Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/121

 ‘These infant settlements were surrounded by savages.’ (So the Australian colony will be.) ‘They conceived themselves in danger when they went out and when they came in; every man was a soldier, which produced war, and of course injury to the colonies.’ Thus it appears that, contrary to the assertion in the Commissioners’ letter, there was ‘a military force;’ and, had it been of a proper description, the colonies would not have suffered injury. “In 1606 King James formed a colony in America, ‘under the superintendence of a council in England, composed of a few persons of consideration and talents.’ King James made many blunders during his reign, and this seems to have been one of them! These Councillors directed the colony in Virginia. For near twenty years, under their superintendence, the colony suffered all kinds of misery, and was ‘a prey to folly, crime, riot, and insubordination.’ During that time ‘one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and nine thousand people had been sent from England;’ and when these Commissioners (whose power it was at last deemed necessary to abolish, and who thought they could govern across the Atlantic) were upset, there remained but eighteen hundred miserable colonists in Virginia! And moreover, the famous Captain Smith, a man of extraordinary courage and talents, governed this colony for a time, and by his great abilities prevented its total ruin. Once these wild colonists expelled him, and afterwards, when danger pressed, elected him President! Another colony, planted near Cape Hatteras, disappeared altogether, and was never heard of more! Twenty-one years are now past since I landed, at the head of 900 British troops, on this very spot, near Cape Hatteras; and, from the nature of that coast, I can easily imagine that a colony might be there surprised and totally destroyed, either by enemies or sickness. Some of the Australian Commissioners were, probably, then at school, so I may take the liberty, appertaining to grey hairs, and tell them that colonies, like camps, are exposed to many dangers, and, among others, those of site, which gentlemen, living always in London, are not exactly the people most fitted either to estimate or provide against.”—pp. xx–xxiii. mean time he congratulates the colonists of Western Australia, that no such visionary experiment is operating there.

Whenever that colony shall have arrived at the point at which it can be fairly considered capable of providing for its own establishments, no principle can be more equitable than that it should be called upon to do so; but, till then, if the colony is to be suitably maintained as a part of the British dominions, it is essential that the mother country continue to extend her aid.

But hastening from these questions, the writer cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing the gratification he has experienced while considering the grand and