indemnities, for so much expense and bloodshed sacrificed in the said coercive expedition, that precious accession to the number of our British colonies, Hong-Kongan insignificant speck in the Chinese Sea-refuse of the Celestial empire-so insalubrious by the bad quality of its water, its humidity, and heat, and the insupportable nuisance of its vermin, and so notorious for the evil repute of the Chinese adventurers who resort to this contemptible and unhealthy settlement.

The approval of our recent semi-accidental accession of an establishment in Borneo, under the mysterious and sanguinary auspices of Rajah Brooke, is indeed a contrast to our cession of the enviable Island of Java, so ignorantly and improvidently relinquished at the treaty of the last general peace.* Although Borneo unquestionably is capable of affording incalculable advantages to this country under certain circumstances, which may occur in future, it certainly presents at this time no other benefit than the convenience of a station for our cruisers in the Indian and Chinese seas. The hot temperature of its climate, however mitigated by the fresh breezes of the surrounding ocean; the swampy lands which so perniciously abound upon its coast; together with the alleged predatory fierceness and fickle faith of the natives, must still render it as much adverse to European settlement, as ever it has been heretofore: unless, indeed, under circumstances to be suggested in a succeeding chapter. Meantime, except the discovery of coal recently made, it is said, among its natural products, it exhibits

*Ceded, in utter ignorance, at the treaty of Vienna. Holland considers Java worth all her colonies together. Both as a commercial and military station it is invaluable; but we prefer Sierra Leone or Hong-Kong.

no new feature of attraction, even as a naval station or rendezvous, since it was last abandoned by European colonists. This, at least, is certain, it never can become a congenial home for British settlers.

The continent of New Holland, to which forced attention has so long been attracted, though more favourable than Borneo by its recession from the Line, and the magnitude of its extent as a receptacle for our superfluous population, still opposes innumerable objections fatal to the foundation of a second England there. The first is its remote distance, which consumes four months of sailing navigation to attain, and which renders the voyage next to impracticable by steam for all trading purposes, owing to the great amount of stowage required for fuel. Indeed, when the time necessary for the lading and unlading of cargo, and other port business, is computed, the transit to that colony will be found to include an average period of half a year. Another objection is, that nearly one-half the extent of this vast colony is totally unadapted to European temperament and habits by its situation: while the sterile and impracticable nature of much of its interior, the absence of navigable rivers, and that worst of all impediments, not only bad water, but its liability to long droughts,—all these are prominent objections; besides which no productions peculiar to this continent promise to maintain it as a prominent and independent point of maritime attraction. The necessarily open and unguarded state of its immense coast must long continue to render it a mere nominal possession of this country: while the divergency of its site from the present line of Indian and Chinese commerce, and its distance from the American coast, places New Holland in a world apart, all but solely profit

able to itself, and that only by what English industry and capital can make it, through sacrifices and exertions that might most assuredly be employed with greater and more immediate benefit nearer home. Meantime the cost of so long a voyage, and the expense which it demands for equipment, together with the immense distance of New Holland from English supplies and home intercourse, offer obstructions nearly amounting to absolute repulsion of general emigration to that remote region; where land in the proximity of towns, the position in which it possesses the greatest advantages, is almost as dear as estates of equal magnitude in some districts of England: while allotments in the interior rigorously condemn the luckless settler to lonely hardship and seclusion; with the sole cheer in all of the prospect of some adequate return in the second or third generation. Neither has the mother-country to congratulate herself in the anticipation of any great good from the establishment of a powerful State in that quarter; for, from the character of the settlers, and many ominous signs already manifested, there is every reason to infer that the example of the United States will not be lost upon the colonists of Australasia. Naturally turbulent in spirit, nourished in ultra notions of freedom, imbued with hereditary resentment against the country which banished them thither; weakened in their original ties by distance, which must ever render their dependence upon us irksome, inconvenient and precarious, with a character peculiarly acute, and predilections essentially commercial, they, as a trading people, must necessarily become, in their peculiar position, more and more enterprizing and ambitious. Every day they advance in numbers and prosperity, till, fast multiplied into millions, we may calculate upon

beholding them soon assert their independence, and not only competing with us in successful rivalry in the commerce of Asia, but affording harbour to our European adversaries, and supported in every insolence and aggression by the encouragement and connivance of their cousins of the United States.

The same objections exist with respect to New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land, and the time will indubitably arrive, when common interest and position will closely unite these islands in combined and exclusive government, with a force and resources, offensive and defensive. Even at present, we behold the British emigrants, when once settled in these islands, lost to us for ever; for the labours of the soil promise long to be dedicated to the home consumption of their fellow-settlers alone; while, as they gradually introduce manufactories, we shall shortly see every branch of our British handywork successfully emulated in the cities of Australasia, and from thence finding its way to the Chinese and Indian markets, in traffic for Asiatic produce, transported in Australasian shipping to every port of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. The actual state of New Zealand is not, however, very enticing to the reflecting emigrant; since the inhabitants are now raising, at great sacrifice, a small loan for public emergencies; but in spite of all their pretended prosperity, find it difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish it. It may be observed that Van Diemen's Land is fast involving itself in debt; while so thin is the flow of population to these latter colonies, in spite of all the flourish of contrary accounts, that the one, after affected resistance, is disposed to accept convict labour, and the other has already admitted it.

Our next vaunted outlet for the excess of British

population is the Cape of Good Hope. But here, again, distance, nature, climate, and seasons, interpose irremediable objections. First, the southern extreme of Africa affords nothing, which the same quarter of the globe does not produce in richer quality and quantity at a shorter length of sail on the very same coast. The periodical commotions and irruptions of some one or other of the black nations that surround this settlement must ever expose it to interminable insecurity and alarm; while the unequal quality of the land interdicts all hope of our ever being able to condense the population of this colony into a compact state best fitted for co-operation and defencea difficulty which is sure earnest of total failure in every attempt we might make to increase this colony to any material importance. The frequent return, in disappointment and disgust, of emigrants from the Cape, after the utter exhaustion of every energy and means, presents on this subject the most emphatic comment.* After all our official efforts, and the alluring persuasions of private speculation lavishly employed for years to attract settlers to this colony, its population, extending, as aforesaid, over a very wide space of land of most unequal diversity in quality, amounts only to 160,000. Already, in 1844, the expenses of our military establishment in that country cost us more than fifty per cent. of our exports thither; which in the same year, though uncommonly increased, amounted to a very small sum; and yet, in despite of this inefficiency and shortcoming, we now behold the medley of nations that compose the population of this settlement exciting themselves to a state

* This petty dependency cost, in 1843, £294,000, while our exports in the same year were £502,577. The governor alone has a yearly salary equal to that of the President of the United States.