"Such," says Mr. Story, "is this most important ordinance, the effects of which upon the destinies of the country have already been abundantly demonstrated in the territory by an almost unexampled prosperity and rapidity of population, by the formation of republican governments, and by an enlightened system of jurisprudence. Already five states comprising a part of that territory have been admitted into the union, and others are fast advancing towards the same grade of political dignity.' The five states are

Ohio, with a population, in 1840, of...... 1,519,464

It will be seen that there are two stages in the system adopted by America: the wild land becomes first a territory, and afterwards is admitted into the Union as a state. Two Acts of Congress are placed in the Appendix, for the purpose of giving a complete idea of the difference of their two conditions of political existence. The one act provides for the government of the territory of Oregon; the other, for the admission of Wisconsin to the Union.

What, then, are the general conclusions which this twofold history, brief as it has been, compels us to draw? In my opinion, the canons which it establishes respecting colonization are these:--

* Story's Exposition, p. 141.

1. Any supervising power retained, and to be exercised with respect to a colony, should be retained entirely in the hands of the imperial government alone. No part of it should be entrusted to a company, or to a single proprietor. A company may be made useful as a means of collecting many minute portions of capital into one large and effective mass, and may be permitted, by the aid simply of the advantages which that combined wealth confers, to act as private persons, and in that capacity to promote the plantation of the new settlement. But to the company there should be confided no government powers, no mercantile monopoly or privileges. Such facilities as a joint-stock company requires to avoid mere legal obstructions, may be granted to a company wishing to carry on commerce, or effect any legitimate purpose of gain, but not one atom of political power. I will not clog this assertion with one particle of exception; the rule ought to be as I have laid it down, stringent and universal in its negation.

That which is true as respects a company, is just as true and as necessary in the case of an individual, no matter what may be his wealth, no matter what may be his virtue. Were Lord Baltimore, with all his real wisdom and goodness, his unostentatious and thoroughly modest and tolerant spirit, to appear again, and with the same benevolent aims and sanguine hopes, ask for the privileges which his family enjoyed in Maryland, and so worthily employed, he would meet from me with the same peremptory refusal that I should give to a grasping, mere money-getting company. The powers of government must not be delegated. If they are to

be in any hands, those hands must be of the government itself. To none others ought such powers to be confided.

2. Having determined that the supervision should never be delegated to a company or an individual, but should always be reserved by the government, the next canon commands us to reduce this supervision as much as is possible, retaining only what is needed to maintain our metropolitan rule, and to confide to the colony the government of its own affairs. The more completely this is done, the more certain and marked will be the prosperity of the colony.

3. The next rule is, that, certain extraordinary cases being excepted, the metropolitan government should confine its office to attracting settlers to a colony, and ought not to occupy itself in actually carrying them out, and thereby take part in the active business of planting the settlement. The duty of the government is to create those facilities on the spot to be settled which, being known to exist, will of themselves bring the population. The manner of doing this I shall soon attempt to describe.

4. The next rule which I think my short history justifies, is, to insist upon the colony being self-supporting, in everything except defence against hostile aggression. It is the duty of England to say to all of her subjects that plant settlements within her colonial territories, "I will defend you in the quiet possession of your homes, and of the produce of your labour. No enemy shall attack you from without. But this perfect defence being afforded-and that it be afforded, the

government must provide you must yourselves be the architects of your own fortunes. My government has made the way clear for you in the first instance: there are the limits of the colony; make yourselves a community; sustain yourselves, and govern yourselves. Trade with other nations, with all whom you wish, that you may; fight with other nations or yourselves, that you shall not. Such is my will, and to it I shall enforce obedience."

These general rules, or conclusions, I shall now proceed to enlarge into something like a system. The description I am about to attempt is what might well precede a specific act of legislation, which would make law of what is here only suggestion. All my observations in this work, those which I have already made, those which I am about to make, point directly to an act of parliament, which I believe the necessary preliminary to any rational system. Our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic have adopted, as we have seen, this prudent course; and her colonies exhibit fairly the result of this wise act of legislation by Congress. They have had great difficulties to overcomefar greater than any which lie in our path as legislators. Those difficulties they have not feared to face; having faced, they have conquered them. Their seventeen or eighteen colonies, with their millions of thriving people, attest the practical wisdom of this conduct, and afford us an admirable reason for imitating and surpassing it. That we have the means of surpassing all that America has done or can do, I shall now attempt to prove. She may, indeed, create one gigantic nation; that it should

be and remain only one, will be their greatest triumph. But we, if we be wise, and use the advantages which as a people we possess, (a tithe of which no other people ever enjoyed)—we, I say, may create many vast nations -nations which must be separate, and may be of almost fabulous greatness. Let not the reader call me a dreamer, till he has read the very unpretending scheme which I now proceed to explain; and which I believe would produce the great effects I describe, because it is unpretending, easy to be understood, and, if once put into motion, self-supporting.

There are two things which always present themselves to the mind of an emigrant, or one thinking of becoming an emigrant, and are always placed by him among the circumstances which are deemed to be reasons against expatriation: the one is the uncertainty that attends every step of his progress; the other is, the inferiority of the position which, as a colonist, he is to occupy.

When I speak here of uncertainty, I do not mean that uncertainty which attends, and ever must attend, an ignorant man; but I intend by it, that which every man, even the most instructed, must labour under, who endeavours to ascertain the various steps necessary to be taken by those who desire to become settlers in any of our colonies, and who endeavours also to discover the probable consequences to himself and his family of the acts which he is about to perform in the character of an emigrant. Let any one attempt to form for himself a conception of what would probably occur if he were to associate himself with a body of settlers, just about to emigrate, for the purpose of taking possession of a tract