The earlier British colonies arose in the re verse order to those of Spain—the colonists went first, the dignitaries followed. This was espe ciall• true of the New England colonies. lie fore 1630 the British race had gained a firm foothold in America. The settlers were organ ized as privileged companies with royal letters patent, which in practice made them virtually independent of the Government at home; and as they were, for the most part, dissenters seek ing a place of refuge from what they considered the grievances of the Established Church and the Government, they took care not to convey the grievance with them. The northern colonists, indeed, acted as if they were a sort of private corporation. The policy of Great Britain toward her American colonies was the result of the ac cepted economic philosophy of the times (see POLITICAL Ecoxomv), according to which it was thought that the trade with colonies must be strictly confined to the home country. The idea was that the colonies should supply raw mate rials to the mother country, and in return should purchase from the latter its manufactured prod ucts. Shipping was to be in the hands of the home country. This policy was no more char acteristic of England than of other European States, and the reason why it encountered such vigorous opposition in the Anglo-American colo nies was that the latter were settled by men who deliberately planned to establish homes in the New World. whereas those who made up the colonies of Spain, Portugal. or France were seek ing wealth and prestige with which to reestab lish their position in Europe.
During the eighteenth century Great Britain rose to a foremost position among colonial pow ers. and in the nineteenth century she firmly es tablished her primacy. Rich compensation for the loss of the Thirteen Colonies—a loss which for a time scented to threaten the dissolution of her empire—was found in the vast realm built up in India and in the flourishing colonies of Canada and Australia. In Africa. which became the principal scene of colonial activity for the European powers in the last quarter of the nine teenth century, Great Britain holds posseAsion of Cape Colony and the former Boer republics. and of immense tracts of territory in Central and Eastern Africa. Coupled with her pre dominance in Egypt, this would seem to assure to England a splendid colonial development in the Dark Continent. Spain's colonial empire attained its fullest development in the seven teenth century. declined in the eighteenth, and disappeared in the nineteenth. The Treaty of Paris, in 1763, deprived France of her posses sions in America, and pit a quietus on French colonization, Algeria excepted. for more than
one hundred years, until the statesmen of the Third Republic initiated a new policy of ex pansion in Africa and the Far East. The Dutch establishments in the East were founded in great part upon the ruins of the colonial power of Portugal. At the time of the French Revolution ary Wars, Holland was shorn of some of her possessions (Ceylon. Cape Colony), which went to increase the colonial domain of Britain. The annals of Dutch dominion in the East Indies have until recent times been the history of a nation seeking to enrich itself at the expense of downtrodden peoples. With the loss of Brazil in 1822. the importance of Portugal as a world power departed. By its victory over Spain in 1898, the United States took its place among the colonial powers of the world; and through the solution of the problems presented by the necessity of reconciling the element of autocracy inherent in the administration of foreign posses sions with the republican theory of American institutions, the term colony, already loose in meaning, has attained a still broader applica tion. See the articles on the various countries for detailed accounts of their colonies.
ThnumRAPHY. n Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European, Powers (Edinburgh, 1803) ; lleeren, A itanital of the History of the Political System of Europe (Lon don, 1857) ; Money, Java, or Ilow to .Manage a Colony (London, 1861) : Cairnes, Co/oni.mtion and Colonial Corer/illicit/ (London, 1873) ; Le roy-Beaulieu. De la colonisation elle,: les peupl•s modrows (Paris, 1874) ; Deckert, Die Kolonial rriehe und Kolonisationsobjekte i/cr tlegentrart (Leipzig, 1885) ; Kolonicn, Ko/unia/ polilik unJ Auswandcruny (Leipzig, 18S5); Payne, History of European colonies ( London, 1S811) ; Norman, The Peoples and Polities of the Far East (London, 1895) ; Worsfohl, South Af rica: .1 Study in Colonial Administration and Development (London, 1895) ; Dubois, Systemes colonianx et peoples colonisateurs ( Paris, 1895) ; Englehardt, L•s protecto•a.ts auciens et mo dernes (Pari:, 1S90); Zimmermann, Die euro piiisehen Kolonicn (Berlin, 1896-1901) ; Lanes san, Principes de colonisation (Paris, 1897) ; Kidd, The Control of the Tropics (London, 1898) ; Reinsch, World Politics (New York, 1 900 ) , and Colonial Covernment (New York, 1902) : Giddings, Democracy and Empire (New York, 1900) ; Mike, The British Empire (Lon don, 1899) ; Egerton. ,Short History of British Colonial Policy (London. 1897) ; Gatfarel, Les colonies ra (Paris, 1893) ; Lanessan, L 'expansion colonial(' (lc la France ( Pa ris, 1889) ; Franzel, Dentsehlands !colonic), (Han over, 1889).