PREFACE.

THIS dissertation had its origin in an inquiry which, in the year 1853, I felt it my duty to make, as to the foundation of the law I was to administer under Her Majesty's Commission. The inquiry was begun without anticipation that it would lead to more than perfecting information for the discharge of a responsible duty. If any reader shall be staggered at some of the doctrines propounded, he will not be more so than I freely confess I myself was, when I first found them to be the inevitable result of reflection, as the subject gradually developed itself. Finding the inquiry to be interesting, L'committed the result to paper, and completed the MS. so long ago as the year 1854.

At that time the Crimean war was in full vigor,-presently came our quarrel with China,-and immediately upon the back of it the great Indian rebellion. While these demands upon the national resources continued, it did not seem prudent to publish a dissertation of this kind; although, in a pecuniary point of view, it might have been wiser for myself to have done So, inasmuch as dissatisfaction by several of our colonies with the mode of their government was then rather lively, and public opinion a good deal directed to the subject. That state of the colonies, however, operated only as one reason the more for refraining from publication.

The Crimean and Chinese wars have ended in victory. The Indian rebellion is all but extinguished, and our vast Indian possessions have become an integral part of the British empire. These mighty objects have been achieved without any apparent national exhaustion in strength or resources. The nation seems as ready for any new demand upon its courage and energy, as if it had been engaged the while only in the pursuits of peace; and as concession to the most troublesome of the colonies has produced greater tranquillity of thinking upon colonial subjects, the season seems to have arrived when I may venture with propriety to put forth this dissertation, as a pioneer to prepare the field for wider and more effective discussion. There is nothing in the position of the empire which seems to me to make the freest handling of our colonial administration to be deprecated, nor anything, in the state of public opinion on the subject, to preclude its receiving impartial judgment from those disposed to consider so highly important and interesting a subject.

Our East Indian possessions do not come within the scope of this book. The reader will see this by referring to page ninety-five, where they are specially excepted. That passage was written long before the East Indian rebellion was dreamt of, and I see nothing in what has since passed to induce me to alter it.

The doctrine urged at page ninety-three, et seq., seems likely to be sooner tested than I had supposed. On the west coast of Africa, Portugal has a vast extent of nominal territory over which she does not exercise any actual sovereignty, further than by insisting to have it recognized in anti-slavery treaties as Portuguese territory,-a claim which, in our negotiations, we have hinted a doubt of, and which France, in the matter of the Charles-et-Georges, seems to have done more

than hint a doubt of.

I find that, in trusting to memory so long after the events, I have fallen into an error at pages twenty-nine and thirty. It was Dom Juan, who fled to Brazil during the regency there of Dom Pedro, and, after Dom Juan's return to Europe, Brazil declared itself independent, and Dom Pedro to be its This, I believe, is the correct historical account of the formation of the Brazilian empire.

emperor.

I do not mean to offer here anything tending in the slightest degree to deprecate fair criticism, or even censure. I frankly confess I have read the MS. frequently, at distant intervals, with the view of testing its accuracy, so far as my judgment repeatedly applied would enable me. If it be defective or erroneous in matter or style, as nothing compelled its publication, so nothing should prevent the legitimate consequences of publication; but I do deprecate the slightest misapprehension of my political feelings. I may have meddled with questions, which some will think had better not have been mooted; or I may, in the opinion of some, have handled them with too much freedom. I confess to having had, at times, some fear upon these subjects myself, but what I have written, I have written in the purest spirit of patriotism, and in the firmest ultimate conviction, (mistaken it may be,) that it was well for my country that it should be written, that it should be read, and that it should be well and timeously considered by those who have the greatness, glory, and happiness of Great Britain most deeply at heart; and in the equally firm conviction that, if the measure I have ventured to suggest were adopted, the power of Great Britain would remain, as, in my humble opinion, it is at present, founded entirely upon the moral, social, and political qualities of my countrymen, fostered and encouraged, as these are, by the free institutions which they enjoy; and that the position of our sovereign, with reference to the other sovereigns of the earth, will always be, as it is at present,

independent of the mere vastness of territorial possessions, and will be quite safe so long as it is known that she reigns in the hearts and affections, as well as over the persons, of such subjects, and so long as her power shall be wielded by ministers, firmly and fearlessly, for the maintenance of all that is good and right in international policy.

Cape of Good Hope,

February 19, 1859.

SYDNEY S. BELL.