The West India colonies of Denmark consist of Santa Cruz, and of two insignificant islands. This trade was formerly vested in the hands of a company who failed ; and for a long time this trade likewise has been open to all inhabitants of Denmark, with hardly any other restriction than that of bringing their produce to the capital, or to a port which is privileged to erect a sugar re line ry.
Sweden possesses no colony except the small island of St Bartholomew, which was obtained thirty years ago fro,n France. The trade with this little spot is also under specific limitations, Stockholm and Gottcnburg being the two privileged harbours, and an association bearing the name of a West India Company possessing the direction of the intercourse. The returns, however, do not probably amount to 50,000/. a-year. The Swedes have likewise an East India Company, whose dealings are very limited, and who arc in the peculiar, but pro bably not unfortunate, situation of possessing no Indian territory.
General Observations.
Motives for Emigration.—It is common to make a distinction between ancient and modern colonies, by as cribing the origin of the former to the want of subsis tence, and that of the latter to commercial projects. The distinction, however, holds less generally than many are inclined to suppose. The want, or rather the imagined want, of subsistence, had a powerful operation in sending abroad many of the English emigrants to North America. Mr Brougham has caught this idea, and is at great pains (vol. i. p. 54.) to silent, that, in the progress of society, certain classes may be exposed to a very sensible diminu tion of their accustomed enjoyments, and consequently acquire a disposition to emigrate. While we have great pleasure in bearing testimony to the ability of his illus trations in this and several other topics, in his Colonial Policy, we cannot help thinking, from the length of his observations, that he has sought too far for the motives which lead to the exchange of an old fur a newly settled country. In our opinion, the comparison which an ardent mind is prepared to make between the unbounded pros pect offered by the one, and the well-ascertained toil and trouble attendant on a continued residence in the other, is amply sufficient to account for such emigrations. As to the facility of obtaining subsistence, we arc inclined to think that most long settled countries arc on a par, for the plain reason, that an increase of population is invariably found to attend an increase of provisions.
Ireland contributes annually a considerable number of colonists to the American states ; and the emigrants, be it remarked, arc chiefly from the Protestant part of the population. Now, on the score of subsistence, the Irish Protestants are less uncomfortably situated than their Catholic neighbours, who do not emigrate ; a fact which chews that the influence of necessity, in this case, is a relative, not an absolute feeling. Aloreover, a passage to America costs at present, and, we believe, always did cost, a sum, which, small as it may be, would afford to the emigrant the means of at home for a sea son. Our opinion, therefore, is, that the want, not of a mere subsistence, hit of a comfortable livelihood, has been the chief meal% e for emigration in modern as well as in ancient times ; and that this v. ant was not, in ge neral, the result of any sudden or patticular change of circumstances, so much as of the predilection with which a man, aware of the necessity of prolonged labour at home, is apt to contemplate his prospects in a new :gauntry. Advertin; to the case of Scotland, we admit the Highland emigrations to have been, in general, the result of a direct cause,—the loss of employment to the inhabitants, by the extensive introduction of sheep fanning. On the other hand, the annual drain of our young countrymen from the Lowlands to the West In dies, affords a striking example of the relative nature or the consideration mentioned above. They go abroad in quest, not of a mere support, but, as they imagine, of a more comfortable one than they can find at home. A farther argument in favour of our view of the cause of emigration, is to be found in the agricultural situation of Great Britain. Until the middle of last century, or rather until the year 1770, we were in the habit of mak ing annual exportations of corn ; a sufficient reason for not going out of the country in quest of a bare subsistence. Ireland at the present day is a corn-exporting country ; and were the husbandry of Lothian, Berwickshire, or Northumberland, generally introduced into the more fa vourable soil and climate of the west and south of Eng land, a material alteration would ensue. Great Britain would cease to be dependant on foreign countries for corn, and might be enabled to maintain even an additional po pulation from her own resources.