The Northern tribes who overthrew the Western Empire did not found colo nies; they overran or conquered whole provinces, and established new states and kingdoms. The same may be said of the Saracen conquests in Asia and Africa. But, after a lapse of several centuries, when Europe had resumed a more settled form, the system of colonization was re vived by three maritime Italian republics. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. Their first settlements on the coasts of the Levant and Egypt were mercantile factories ; which the insecurity of the country soon induced them to convert into forts with garrisons, in short into real colonies. The Genoese established colonies at Famagosta in Cyprus, at Pere, and Galata, opposite to Constantinople, and at Caffa in the Cri mea, in 1266 ; they also acquired posses sion of a considerable extent of coast in that peninsula, which was formed into a district subject to Genoa under the name of Gazaria. Another tract, on the coast of Little Tartary, called Gozia, was also subject to the Genoese, who had there the colony of Cembalo. In the Palm Mieotis they had the colony of La Tana, now Azof. On the south coast of the Euxine they possessed Amastri ; they had also a factory with franchises and their own magistrates at Trebizond, as well as at Sebastopolis. These colonies were governed by consuls sent from Genoa, and the order and justice of their admi nistration have been much extolled In the archives of St. George, at Genoa, there is a valuable unpublished MS. con taining the whole colonial legislation of the Genoese in the middle ages.
The Pisans, having taken Sardinia from the Moors, sent colonies to Cagliari and other places. Their settlements in the Levant were mere commercial factories.
The Venetians established colonies in what are now called the Ionian Islands, and in Candia and Cyprus. Their sys tem resembled that of Rome ; by means of their colonies and garrisons they go verned the people of those islands, whom they left in possession of their municipal laws and franchises. These were not like the settlements of the Genoese, merely commercial establishments—they were for conquest and dominion ; in fact, Can dia and Cyprus were styled kingdoms subject to the Republic. The Venetians had also at one time factories and garri sons on various points of the coasts of the Levant, but they lost them in the Mores, Eubcea, Syria, and the Euxine, either through the Genoese, or afterwards by • the arms of the Ottomans. We can hardly number among their colonies the few strongholds which they had until lately on the coast of Albania, such as Butrinto, Prevesa, and Parga, any more than those once possessed by the Spaniards and Portuguese on the coast of Barbary, Oran, Melilla, Ceuta, and others. They were merely forts with small garrisons, with no land attached to them. The name used in the Mediterranean for such places is presidii ; and they are often used as prisons for criminals.
An essential qualification of a Colony in the Roman sense, and in the present sense of the word is, that it should have land, and contain a body of settlers who are cultivators. The question agitated in• France, with regard Algiers, turned upon this,—whether the French were merely to occupy the towns on the coast as military and in some degree mercial colonies, or to establish an agri cultural colony in the interior, by taking possession of and cultivating the land. This question touches several, points both of justice and policy. When a colony is sent to a country occupied by a few hunt ing tribes, as was the case in North Ame rica when the English settled there, and as is now the case in New Holland, the taking possession of part of the land for the purpose of cultivation is attended with the least possible injury to the aborigines, while, at the same, it has in its favour the extension of civilization. [CiviLizs TioN.] The savages generally recede before civilized man; a few of them adopt his habits, or at least the worst part of his habits, and the rest become gradually ear tinct When the limits are confined, the progress towards extinction is exceedingly rapid. The aborigines of Van Diemen's Land having been reduced to a very small number, were wholly removed to a small island in Bass's Straits ; and there is every probability that their race will soon be extinct. This has been, from the ear liest times, the great law of the progress of the human race. But the case is much altered when the natives are partly civil ized, have settled habitations, and either cultivate the land or feed their flocks upon it. The colonists in such case do what the Romans did in their colonies ; they take part of the arable land, or the whole of the common or pasture land, and leave to the natives just what they please, and if the natives resist they kill them. Such was the system pursued by the Spaniards in various parts of America, by the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope and the Mo Irma Islands, and by all maritime nations in some part or other of Asia, Africa, or America ; and this is now done by the French against the Arabs and Kabyles of the state of Algiers. The French have sent
numerous colonists to Algiers, and among the colonists are many old soldiers who have received a grant of lands after the Roman fashion. The case may be one of greater or less oppression : according as the land is either enclosed and culti vated, or merely used for pasture or the chase ; and according as the natives are more or less numerous in proportion to the land, colonization may proceed on a milder or harsher system. The system of purchase from the natives has been practised both by the English and Anglo Americans in North America; but though it has the specious name of bargain, it has often been nothing more than a fraud, or sale under compulsion. The man of Europe has been long accustomed to re gard the possession of the soil as that which binds him to a place, and gives him the most secure and least doubtful kind of property. His habits of accumu lation, and of transmitting to his children a permanent possession, make him covet the acquisition of land. In whatever country he has set his foot, and once got a dominion in the soil, neither contracts, nor mercy, nor feelings of humanity, nor the religion which he carries with him, have prevented him from seizing on the lands of the natives, and punishing their resistance with death. British coloniza tion is at present conducted on principles more consistent with justice and humanity, as we see in the case of New Zealand. [CIV TLIZATION.] European colonies in Asia and America have been formed partly on the Roman or Venetian and partly on the Genoese or old Phceuician principle. When the Por tuguese first began their voyages of dis covery in the fifteenth century, they took possession of some islands or points on the coasts of Africa and of India, and left there a few soldiers or sailors under a military commander, who built a fort to protect the trade with the natives, and afterwards also to keep those natives under a sort of subjection. No great emigrating colonies were sent out by them, except in after times to Goa and the Brazils, which latter is really a colony of Portuguese settlers. The Spaniards, on the contrary, when they discovered America, took possession of the soil, and formed real colonies kept up by successive emigrations from the mother country. In the West India Islands the natives were made slaves, and by degrees became ex tinct under an intolerable servitude. On the mainland they were exterminated in some places, and in others reduced to the condition of serfs or tributaries. The Spaniards colonized a great part of the countries which they invaded. The Spanish American colonies had for their objects both agriculture and mining. The English North American colonies were the consequence of emigration, either vo luntary or produced by religious persecu tion and civil war at home. The Puritans went to New England, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, and the Cavaliers to Vir ginia. They formed communities under charters from the crown, and local legis latures, but were still subject to the sove reignty of the mother country. The mother country sent its governors, and named, either directly or indirectly, the civil functionaries. The precise amount of obedience that the colonies then owed to the mother country cannot be exactly de fined. The American revolution only glowed that it did not extend to a certain point, without showing how far it did extend.
A new feature has appeared in modern European colonization, that of penal co lonies, which was an extension of the principle of the presidii on the coast of Barbary, already mentioned. Cvavicts were sent by England first to North America, and afterwards to New Hol land, by France to Guiana, by Portugal to the coast of Angola, and by the Dutch to Batavia. They were either employed at the public works, or hired to settlers as servants, or were established in various places to cultivate a piece of land, for which they paid rent to the government. The policy of penal colonies has been much discussed. They may afford a tem porary relief, but at a great cost to the mother country, by clearing it of a num ber of troublesome and dangerous persons, especially so long as criminal legislation and the system of prison discipline con tinue as imperfect as they are at present in most countries of Europe ; but with regard to the convicts themselves, and the prospect of their reformation, every thing must depend upon the regulations enforced in the colony by the local au thorities. If we look, however, at the horrid places of confinement to which convicts are sent by most continental go vernments, and which are sinks of every kind of corruption and wretchedness, we cannot help feeling disposed to think more favourably of such colonies, under proper management, and to prefer the penal co lonies of Great Britain to such ill-regu lated places of punishment, which do not even affect to be places of reformation.