§ 12.—The Future of British Colonies.

It is about three hundred years since Sir Walter Raleigh, having obtained a charter of colonisation, dispatched a fleet laden with colonists to Virginia, and about two hundred years since William Penn obtained a grant of the extensive territory called Pennsylvania, which he wished to constitute "a free colony for all mankind." See what the United States of America, only about one hundred years old, are now, with their fifty millions of people; and who can tell how many millions will yet people Australia ¹² and North America? Talk of physical evolution! What wonder of political and economic evolution do these colonies exhibit. We have seen the British emigrant settling himself page 15 in those vast regions, going where he could, and where he would, with no other guide than that of adventure, or other law than that of interest. We have seen him appropriating or buying field upon field, and acquiring for himself vast possessions. We have seen individuals multiplied into families, families coming closer to one another, and forming villages. We have seen villages converted into towns, and towns into States. And we have seen governments organised and supreme controlling the State, the village, the family, and the individual, and all the while civilisation advancing apace, and art, science, and industry co-working in the elevation and improvement of society. But the same process of evolution is still progressing before our eyes; and the States now in course of formation, heritors of all that has been achieved in older communities by ages of labour and wonders of thought and effort, are increasing and advancing by bounds and rebounds. A glorious future is indeed before them. May they wield it a right, and may they transmit their trust, still further extended and refined, to generations to come.