colonial traffic. The amount of charge, therefore,
although remaining to be deducted from the colonial head, may be left as a
neutral indeterminate item. But the military expenses for Singapore,
Penang, and Malacca, about L.80,000, cannot be for colonial account at
all, because stations merely for carrying on foreign trade, against which
chargeable, with the civil establishments as well, whether in whole or in
part, paid by the East India Company or not.

Returning westward, we have the Bay of Honduras with a military
establishment, including reserve as _per_ Cobden, expending about
L.50,000, which ranges for the far greater part within the category of the
cost attending foreign trade. Then, on the West African slave-trading
coast, we have Sierra Leone, with a military expenditure, actual and
contingent, of about L.25,000. There are the Cape Coast Castle, Acera,
Fernando Po, and other small African settlements besides, which cannot
cost less, in military occupation, than some few thousands a-year, say
only L.10,000, all for foreign trade, since colonization and production
are _nil_; and with Sierra Leone, they are only kept, or were established,
for the purpose of suppressing the trade in slaves, and promoting a
foreign trade in that quarter of Africa. Coming to Europe we have
Heligoland, a rock in the North Sea, which, as only costing something more
than L.1000 per annum on foreign trade account, we may leave out of
question. Now, without pretending on the present occasion to make up and
offer an approximate estimate of the proportion of army expenditure
charged against the colonies by Mr Cobden, which should be set down either
to political account, as arising from the possession and maintenance of
outposts necessary for defensive or defensively aggressive purposes, in
case of, or for the prevention of foreign war, or for the protection and
encouragement of foreign trade, in which a right large portion of the
military expenditure for Jamaica, Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, &c.,
may be regarded, we shall content ourselves with reducing his wholesale
estimate of colonial army charge by the materials antecedently furnished.
The reductions will stand thus, premising that in respect of Singapore,
Penang, and Malacca, we have not the means of ascertaining what proportion
of the charge falls upon the national treasury, as part is borne by the
East India Company. Of one fact there can, however, be no doubt; namely,
that nea