eat of empire for the accomplishment of every municipal change
requisite to advance the country of his adoption. But were independence
desirable in itself, the colonists would, notwithstanding, calculate
its cost. Those who have pretended that England does not prize her
colonies, know little of her temper: her colonies are her pride, her
ornament, and her strength. One day she will lose them; but that day
will be a day of mourning and humiliation.

The discussion of this question by the metropolitan press, and the
predictions of parliamentary statesmen, have induced many ardent minds
to anticipate an early realization. These prophecies are but the weapons
of party which would disappear in the presence of real danger; one voice
would be heard proclaiming the rights of Great Britain. To her power
what could Australia at present oppose? The American revolutionists had
an army: they had thrust out the Indians and beaten the French, and
their national character was deepened by the political and religious
sentiments in which they had been cradled. But Australia has not a
soldier or a gun. Her population may quickly reach the three millions
numbered by the Americans at the era of independence; but she has not
the habits of Americans--she has not their country, their forests, their
frozen rivers, their terrible snows. England, when America resisted,
hired a few German troops to assist her own feeble army. Since then she
has conquered Napoleon, subdued India, and established her military
power in every region of the world. Whether the mutual interests of
Great Britain and her colonies are sufficient to bind them together may
be a question at issue. Independence may be desired; but it is well to
remember that those who will attain it must fight for it, and that in
this war they will not only contend with the most benign and just, but
with the most powerful government on the earth. England will not permit
her ministers to oppress the colonies; but would hazard the last
regiment rather than lose the colonial empire.

The British government will not, if wise, rely on any abstract
principles of loyalty, or conclude too confidently that no attempt will
be successful. The distance of the central power; the peculiar structure
of colonial societies; the mountainous regions of Van Diemen's Land and
New Holland, where small bodies could resist all the armies of the
world; the possibility of foreign sympathy: all these are considerations
p