimed convicts and descendants of convicts among 
 its inhabitants, the great increase of free emigration and natural 
 rapidity of increase in a population placed in the midst of plains 
 of boundless extent and fertility, have long ago so over-balanced 
 that original evil element, and are daily more and more doing so, 
 that there is no fear of New South Wales being ever again loaded 
 with the stigma of convictism.
 
 29 
 
 The province indeed of Port Pliilip, or ^Melbourne, is practically Port PhUip. 
 a separate settlement from the older regions about Sydney, though 
 as having been an offshoot from it, it must be referred to the same 
 origin : and has never been, in the least degree, a convict or penal 
 Colony. Here also, in New South Wales, the same mark of im- 
 provement which was noted as to Van Diemen^s Land must be ob- 
 served, in the foundation of three Episcopal Sees within its hmits, 
 where 15 years ago there was not one : and a better indication of 
 religious feeling I do not know in any Colony, than the fact that 
 the people of Sydney alone undertook some years ago to set apart 
 an aimual sum which shoidd accumulate till enough was raised for 
 the erection of a Cathedral, of which I have often seen the design, 
 and which would not be unbecoming in the centre of any Enghsh 
 Diocese. Strangely would this fact amaze the ghost of Captain 
 Cook the discoverer, or of any of the first planters, of Botany Bay, 
 could they rise again and witness it. 
 
 The leading mark of rehgious improvement in the North Ameri- North Ameri- 
 can Colonies is the same. The erection of the See of Nova Scotia <^*° ^°'°°'"''- 
 has been referred to. It took place in 1787, and that of Quebec 
 shortly afterwards : but thereafter for more than 40 years no such 
 further addition was made in those vast possessions, Avhile in the 
 same period no less than 18 Dioceses were founded by the volun- 
 tary efforts of Churchmen in the unendowed and unestabHshed 
 communion of our brethren in the United States. Since that 
 time, however, the additional Sees of Toronto in tipper Canada, 
 Newfoundland, and Predericton in New Brunswick, have been 
 estabhshed : and the Clergy Eeserve Pund, to which allusion was 
 formerly made, having become in good measure available, two new 
 Dioceses, by the better division of the extensive districts now com- 
 prised in those of Toronto and Quebec, are about to be formed. 
 
 The people of Lower Canada, I need not remind you, are most 
 of them Prench and Roman CathoKcs : but in Upper Canada, wliich 
 is purely EngUsh, or in the diocese of Toronto, a further evidence 
 of spiritual progress may be found by the increasing number of 
 Clergy. In 1800 there were 3 : in 1819, 9 : in 1833, 56 : in 
 1848, 128.^^^ It is needless to go through similar details for the 
 other North American Dioceses : in all of these, especially in the 
 new ones of Predericton and Newfoundland, a like increase of 
 Missionaries, much exceeding the mere relative increase of popu- 
 lation, will be found. 
 
 In thus estimating the religious progress of our Colonies, you p^^j^j^;^, 
 may have observed that I have dwelt prominently on the formation Bishoprics, 
 within them of many additional Dioceses. Including India and 
 the Hudson's Bay Territory, we have now 22 Colonial Bishops, 
 whereas 63 years ago we had not one, and 12 years ago, over 
 
 (1) Hawkias's Annals of the Diocese of Toronto, pp. 64. 86. 243.
 
 30 
 
 nearly the same extent of territory, we bad only 10.^'^ Now I have 
 done this advisedly, on various grounds. In the brief and general 
 survey which alone has been possible, it was best to take tbe largest 
 and most comprehensive fact that bore upon the subject: and such 
 seemed to be the formation of Dioceses rather than the mere send- 
 ing of Missionaries or the like. Moreover the same fact is the 
 best to illustrate the improved feeling of the State and the Govern- 
 ment at home, to which we have tlu'oughout mainly adverted : for 
 while Churches and Schools may be built and j\lissionaries sent, by 
 unaided private exertions, the formation always, and the endow- 
 ment often, of new Sees, requires the not merely formal but sub- 
 stantive assent and the real co-operation of the Govermnent. But 
 more than this : the foundation of Colonial Bishoprics is actually the 
 very first object that, among Churchmen, should engage the friends 
 of missions to our settlements : and their increasing number is not 
 merely a mark that their founders in this country are pursuing certain 
 opinions of their own as to tlie constitution of tlie Colonial Church, 
 but is really an unfailing proof, to a greater extent than anything else 
 can be, that the vital religion of the Church of England is making its 
 way in the Colonies. I must make a few remarks on this, because 
 it is by no means universally admitted. It is often said by persons 
 who take a superficial view of the subject, in the House of Com- 
 mons and elsewhere, that it would be better to send Clergy without 
 Bishops to the Colonies, as that can be done at a less expense, which 
 is true. Now, without dwelling on the obvious answers to this, 
 M'hich are of general appHcation, namely that such an argument, if 
 valid, would shew that there need be no Bishops anwhere, and 
 that if we plant Clergy without Bishops in the Colonies v<e are not 
 in fact placing the Church of England there, but some thing short 
 of it, inasmuch as the Episcopate is an essential and indeed is the 
 central and constituent element of that Church — without dwelling 
 on these and the other higher considerations of the subject, which 
 however I hold as strongly as anyone can — I will content myself with 
 the simple reply, that the only effectual way to obtain the very object 
 which the opponents themselves profess to have in view, namely a suf- 
 ficient number of Clerg}' in the Colonies, is to do what we now advise. 
 The way to haveClerg}- is to send Bishops, in due number and propor- 
 tion. This is what follows fi'om reasonmg, and is still more abun- 
 dantly established by experience. The presence of a Bishop — the 
 departure of a new Colonial Bishop for his See from these shores — has 
 been like that beautifid economy in the animal world, the queen bee 
 among the bees, without whom they wiU not gather nor go forth. 
 Never yet has a Colonial Church tlu-iven without its Bishop : never yet 
 has the appointment of one failed to be followed by the most marked 
 
 1,2) Hawkins's Missions of the Church of England, p. 428. 
 
 The number of Colonial Sees has been increased since the publication of this work.
 
 31 
 
 advance iu the spiritual well-being of the settlers. Of course I can- 
 not go into lengthened proofs of this : I assert it^ and have no fear 
 of any well-grounded contradiction. I will only mention one brief 
 illustration of it, because it is in pursuance of what I formerly pro- 
 mised, that I would advert to the great improvement of that one 
 of our Colonial Churches which did the most languish, that at the 
 Cape of Good Hope. The Bishop of Capetown left England ac- Capetown, 
 companied by 7 Clergymen and Catechists, and was followed \\'ithin 
 a year by 12 more: and within a year he found employment for 
 14 Clergy and 1 Catechists within the bounds of that neglected 
 Diocese.^'^ There is no position that I would more wiUingly under- 
 take to defend in any assembly of intelligent Churchmen than this, 
 that the way to stablish the Colonial Chui-ch is to lay its foundation 
 in the Episcopate. 
 
 I have dwelt mainly on the favourable religious aspect which, iu 
 comparison with former times, our Colonies now present, even as I 
 before rather noticed the worse side of the picture. But as I then 
 said that it was not to be supposed that this country had not in 
 some respects dealt more worthily with her Colonies, so now, con- 
 versely, I am bound to add, that it is only when thus comparing 
 present with past times that we can feel any great satisfaction in 
 the contemplation of the state of religion in these possessions. 
 
 There is not one of them, except perhaps parts of the ^Yest spiritual 
 Indies, in which among members of our Church, or the unconverted destitution, 
 heathen, spiritual destitution is not rather the rule than the excep- 
 tion : and destitution often of an altogether different kind from 
 anything that we are acquainted with at home. In Newfoundland, 
 one of our oldest Colonies, and in which a Bishop has been labour- 
 ing for several years, the consequence of the neglect of centuries, 
 to which I before alluded, has beeu that, in 1848, in 200 miles 
 of coast there was but one Deacon : and Labrador, which may be 
 called part of the same territory, was till very recently, if not still, 
 utterly unprovided with the ordinances of rehgion.^-^ This shews 
 what I mean by the spiiitual destitution abroad, and which I re- 
 member hearing well stated by Mr. Craufurd, the Eector 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 clotliing. 
 But in this sense we have no such tiling as real spiritual destitu- 
 tion iu this country. T\ hat we mean by spiritual destitution in a 
 district is, that in proportion to the number of inhabitants there 
 
 (1) Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 1818. p. cxsii. Colonial 
 Church Chronicle. May 1849. Vol. II. p. 44U. 
 
 (2) Report, &c. p. cxxxviii. Since this Lecture was delivered, I have seen with much 
 pleasure that the first Missionary of our Church has entered on bis labours in Labrador, — 
 Colonial Church Chronicle. December 1»18. Vol- III. p. 23.5.
 
 32 
 
 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 tiiis and physical want is, that where- 
 as the spiritual need is far worse than the physical, he that suffers 
 under the foruier 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 hterally 
 impossible for the best-disposed to enable themselves to receive 
 these blessed gifts, and there is in the strictest sense " a famine in 
 the land, not a famine of bread, nor a tbirst for water, but of hear- 
 ing the word of the Lord.'''^'^ 
 
 I have now finished what 1 had to say on the branch of the sub- 
 ject M^hich I have chiefly desired to bring before you. But, though 
 I am sensible that this address has already more than reached its 
 due Hmits, I cannot conclude without saying a few words, though 
 they must be not only few but also very general in their nature, on 
 Political the political relation between the Colonies and this country : what 
 re a ion. ^^ -^^^ 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 resembhng the 
 ancient Greek Colonization, such as I have described it, than many 
 Local self- pcrsous are aware. Almost absolute seK-government in all respects 
 government, ^as givcu by thosc 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 Coloides, it can hardly be 
 said that this independent system has ever been in force in them. 
 Without 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 
 
 (1) Amos. VIII. 2. 
 
 (2) Grahame's History of the United States. Vol. I. pp. 205. 316. II. 6.
 
 83 
 
 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 wliich 
 then Legislatures may pass. If it had been otherwise^ I could not 
 have charged tliis country^ acting through its Government^ with the 
 responsibihty 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 General coio- 
 systems, the Greek one of complete independence or the modern ^ ° '^^' 
 Enghsh one of complete control, or some medium between these 
 two, deserves our approval? whether we did right, not in neglecting 
 this responsibihty 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 inter- 
 est, to such of you as may have leisure or inchnation to pursue it. 
 
 I said before that we should not hastily conclude against that g^ggj^ system. 
 Grecian plan. The idea of a great country sending forth from all 
 classes witliin itself good and weU-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 ^^"'^sv^temf^'' 
 an official department at home. Por the evil of this system is that 
 while it is to a great extent only a pretence at government, it has 
 for the Colonies many of the evils of the most arbitrary govern- 
 ment, and hardly any of the advantages of any government. We 
 cannot, but in the most imperfect way, govern in England coun- 
 tries 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 botli with an enfeebhng spirit of 
 dependence upon us and a constant ii'ritation against om* 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 Enghsh 
 county : but such an idea is a delusion, from the obvious circum- 
 stance that they are not and cannot be represented in Parhament. 
 They are thus in a position of permanent inferiority, and, if they are 
 not, still they are ever Mable to be, the victims of legislation made 
 by the omnipotent power at home for its own sole benefit. The
 
 34 
 
 System of Co- aiicieiit Colouial system as it was called, for the regulation of trade 
 loniai Trade, j^g^^gg^ England and the Colonies, was so strong an illustration of 
 this actually being the case, that I will notice it; and to shew 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 coun- 
 try : 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 no where 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 them- 
 selves." ^^^ Could any one really expect that a system of undisguised 
 selfishness like tliis 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. 
 
 It does not follow however that the Greek system of absolute, or 
 almost absolute, chsconnexion between the mother-country and the 
 Colonies is the best that could be adopted. For the mere interests 
 of commerce I am inclined to beheve it may be so : and the ex- 
 ample of the trade between England and the United States since the 
 independence of the latter may be held to prove this. But besides 
 the sacrifice, wdiich is not to be disregarded, of aU the advantages, 
 of a nature not admitting of pecuniary estimation, which a country 
 derives from the mere fact of an extended empire,^*^ it is by no means 
 Moral View ^quaUy clear that the moral welfare whether of the mother-country 
 of the Greek or the Colouics is bcst promoted by this separation ; and possibly 
 the same example of the United States may tend to prove this also. 
 The moral responsibihty incurred in the foundation of a Colony, 
 which is complete and absolute, is but questionably discharged by 
 
 (1) Brougham's Memoirs of statesmen of the Time of Geo. III. 1st Series. Vol. I. p. 167. 
 
 (2) Observations on the State of the Nation. [Works. Vol. II. p. 156.] 
 
 (3) This is asserted by Bryan Edwards. [Hist, of the West Indies. Vol. II. p. 467. quoted 
 in M'CuUoch'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 some- 
 what less strong. 
 
 (4) See W^akefield's View of the Art of Colonization, p. 'J6. Mr. Godley's Letter to Mr. 
 Gladstone. Spectator, December 22, 1849.
 
 35 
 
 thus leaving it from tlie first to shift for itself. We may here again 
 throw some Hght on the question by looking, as we did before, at the 
 simple meaning of one of the words used in the subject. We call the 
 colonizing country the motker-country. Xow the Greek plan of 
 sending forth Colonists and thenceforth renouncing all care for their 
 guidance or control, is less like the operation of the human parental 
 feehug, than that of the animal instinct by which one of the lower 
 creatures gets rid of its offspring and ceases to love and care for it 
 at the earliest period at which it can possibly provide for itseK. 
 On the other hand by our present system we endeavour as it were 
 to keep the Colonies in a state of perpetual cliildhood. Of com'se American 
 this analogy must not be strained : but it may be interesting to system, 
 observe that it has been exactly followed in that system of coloniza- 
 tion which I before alluded to, the foundation of new states in its 
 AVestern Territories by the American Union. Those states pass 
 tlu'ough three stages of political existence, in which their internal 
 laws, and those of their connexion with the Union, are differently 
 regulated by the constitutional system of the Eepubhc ; and these 
 three stages, being those of their first beginning, their progress, and 
 their maturity, may be very precisely compared to the infancy of the 
 cluld, the adolescence of the youth, the full gro^Yth of the man. 
 Of course the difference between this and the British Empire is, 
 that when these states arrive at what is considered their period of 
 mature development, they cease to be Colonies in a political sense, 
 and become just like the elder provinces of the Union, which cannot 
 be the case withColonies like ours, separated from the parent country 
 by a vast extent of ocean. But allowing for tliis diversity, the 
 very same plan has been proposed by a writer of no small note to ^^^ ^ended^'to 
 be applied to our Colonies and to their connexion with England •S^'> our mutatiou. 
 by wliich their government also, and relation to this country, would 
 be different in the infancy of the Colony, in its early progress, and 
 in its state of more complete development : in the last stage their 
 condition being one of nearly entire independence. Without how- 
 ever going into any further discussion on this point, it may perhaps 
 be considered that tliis system is of too artificial and complex a 
 nature for the genius of our institutions; and I will content myself 
 with stating my own opinion to be in concurrence with that which 
 seems to be more and more extending among intelligent inquirers on 
 this matter : namely that the relations between this country and the 
 Colonies should be established on the following basis. The connexion 
 to be a permanent one : the internal Government of each Colony to be 
 framed as to its general system, as nearly as possible, (and there is no 
 reason why the resemblance should not be almost perfect,) on the prin- 
 
 (I) Roebuck on the Colonies of England. This work was inaccurately referred to (from 
 memory) in a former note, a? ' Roebuck on Colonization.'
 
 Religious In- 
 
 36 
 
 ciples of the British Constitution: and thenceforward the entire 
 control of all matters solely relating to the Colony itself to be left to 
 the Legislature of the Colony, while subjects bearing on the inter- 
 ests of the empire at large should be determined by the Imperial 
 authority. Similarly, their ordinary expenses of government should 
 be borne by the Colonies themselves. ^^^ 
 
 No doubt this is stated some^vhat in the abstract, and applies 
 mainly to the Colonies in their first foundation, or to those which 
 are still recent, as the Austrahan Colonies : but it is impossible to 
 consider what modifications might be required in particular cases. 
 
 To revert for a moment to the rehgious questions which we have 
 Rtitutions in bccu Considering : it must be fully admitted that according to this 
 o onies. ppj^gjpig ^j^g 1-egulation and support of their own religious institu- 
 tions should be left to the Colonies themselves. It is undoubtedly 
 not a sound system upon which resources in this country, such 
 for instance as the funds of the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel, which in these days may be said to represent the National 
 Church for Missionary purposes more than the Government does, 
 are applied to the jjermaneni support of Churches and Clergy in the 
 Colonies, Such permanent support ought, on every ground, and 
 mainly for the sake of the moral well-being and elevation of the 
 Colony itself, to be undertaken by that Colony. And in so far as 
 that Society has proceeded, as no doubt it has done to some extent, 
 upon that erroneous system, so far it should be admitted that its 
 
 (1) I am aware that some authorities, (as Mr. Godley, in the able letter above referred 
 to> go even beyond this, and wouid leave to the first Colonists even the original framing of 
 their own constitution, I cannot however assent to this. It seems to rae more suitable 
 in every way that the broad outline of the Colonial constitution should be laid down at 
 home, at their foundation : and I cannot consider that any country whose institutions, as to 
 their leading features, are essentially diflerent from those of England, is in any real sense 
 a part of our empire. 
 
 The power then of the Colonies to regulate their own affairs, mentioned in the text, 
 must be understood to be subject to the great principles of such their constitution ; [see 
 Mr. Adderley's Resolutions of July 16, 18 ID, printed for the House of Commons: in my 
 judgment the ablest exposition of this question that I have seen.] The qufstion, what 
 should be done in case of a Colony desiring to alter this constitution, is one which I 
 would ad\isedly leave undecided. It may of course arise : but if it did I should take it as 
 a sign that any real connexion between this country and that Colony was no longer possible 
 or desirable. It should therefore remain, on the analogy of so many questions that may 
 be imagined in the working of the Pritish Constitution, and of which the only practical so- 
 lution lies in the tacit supposition that such collisions will in fact be averted by the mutual 
 forbearance of balanced powers. 
 
 Nor is it correct to say that such an unlimited discretion would be after the model of 
 the charters to our early American Colonies. Not to mention other points, they generally 
 contained a provision that the colonial legislation should not be inconsistent with the laws 
 of England: a provision vaguely expressed, and very indefinite in its results, [see Lewis on 
 the Government of Dependencies. Ch. V. and Note M.] but which in the mind of its framers 
 clearly extended e\en beyond what I have said in the test. 
 
 In the text I have not said, as some would, that the expense of the defence of the Col- 
 onies should be wholly borne by themselves. Undoubtedly they ought to do all they can 
 towards it, and much more than they do ; but I would not have this country declare posi- 
 tively that her forces should never be allowed to give gratuitous aid to the Colonies, even 
 against local enemies. Similarly I would lay stress, in the text, on the words ' ordinary 
 expenses of their Civil Government.' I would not say that for large and unusual expenses, 
 such as great public works, the assistance of England should never be given to the Colonies. 
 In all thes' matters I would go on the principle of England being the superior and more 
 powerful party of the two, aud that therefore she may assume the character of a generous 
 protector in case of need : while the general objects of Colonial policy seem to be sufficiently 
 provided for by the system indicated in the text, understood as the general rule.
 
 37 
 
 course should be altered, though it cau ouly be done gradually. 
 But let no one imagine for a moment that tliis admission in the 
 remotest degree weakens the claim which tliis Society has on the 
 support of Churchmen ; — it greatly strengthens it : its operations 
 should be modified, not diminished: — they should be much enlarged. 
 I may be excused for dwelling a little on this point, as it is one 
 in which I have taken much interest, and on which indeed I pub- 
 lished a short pamphlet in the beginning of the present year. 
 
 In the first place there are the vast multitudes of unconverted 
 heathens within our dominions in India and elsewhere, the laboui' 
 for the conversion of whom should fall much more upon this coun- 
 try than upon any of her dependencies : and tliis work alone would 
 require much more than the actual resources at the command of 
 the Society. But without dwelKng on tliis, the particular circum- 
 stance wliich should give a direction to the exertions of om- Mis- orEmrgrantl. 
 sionarj" Societies coimected with the Colonies, is one which is 
 pecuhar to our Colonial Empire and to its relation with England : 
 it is the never-ceasing, ever-increasing, annual stream of emigration 
 from tins country to those settlements. 
 
 At the general question of this emigration, which is a most ex- 
 tensive one, I can only just glance. I cannot doubt that not only, 
 as I have said, it is ever increasing, but that we ought to rejoice 
 that it is, and to strive that it shall be so. In nearly all our Colonies 
 there is an urgent and immediate demand for men. The popula- 
 tion of this country is increasing at the rate of nearly 1000 a day. 
 Kow it may be true, and I believe it is, that the resources of this 
 country, if fully developed, are equal to even mure than tliis rate of 
 increase. But from the necessity of the case tliis process of de- 
 velopment is a gradual one, and is ever lagging behind the needs 
 of the people : whereas the resource of thinly peopled lands in our 
 Colonies and elsewhere is, as I said, immediate, and at least should 
 be employed concurrently with the other. Moreover, though the 
 whole annual emigration from this countrymaybe in amount notvery 
 inadequate, it is defective in that it often does not take away those 
 who are the best to be taken, and often does not reheve the districts 
 most needing reHef. Such a state of things in the same empire as 
 one part much over-peopled while the rest is under-peopled, cannot 
 in these days continue without great efforts being made to alter it. 
 Such are indeed made, and not unsuccessfully : but I am satisfied 
 that a statesman of practical genius on this whole subject, who shall 
 best teach us how to construct, in the expressive figure of a power- 
 ful writer, " a free bridge for Emigrants,"^^^ to carry, more readily 
 than can be now done, those who wish and who ought to emigrate, to 
 new and untried lands, is one of the greatest needs which England 
 now has. 
 
 (1) Carlyle's Past and Present, p. 357.
 
 38 
 
 To return however from this slight digression, to our present 
 point of the operation of Missionary Societies. I refer more par- 
 ticularly to the emigration of the needier classes. And in respect 
 to them, the system on which they emigrate is not only en- 
 couraged and urged on in various ways in this country, but 
 England is nationally responsible for it, inasmuch as it is regulated 
 and controlled with the greatest minuteness, and on the whole very 
 well, as to temporal interests, by a Government department, the 
 Laud and Emigration Commissioners. Now in reference to these 
 emigrants, without attempting to go into details, I may be allowed 
 to quote from the pamplilet alluded to, the words in which I stated 
 what seems to be the right principle of action, as to their spiritual 
 care. 
 
 " We encourage in every possible way, for tlie relief of this 
 country, for their own benefit, and that of the Colonies, the de- 
 parture from its shores of vast bodies of Emigrants, and pom* them 
 into our North American and Austrahan Colonies. What these 
 Colonies have a right to demand is, that concurrently with the pro- 
 gress of this mere human supply, we should send out both the men, 
 in due numerical proportion, who are needed for its moral and 
 spiritual care, and the means for their continuance in tlie Colony 
 during those early stages of settlement, when the Emigrants are 
 unable duly to provide those means for themselves. "^'^ 
 
 Their condition I fccl assurcd that the reasonableness of this principle will be 
 after arrival, generally admitted. The settlers in a Colony, those I mean of the 
 poorer classes in England, must always be distinguished by two 
 circumstances : the first, that in the early stages of their settlement 
 their means Tvill not suffice for more than the provision of the 
 necessaries of life : the second, that when they do become settled 
 and the accumulation of wealth begins, the invariable conditions of 
 any new country will cause that accumulation to proceed rapidly. 
 They thus shortly become able to provide for themselves, in spirit- 
 ual as well as in other respects : and it would be a most mistaken 
 kindness not to encourage them in every way to do so. And 
 nothing can be more suitable to the parental character of this 
 country towards her Colonists, and of the Church towards those of 
 her children whom she thus sends forth, than that they should be 
 in this manner cared for from home in their days of comparative 
 Aveakness and difficulty, and gradually brought more and more to 
 rely on their own resources. Moreover there is this additional 
 
 Oil the voyage, advantage in this system, by which a Clergyman should accompany 
 each emigrant sliip, an advantage applying mainly to the long voy- 
 age to AustraKa : that the four or five months of that voyage may 
 be turned to excellent account by the minister, in the spiritual in- 
 
 (1) Letter to the Rev. Ernest Hawkins [1840]. p. 4.
 
 39 
 
 struction and edification of the emigrants. Many of them, as 
 coming from the poor and populous districts of this country, are of 
 coui'se much in need of this care : and it is follovA^ed by this great 
 benefit, that rehgious principles and impressions may be so impart- 
 ed to them on the voyage, that they may be hoped to settle in the 
 Colony with an active desire, a desire wliich it will needs be very 
 much in their own power to fulfil, that those spiritual advantages 
 may be continued to them and their children in the land of their 
 adoption. 
 
 I am happy to say that the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel has already begun to act upon this system,''^-' and is disposed 
 to do so to the utmost of its power : and it is needless to observe, 
 that though such an application of its funds is temporary with re- 
 spect to particular bodies of Colonists or places in the Colonies, it 
 is permanent as a charge on the resources of the Society, as there 
 is a constant succession of emigrants to whom it appHes. 
 
 This brings me at length to the first of the few practical remarks practical 
 with which 1 purpose to conclude this address. It seems well that remarus. 
 I should attempt such remarks, though at the same time it might 
 not be altogether indispensable. I apprehend one main object of 
 these Lectures is, to suggest to you topics for your own reading 
 and examination : and I am sensible that much of what I have 
 said has been of so sketchy and abridged a character, that it can 
 hardly have been of much value except in tliis respect. As such, 
 I hope it may not be unserviceable. I shall much rejoice if I 
 should have led any of you to take an interest, and to follow it up interest to he 
 in your ovra inquiries, in the history, the condition, and the pros- f^^^]!^^ ^^^ 
 pects of our Colonies. I do not tliink you could do better. These 
 people are our own flesh and blood : and we ought to hold our- 
 selves bound to them by ties similar, if not entirely equal, to those 
 which connect us with the adjoining district or county. And this 
 may indicate the nature of what I would first urge upon you in this 
 place : which is, that you should take an interest, to be shewn in 
 the exertion, where possible, of practical influence, in the character Jj? E^ig^ranTs'" 
 of those who emigrate from England to her Colonies. Some, no 
 doubt, choose this lot for themselves and would go in any event : 
 but the cases are probably rare, in which the effort that a man must 
 make to take himseK and his family away from his native land, is 
 not aided and stimulated by the influence, the advice, the helpful 
 co-operation, generally the pecuniary assistance, of those whom he 
 leaves behind. All such I entreat to do what they can, to send good 
 people to the Colonies and not bad ones. Do not encourage, do 
 not suffer if you can help it, the bad, the idle, the unpromising, to 
 emigrate. Whether they themselves would improve or get worse 
 
 fl.) See Quarterly Paper of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for Jan. 1850.
 
 40 
 
 by so doing I do not enquire: but I know that by sending 
 them we are deahng cruelly with the countries which receive them, 
 and inviting not a blessing but a curse on the land wliich sends 
 them. Endeavour to get rid of that idea_, too much encom-aged by 
 the past history of our Colonies, unconsciously held probably by 
 many, but seldom perhaps plainly expressed, as I have happened to 
 hear it — that a Colonist is a man who cannot get on at home. 
 
 Too often indeed it has been so ; far too often for the welfare of 
 the Colonies or the good name of England : let it not be so in 
 future. When I object to this description however, I understand 
 by it, a man who fails at home from his own bad qualities. I do 
 not object to a man, as an emigrant, of native goodness and energy, 
 who from the injuriousness of fortune or from any unfavourable 
 outward circiunstances is hampered and hindered in his course 
 here. No doubt such are most eligible Colonists. One class there 
 is in particular which I miss no opportunity of mentioning, as 
 furnishing from various reasons the most admirable subjects for 
 Youn Women emigration : I mean healthy unmarried young women of the lower 
 ' orders, who from any cause have a difficulty in finding a sufficient 
 and honest hvclihood at home. Their prospects here are those of 
 anxiety and poverty, often alas ! leading to vice and ruin. No 
 class are more needed in our Colonies : and with the blessing of 
 Providence they may there anticipate with as much confidence as 
 can be felt in anything human, a period of respectable service, and 
 a married life of competence and happiness. ^'^ 
 
 In thus encouraging emigration, I do not forget that I spoke of 
 the spiritual destitution of the Colonies. But I know no one of 
 them in which that destitution is not on the decrease, and likely 
 to be more so : and we may be satisfied of this, (as has been sug- 
 gested before,) that the best way to remove that evil is to send out 
 those who will feel it to be an evil, and will not be content without 
 exerting themselves to abate it. 
 . Nor let us have that vain fear, which we hear sometimes ex- 
 
 sending good pressed, that we shall be injuring tliis country by sending away 
 persons away, ^j^^ good aud kccpiug oiily tlic bad. There may possibly sometimes 
 be ground for such a notion, in the case of an utterly disorganized 
 and distracted country, as is said to be now the case with Ireland. 
 But England can well aflbrd to pour healthy blood into the veins 
 of her Colonies, wliile retaining abundantly enough for her own 
 growth and vigour. It is not human strength, and skill, and 
 talent that is likely to be deficient in this country. What we 
 need is the blessing of God upon these, to sanctify them : and we 
 
 (1) I cannot but add one word in regard to Jlr. Sidney Herbert's design, with which I 
 have become acquainted since this Lecture was composed : and for which, as part of a great 
 scheme, I would express my humble but sincere admiration.
 
 41 
 
 may assuredly hope to draw this down upon ourselves rather if we 
 build up our offshoots and dependencies witli the best that we 
 have, than with the worst and most refuse. Whether we like it 
 or not, such is our plain duty. It is for us at home to strengthen 
 what is weak, purify what we can purify, neutralize what we can- 
 not, in our o^m body. If we fail in this, ours is the blame, and 
 ours be the loss : but let us not visit our short-comings on the 
 Colonies, by thus poisoning the fountains of their national life. 
 
 It is true that, as I have said, a department of the Executive 
 Government does much to regulate emigration, and does it to a 
 great extent well. The character indeed of emigrants is inquired 
 into : but such a supervision by Government in any case can be 
 but imperfect, and at best wiU be more negative, in preventing 
 great evils, than positive in producing good. 
 
 But tliis leads me to a more general observation, applicable to 
 the whole subject, and to much more. This whole matter of 
 Colonization, it may be thought, is an Imperial one, and belongs 
 to the Government of the country. Undoubtedly it does, to a 
 great extent. But what is the Government of this country ? 
 
 I do not touch, for a moment, the sacredness that surrounds 
 the Throne : and I know who administer the government of the 
 country. But I am speaking of the real power, in so far as it is a power that 
 human power, which actually determines the political course of this couu"ry. 
 nation : and of that power what is commonly called the Govern- 
 ment is but a part, though a very important part. In the long 
 run, and on the whole, the people of England are 5«?^-governed. 
 I do not mean that the blind ^vill of a numerical majority governs. 
 I allow great weight — not indeed so much as there should be — to 
 whatever wisdom and virtue exists, and can make itseK heard, in 
 the land. I allow great weight — perhaps in some cases rather more 
 than there should be — to the influence of various classes and in- 
 terests among us, from the highest to the lowest. But allowing 
 for all this, and remembering that of course such statements are 
 not correct as to small details, and are to be taken with reference 
 to the broad Unes of history and the abiding principles of the 
 nation^s course, I say that the ultimate dehberate issue and ex- 
 pression of the various balanced forces which make up the mind 
 of the whole people, is that by which England is moved. Tins 
 was felt even 70 years ago by that great writer whom I before 
 ventured to differ from, not in the absurd presumption of 
 opposing my opinion to his, but because the general advance 
 on such subjects has conducted us to a point beyond that on 
 which he stood, but whom I now quote with complete assent : 
 Mr. Burke says : " The general opinion of those who are to be 
 governed is the vehicle, and organ of legislative omnipotence. 
 
 this
 
 42 
 
 Without this, it may be a theory to entertain the mind, but it is 
 nothing in the direction of affairs. In effect, to follow, not to 
 force, the public inclination; to give a direction,- a form, a techni- 
 cal dress, a specific sanction, to the general sense of the com- 
 munity, is the true end of legislation/'' ^'^ 
 
 So wrote Mr. Burke in 1777 : much more would he have said 
 now. Again I must plainly declare that I do not say this with 
 ?t'^seif"^overn- ^^Y tlesire to set before you ideas of uncontrolled freedom, the 
 ment. majcsty of the people, or any such claptrap topics : not in the 
 
 least. Again, as before, I would have you look upon this mighty 
 power which resides in the great body of the people, as a matter of 
 solemn and awful responsibility before God and the world. Every 
 one of you who votes at an election exercises that power in the 
 most direct and manifest manner. Every one, who, whether a 
 voter or not, ever swells by his voice a popular cry, or even reasons 
 and talks in common conversation on political matters, contributes 
 something towards that great stream of public feeling and opinion, 
 by which, as by a huge water-power, the machinery of the State 
 is turned. Make no empty boast of this : act upon it humbly 
 and conscientiously, in all matters of national interest that may 
 come before you. Not one of the least of these is that towards 
 which this evening I have at least directed your thoughts, though 
 I could do but little towards guiding them further, the Colonies 
 of England : the consideration how best they may become free 
 and orderly, powerful and religious communities. 
 
 Eor t/iis should be our great and first object. I have almost 
 anticipated the next suggestion which I would make : namely. 
 Bight Views tl^at we should endeavour to frame and to cherish worthier motives 
 about the of our Colouies than we are apt to have. Let us not look at 
 them as subordinate provinces of England, but as the germs, 
 which many of them are, of mighty nations. Even at this moment 
 there is not one of them in which the labouring classes are not 
 better off, in the usual sense, than in England: in our new 
 Australasian Colonies I believe no case has ever occurred of physi- 
 cal destitution among those classes. Eor many of them it is not 
 impossible that a more glorious and powerful career is in store 
 than ever England has had. Our hope and care ought to be 
 that our Colonies should be communities imbued with as much as 
 possible of what is good, and tainted with as little as possible of 
 what is evil, in our own country. Our course hitherto has not been 
 such that we can flatter ourselves that we have even approached this 
 lofty object. In the Colonies the prevailing evils are an excess of 
 the democratic spirit, an excess of the money-getting spirit : not 
 improvements upon what is good at home, but exaggerations of 
 
 (1) Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. [Works. Vol. III. p. 179.]
 
 43 
 
 what is bad. But there is j-et ample scope in these for the victory 
 of good over evil : and our part in this great work will be worthily 
 engaged in^ if we set before us, as our great object, the real good 
 of the Colonies, and not the supposed gain or the false pride of 
 ourselves. I lately heard it well urged in the House of Commons 
 by my eminent relative, under whom I was honoured by serving in 
 the Colonial Office, Mr. Gladstone, that we were wrong in so 
 anxiously considering whether such and such a course of policy 
 tended to preserve the connection between us and the Colonies. 
 " Let not that," he said, " be your first thought. Inquire and 
 do what is for the good of this country and what is for the good of 
 the Colonies : and then you need not fear for the connection." 
 I believe so too ; and I have said that 1 would have the connection 
 a permanent one. Yet would I even go further, and say that if we 
 can, in some good measui'e, (for what great object was ever in 
 this world completely reahzed ?) succeed in rearing in those 
 distant regions of the earth such a progeny as I have imagined our 
 Colonies ought to be, whatever becomes of our definite connection 
 with them, it will be glory enough for England to have so peopled 
 the world. 
 
 It is said by an able writer, that in former times England was 
 content to leave her Colonies nearly independent, caring only to 
 derive pecuniary gain from them : whereas now on the contrary 
 we are willing even to pay largely for the pleasure of governing 
 tliem.^'^ And this is at least a less sordid object than the other : 
 yet is it by no means the best. In the coui-se I have just indi- 
 cated lies the worthiest national amendment and atonement, even improvement 
 as in much of our former Colonial liistory which I have laid before ^* ^'""^' 
 you, I should -n-ish to have led you to take part in national re- 
 pentance, for great national sins. 
 
 Finally, let me press upon you one obvious but momentous con- 
 sideration. If we wish to see our Colonies such as we would have 
 them, not indeed the only rule but one great rule is this : let us 
 look to ourselves, to our own hearts and characters. Such as we 
 are, such, not perhaps wholly, but in a good measure, ^^all our 
 Colonists be. It has been from whatever good qualities are in- 
 eradicable in the Enghsh character, accompanpng them across the 
 world, that amidst and in spite of so much that has been defective 
 in our systems of Colonization, the Colonists of England stiU ex- 
 liibit so much, of which their ancient mother may well be proud, l^^l 
 Let us strive to be such, that it may stiU be so, and far better yet. 
 Eor if we can keep our national character unimpaired and elevate 
 it stiU more, and if^ as has been said, we labour to communicate to 
 
 (1) Merivale's Lectures on Colonization. I quote from memorv. 
 
 (2) Compare Smith's Wealth of Nations. Vol. 11. p. 500. [M'CiiUoch's edit.]
 
 u 
 
 the Colonies the best of that character, then with the blessing of 
 Heaven we may hope to see those who dwell in them such as they 
 ought to be, lovers of England and of England's institutions, 
 lovers of God and of man. 
 
 I have now only to thank you for this opportunity of addressing 
 you, and for the patience with which you have listened to what 
 has been said. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I have perceived (too late for correction) that there is some 
 confusion in pp. 12 and 13 in the way in which New Zealand is 
 mentioned. That important Colony ought undoubtedly to be in- 
 cluded in any complete review of our Colonies properly so called. 
 But time only allowed me to advert particularly to groups of 
 Colonies, and not to single ones. 
 
 In p. 12 also, it is too strongly stated that the Aborigines in 
 Australia are quite removed from the settled parts of the Colonies. 
 In South Australia particularly, I believe, there are still natives 
 living among the settlers. But they are not of sufficient number 
 or importance seriously to affect the statement in the text. 
 
 Thomas Mellard, Printer, Upper High Street, Stourbridge.

 
 l^,f