tage; it is too distant to be long governed, or well defended; it is undertaken, not by the voluntary association of individuals, but by Government, and by means of compulsory labour. A nation must, indeed, be redundant in capital, that will expend it where the hopes of a just return are so very small.

It may be a curious consideration, to reflect what we are to do with this colony when it comes to years of discretion. Are we to spend another hundred millions of money in discovering its strength, and to humble ourselves again before a fresh set of Washingtons and Franklins? The moment after we have suffered such serious mischief from the escape of the old tiger, we are breeding up a young cub, whom we cannot render less ferocious, or more secure. If we are gradually to manumit the colony, as it is more and more capable of protecting itself, the degrees of emancipation, and the periods at which they are to take place, will be judged of very differently by the two nations. But we confess ourselves not to be so sanguine as to suppose, that a spirited and commercial people would, in spite of the example of America, ever consent to abandon their sovereignty over an important colony, without a struggle. Endless blood and treasure will be exhausted to support a tax on kangaroos skins; faithful Commons will go on voting fresh supplies to support a just and necessary war; and Newgate, then become a quarter of the world, will evince a heroism, not unworthy of the great characters by whom she was originally peopled.

The experiment, however, is not less interesting in a moral, because it is objectionable in a commercial point of view. It is an object of the highest curiosity, thus to have the growth of a nation subjected to our examination; to trace it by such faithful records, from the first day of its existence; and to gather that knowledge of the progress of human affairs, from actual experience, which is considered to be only accessible to the conjectural reflections of enlightened minds.

Human nature, under very old governments, is so trimmed, and pruned, and ornamented, and led into

such a variety of factitious shapes, that we are almost ignorant of the appearance it would assume, if it were left more to itself. From such an experiment as that now before us, we shall be better able to appreciate what circumstances of our situation are owing to those permanent laws by which all men are influenced, and what to the accidental positions in which we have been placed. New circumstances will throw new light upon the effects of our religious, political, and economical institutions, if we cause them to be adopted as models in our rising empire; and if we do not, we shall estimate the effects of their presence, by observing those which are produced by their non-existence.

The history of the colony is at present, however, in its least interesting state, on account of the great preponderance of depraved inhabitants, whose crimes and irregularities give a monotony to the narrative, which it cannot lose, till the respectable part of the community come to bear a greater proportion to the criminal.

These Memoirs of Colonel Collins resume the history of the colony from the period at which he concluded it in his former volume, September 1796, and continue it down to August 1801. They are written in the style of a journal, which, though not the most agreeable mode of conveying information, is certainly the most authentic, and contrives to banish the suspicion (and most probably the reality) of the interference of a bookmaker a species of gentlemen who are now almost become necessary to deliver naval and military authors in their literary labours, though they do not always atone, by orthography and grammar, for the sacrifice of truth and simplicity. Mr. Collins's book is written with great plainness and candour: he appears to be a man always meaning well; of good, plain common sense; and composed of those well-wearing materials, which adapt a person for situations where genius and refinement would only prove a source of misery and of

error.

We shall proceed to lay before our readers an analysis of the most important matter contained in this volume.

The natives in the vicinity of Port Jackson stand extremely low, in point of civilisation, when compared with many other savages, with whom the discoveries of Captain Cook have made us acquainted. Their notions of religion exceed even that degree of absurdity which we are led to expect in the creed of a barbarous people. In politics, they appear to have scarcely advanced beyond family-government. Huts they have none; and, in all their economical inventions, there is a rudeness and deficiency of ingenuity, unpleasant, when contrasted with the instances of dexterity with which the descriptions and importations of our navigators have rendered us so familiar. Their numbers appear to us to be very small: a fact, at once, indicative either of the ferocity of manners in any people, or, more probably, of the sterility of their country; but which, in the present instance, proceeds from both these causes.

'Gaining every day (says Mr. Collins) some further knowledge of the inhuman habits and customs of these people, their being so thinly scattered through the country ceased to be a matter of surprise. It was almost daily seen, that from some trifling cause or other, they were continually living in a state of warfare to this must be added their brutal treatment of their women, who are themselves equally destructive to the measure of population, by the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage, which their female acquaintance effect by pressing the body in such a way, as to destroy the infant in the womb; which violence not unfrequently occasions the death of the unnatural mother also. To this they have recourse to avoid the trouble of carrying the infant about when born, which, when it is very young, or at the breast, is the duty of the woman. The operation for this destructive purpose is termed Mee-bra. The burying an infant (when at the breast) with the mother, if she should die, is another shocking cause of the thinness of population among them. The fact that such an operation as the Mee-bra was practised by these wretched people, was communicated by one of the natives to the principal surgeon of the settlement.' (p. 124, 125.)

It is remarkable, that the same paucity of numbers has been observed in every part of New Holland which has hitherto been explored; and yet there is not the

smallest reason to conjecture that the population of it has been very recent; nor do the people bear any marks of descent from the inhabitants of the numerous islands by which this great continent is surrounded. The force of population can only be resisted by some great physical evils; and many of the causes of this scarcity of human beings which Mr. Collins refers to the ferocity of the natives, are ultimately referable to the difficulty of support. We have always considered this phenomenon as a symptom extremely unfavourable to the future destinies of this country. It is easy to launch out into eulogiums of the fertility of nature in particular spots; but the most probable reason why a country that has been long inhabited, is not well inhabited, is, that it is not calculated to support many inhabitants without great labour. It is difficult to

suppose any other causes powerful enough to resist the impetuous tendency of man to obey that mandate for increase and multiplication, which has certainly been better observed than any other declaration of the Divine will ever revealed to us.

There appears to be some tendency to civilisation, and some tolerable notions of justice, in a practice very similar to our custom of duelling; for duelling, though barbarous in civilised, is a highly civilised institution among barbarous people; and when compared to assassination, is a prodigious victory gained over human passions. Whoever kills another in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay, is compelled to appear at an appointed day before the friends of the deceased, and to sustain the attacks of their missile weapons. If he is killed, he is deemed to have met with a deserved death; if not, he is considered to have expiated the crime for the commission of which he was exposed to the danger. There is in this institution a command over present impulses, a prevention of secrecy in the gratification of revenge, and a wholesome correction of that passion, by the effects of public observation, which evince such a superiority to the mere animal passions of ordinary savages, and form such a contrast to the rest of the history of

this people, that it may be considered as altogether an anomalous and inexplicable fact. The natives differ

very much in the progress they have made in the arts of economy. Those to the North of Port Jackson evince a considerable degree of ingenuity and contrivance in the structure of their houses, which are rendered quite impervious to the weather, while the inhabitants at Port Jackson have no houses at all. At Port Dalrymple, in Van Diemen's Land, there was every reason to believe the natives were unacquainted with the use of canoes; a fact extremely embarrassing to those who indulge themselves in speculating on the genealogy of nations; because it reduces them to the necessity of supposing that the progenitors of this insular people swam over from the main land, or that they were aboriginal; a species of dilemma, which effectually bars all conjecture upon the intermixture of nations. painful to learn, that the natives have begun to plunder and rob in so very alarming a manner, that it has been repeatedly found necessary to fire upon them; and many have, in consequence, fallen victims to their rashness.

It is

The soil is found to produce coal in vast abundance, salt, lime, very fine iron ore, timber fit for all purposes, excellent flax, and a tree, the bark of which is admirably adapted for cordage. The discovery of coal (which, by the by, we do not believe was ever before discovered so near the Line) is probably rather a disadvantage than an advantage; because, as it lies extremely favourable for sea carriage, it may prove to be a cheaper fuel than wood, and thus operate as a discouragement to the clearing of lands. The soil upon the sea-coast has not been found to be very productive, though it improves in partial spots in the interior. The climate is healthy, in spite of the prodigious heat of the summer months, at which period, the thermometer has been observed to stand in the shade at 107, and the leaves of garden vegetables to fall into dust, as if they had been consumed with fire. But one of the most insuperable defects in New Holland, considered as the future country of a