Til K W’KA XjT 11 OF NATIONS.

527

independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to managetheir own affairs in the way that they judged was most suita-ble to their own interest.

The history of the Roman colonies is by no means sobrilliant. Some of them, indeed, such as Florence, have inthe course of many ages, and after the fall of the mother city,grown up to be considerable states. But the progress of noone of them seems ever to have been very rapid. They wereall established in conquered provinces, which in most caseshad been fully inhabited before. The quantity of land as-signed to each colonist was seldom very considerable, and asthe colony was not independent, they were not always at li-berty to manage their own alfairs in the way that they judgedwas most suitable to their own interest.

In the plenty of good land, the European colonies esta-blished in America and the West Indies resemble, and evengreatly surpass, those of ancient Greece. In their dependencyupon the mother state, they resemble those of ancient Rome ;but their great distance from Europe has in all of them alle-viated more or less the effects of this dependency. Theirsituation has placed them less in the view and less in thepower of their mother country. In pursuing their interesttheir own way, their conduct lias, upon many occasions, beenoverlooked, either because not known or not understood inEurope ; and upon some occasions it has been fairly sufferedand submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficultto restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary government ofSpain has, upon many occasions, been obliged to recall orsoften the orders which had been given for the governmentof her colonies, for l'ear of a general insurrection. The pro-gress of all the European colonies in wealth, population, andimprovement, has accordingly been very great.

The crown of Spain , by its share of the gold and silver,derived some revenue from its colonies, from the moment oftheir first establishment. It was a revenue too, of a nature toexcite in human avidity the most extravagant expectation ofstill greater riches. The Spanish colonies, therefore, fromthe moment of their first establishment, attracted very muchthe attention of their mother country ; while those of the otherEuropean nations were for a long time in a great measureneglected. The former did not, perhaps, thrive the better inconsequence of this attention ; nor the latter the worse inconsequence of this neglect. In proportion to the extent of