whole of the region. His opinion is: Until the settlement of Canada has advanced close to the Red River, I do not think that any wise settler would go beyond that place, there being so much better land much nearer the market to be had at a very moderate rate.' (2902.) To these unequivocal testimonies might be added those of military officers who have commanded troops in the district, all to the same effect. We have purposely avoided citing the opinions of Mr. Ellice and Sir George Simpson, because, though entitled to great weight, they might be objected to as proceeding from advocates of the Company. What we have extracted is enough to show the impression of impartial men of high character speaking from their own observation of the capacities of the country for colonisation.

The best proof, however, remains, and that is the fact that colonists do not go to the Red River. There is nothing to prevent them; the lands are open for sale; there is hardly any taxation; English law is administered by an English lawyer who, before he went to the settlement, had attained the rank of Queen's Counsel in Canada; life and property are perfectly safe under the care of a detachment of Her Majesty's troops. The Company may not be zealous colonisers, but they do, and can do, nothing to prevent settlement, and, if there were any adequate motive, we do not doubt but settlement would take place. But there is no such motive. The climate and soil are uninviting, and any produce which might be raised could only be sent to the south to compete, in the overstocked markets of Minnesota, with similar produce raised on the spot. The country can only be reached by large bodies. of persons through the United States; and it would be an unaccountable infatuation if emigrants should pass through a region where land is fertile and communication is easy, to seek a home in a remote and isolated country inferior in every respect to the unoccupied lands which lie on each side of the way to it. The only inducement which Government could hold out to emigrants would be the substitution of the rule of the Crown for the management of the Company; and, with every respect for the Colonial Office, we must be permitted to doubt whether this is a boon which would be very highly appreciated. When we see how Mr. Douglas, a mere fur-trader, has been able, under circumstances most trying and perplexing, without money, without official staff, without military help, to govern, to reduce to order, to feed, and to conciliate the vast mass of desperate and lawless men whom the recent gold discoveries flung on the shore of Vancouver's Island, we may reasonably

question whether the settler would gain much by the displacement of such administrators as the rough service of the Hudson's Bay Company seems to train, in order to make room for that peculiar class of persons who are generally selected to discharge responsible and onerous offices in Crown Colonies. The truth is, a colony has already been established at the Red River. It has conspicuously failed from defects of climate, position, and communication, and there is no reason to think that the failure would be less complete if the name of the Crown were substituted for that of the Company.

But all these considerations dwindle into insignificance, compared to the political importance of the step which, if we are to believe the Queen's Speech, the Government is about to take. It is beyond all question, that the natural approach to and outlet from the best parts of the Hudson's Bay territory is through the State of Minnesota. We have shown, and need not repeat, the insuperable objections to the other two routes by Hudson's Bay and by Lake Superior. Such commerce as the country has is destined to go to the south, and as far as its intercourse with the rest of the world is concerned, the Red River Settlement is a part of the States which are watered by the Mississippi. It is in vain to suppose that a Government can force commerce into any other channel than that which it naturally makes for itself. If the proposed colony is to buy everything from, and sell everything to, the United States, if it is only to be approached and only left through the United States, the result necessarily will be, that it will become politically assimilated to them, and that its dependence on the British Crown will become nearly nominal. The colonists will know that, in case of war with America, it is entirely out of the power of the Crown to protect them, and that they alone, of all the dependencies of Great Britain, are utterly out of reach of assistance from the mother state. We have shown how little chance there is of any considerable number of emigrants finding their way from these islands to the Red River. A man with the map of all the world before him will hardly go thither. But the case may be very different with regard to the American settlers in Minnesota. We have some experience, as in the troubles between the State of Maine and Canada, of the eagerness with which the Americans will press forward to seize even upon the most unpromising districts, especially when these aggressions tend to bring their own government into contact with the Crown of Great Britain. Their most advanced settlement is at present about three hundred and thirty miles south of the 49th parallel, the boundary of British America, and their rail

way has as yet only reached La Crosse, in about the 43rd degree of north latitude, about two hundred miles south of St. Paul's. But this gap will soon be filled up. There is no geographical obstacle whatever to their progress, and the time must come, before many years have expired, when they will reach the imaginary line which divides the level prairie between Great Britain and the American Union. Will they stop there; will not the temptation be irresistible to overflow the British colony, just as the Missourians occupied Kansas, and to settle upon her lands with every disposition to make the retention of them, under the Crown, as troublesome as possible to this country? We shall have no Hudson's Bay Company then to act as a buffer between the two countries; they will confront each other face to face, with every advantage on the side of the Americans. The British nation will be represented by a few unpopular officials; everything else will be American. Our officers will be situated as the representatives of the United States have been in the territory of Utah. In such a state of things, causes cannot long be wanting to wound our pride and stain our honour. Our very helplessness will increase our irritation; and unless both nations. have grown much wiser in the interval which must elapse, we may find ourselves involved in a destructive war for the sake of this miserable nook of worthless land. No step is more illadvised than to form a colony with the full knowledge that nature forbids us from protecting, and honour from abandoning it; especially if, in order to secure this object, we are to begin by destroying a government which, without costing us a farthing, maintains peace and order through a territory as large as Europe, and substituting for it an expensive and inefficient machinery of our own. It may be true that it would be desirable to form a chain of colonies along the whole length of the northern frontier of the United States; but this must be understood subject to the condition that those colonies should have free communication with each other, and should all have access to Great Britain during the whole year, without passing through foreign territory. Unless these conditions are complied with, we are merely colonising for the Americans, and exposing ourselves to the degradation of owning settlements which we cannot protect, govern, or surrender.

If this subject could only be regarded without passion or prejudice, and with a single view to imperial interests, the solution does not appear difficult. Things are not ripe for any final resolution. Canada is evidently not prepared at this moment either to accept or reject the offer of the Company to take these lands on condition of settling and making com

munications to them. It is a gross exaggeration to represent American settlement as having reached the boundary line, and many years must elapse before the space which intervenes between St. Paul's and Pembina is filled up. Everything is in a state of transition and uncertainty. The creation of the new colony of British Columbia points to the possibility of the formation of an overland route by the northern Saskatchewan. Innumerable projects for an Atlantic and Pacific railroad are in the air. No one can tell what form will arise out of this chaos, and until we know, it would be the height of imprudence to commit ourselves to so decisive and irretrievable a step as the formation of a British colony which we are bound to defend at all hazards.* In this state of transition and uncertainty, we have the good fortune to possess in this fur company an expedient peculiarly adapted to the requirements of the time. If it has no other merit, it secures to us, if we are wise, time for circumspection and deliberation, and saves us from the necessity of taking any rash and ill-advised step. And yet all parties, agreeing in nothing else, seem to have combined for the purpose of destroying the corporation which at this moment renders us such invaluable service. The Colonial Minister, to whom it saves infinite trouble and anxiety, the Canadian Government, whose frontiers it preserves in tranquillity, nay, the very Aborigines Protection Society, whose duties it most efficiently discharges, all combine in the wish to extinguish it. Let it then be extinguished, but do not let us embark in the dangerous and expensive folly of colonising the country on our own account. Better to hand it over at once to the United States, and get some credit for liberality, than wait to see it wrested from us without the possibility of resistance and without the grace of a concession.

* These pages were already in the press when the latest work on the subject, Mr. Kane's 'Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians 'of British North America,' reached our hands; and we are happy to find that Mr. Kane fully confirms, from his own personal observation, the opinion we have formed. His pencil has been employed with great success to represent the wild Indian tribes of these regions, and the wild scenery in which they dwell. He visited the Red River Settlement, penetrated to Fort Assiniboine, descended the Walla Walla and the Columbia, and has given us a most graphic and entertaining account of the frightful country he succeeded in crossing. We should be ready to rest the whole case on Mr. Kane's evidence, which is really conclusive, and we strongly recommend his most interesting volume to our readers.

ART. VI. Correspondence, Despatches, and other papers of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry. Edited by his brother, CHARLES WILLIAM VANE, Marquess of Londonderry. London, 1849-53. 12 vols. 8vo.

IN a recent article, with the help of some modern publications, we followed the course of the Grenville, Portland, and Perceval Administrations: and we gave a succinct account of the negotiations which, in June 1812, led to the selection of Lord Liverpool as the successor of Mr. Perceval.* We propose in this article to continue our review of the events of this period from the accession of Lord Liverpool to the death of Lord Castlereagh in 1822; and on a future occasion to carry on our retrospect from 1822 to the resignation of the Duke of Wellington, and the advent of the Reform Ministry of Lord Grey.

The Administration of Lord Liverpool, like that of Mr. Pitt in 1783, was neither formed under happy auspices, nor was it upon its formation expected to be of long duration. Yet it lasted for fifteen years, and was at last only dissolved by the illness and resignation of Lord Liverpool himself, without any adverse parliamentary vote.

The negotiations with Lords Grey and Grenville on the one hand, and with Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning on the other, had equally failed; and the Administration of Lord Liverpool was in substance a reproduction of the preceding Government, with such shiftings of parts as were rendered necessary by Mr. Perceval's death. In his character of First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Perceval was replaced by Lord Liverpool, who resigned the War Department to Lord Bathurst, previously President of the Board of Trade. In his capacity of Chancellor of the Exchequer he was replaced by Mr. Vansittart. In his capacity of Leader of the House of Commons he was replaced by Lord Castlereagh. The other changes were caused by the retirement of Mr. Charles Yorke and Mr. Richard Ryder.†

The new Prime Minister was the son of the first Earl of Liverpool, who had filled numerous official situations, had taken

* Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1858, Art. 1.

† Mr. Perceval's Cabinet in April, 1812, consisted of ten members, of whom six were Peers and four were Commoners. Lord Liverpool's Cabinet in September, 1812, consisted of twelve members, of whom ten were Peers, and only two were Commoners; viz., Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Vansittart.