CHAPTER XI. A CHAPTER OF NONSENSE, IF IT BE SO UNDERSTOOD. THE FUTURE OF INDIA AND THE EAST. ENGLAND'S capacity for foreign acquisition and colonisation compared with other mighty powers of Europe.-With Italy. With Spain.-With Portugal.-With Holland.-With France. The Anglo-Saxon Colony carries away all other Colonies before it.-The finger of God traced in the progress of the British in the East.-The tendency and course of the Empires of the World.-Civilisation not likely to end in America.-It is returning to the land of its birth.Dr. Arnold's theory of Civilisation examined and refuted.— The prospect of another and mightier Civilisation. It will commence from India.—Our grounds for so supposing.Bright future for Young India.-His future Religion. "IN dreaming of each mighty birth, That shall one day be born; From marriage of the Western earth, So dreamt the poet. Whether his dreams are actually to be realised, we do not pretend to say; but we see the probability of an epoch. dawning upon the destinies of the human race, grander than any yet recorded in history. This epoch is signalising the English nation, as acquiring the dominion of the world, and will be consummated we hope by an universal British empire. We may seem over-sanguine in our hopes; but we have in enforcing conviction only to ask for a review of political history, and comparison of other countries of Europe with England in the capacity they have shown some time or other to govern distant dominions, or aptitude for colonisation. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and Russia pass under review in this place. Italy, though her Rome in ancient times established numerous military colonies, has never in modern history occupied a significant page in political history or colonising adventures. It seems as if all her capacity for distant acquisitions was exhausted in the ascendency of Rome in the ancient world. Spain and Portugal set out on their career together; and while the one voyaged to the West, the other took her course to the East. Spain discovered savage countries, and, in the unequal strife between civilisation and barbarism, conquered, and acquired exhaustless wealth, in natural mines and streams of gold, in the New World. But in the triumphs over the rude Americans, she had that easy access to wealth APTITUDE FOR COLONISATION. 301 which takes away the stimulus of activity, and undermines the constitution; and Spain, sunk in wealth and luxury, forfeited that power, which, when duly sustained, would have secured to her the lead of empires. Portugal, running her course, acquired dominions in the East; but she lacked a capacity of sustenance, and early succumbed to a superior power from the insignificance of her means, and possibly also the illiberalism of her policy. Holland succeeded in the line. She was close upon Portugal; but her colonies were limited in extent, and she had gained but little experience in governing affairs from her comparative nonage as a political state, separated from the guidance of Spain. Even now, she seems to have gained little or no improvement; and Java, her only possession of importance, does not cover the cost of its tenure under her management! France comes next; but her possessions in the East were early relinquished, with heavy loss to the state; and Algeria is yet but an experiment in her hands. France has martial character; but, despite that, she has, we believe, failed, undoubtedly from a want of constitutional aptitude, to derive any marked advantage from her distant acquisitions. Russia stands last; but it is a vast tract of unarable region, and is only an extensive military empire, ruinous to the interests of the people. We might include America in the review; but we find her unambitious of political influence, and her present troubles, even after they are accommodated, will throw her a century behind the age. England seems to be the only country which has consolidated herself by distant acquisitions; and though a large gap appears in her colonial history in the severance of her American possessions, she has proved her colonising power yet unimpaired, unlike that of Spain-the only country that created vast empires like England, and has, like England, lost most largely, by since working out the site of mighty empires on the surface of the globe. It was about a century after an enterprising captain in the service of Spain coasted the eastern shores of America, and passed through the straits called after him, Magellan, that the English settled in America, and commenced that career of colonial empire which is destined to spread a cordon of nations over the surface of the globe, professing English descent, language, institutions, and, let us hope, feelings. Since then, the stream of emigration has flowed east - FUTURE BRITISH EMPIRE. 303 ward to the vast continent of Australia and the islands of the Pacific. And wherever the AngloSaxons have settled in a colony, they have absorbed into themselves all comers of different nations; and the fact that all emigrations from France, Germany, Italy, and Austria have been carried away before the English, without leaving a single trace of their origin, distinctly indicates that the English nation is destined to create an universal empire on the surface of the globe. Already both sides of the Pacific are bounded by the empires of this dominant race-America, and Australia and New Zealand; while northward of the Indian Ocean lies the vast peninsula of British India. It seems as if it were that Providence has fixed the fate of the world to pass into English hands; and the very efforts made to keep Indian conquests within prescribed limits are constantly frustrating their object. Had England had her own way, her possessions in the East would not have been greater than a few commercial factories on the eastern and western coasts of India; but she has always had her greatness thrust on her, and the very solicitude to keep the empire within certain limits excited the audacity of imbecile princes, and led |