'Dr. Rennell might well look forward to the highest dignities in the establishment; but, if our information be right, and we have no reason to question it, this is what he by no means either expects or courts. There is a primitive simplicity in this excellent man, which much resembles that of the first prelates of the Christian church, who were with great difficulty prevailed upon to undertake the episcopal office.'

ACCOUNT OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

(E. REVIEW, 1803.)

Account of the English Colony of New South Wales. By Lieutenant-Colonel COLLINS of the Royal Marines. Vol. II. 4to. Cadell and Davies, London.

To introduce an European population, and, consequently, the arts and civilisation of Europe, into such an untrodden country as New Holland, is to confer a lasting and important benefit upon the world. If man be destined for perpetual activity, and if the proper objects of that activity be the subjugation of physical difficulties, and of his own dangerous passions, how absurd are those systems which proscribe the acquisitions of science and the restraints of law, and would arrest the progress of man in the rudest and earliest stages of his existence! Indeed, opinions so very extravagant in their nature, must be attributed rather to the wantonness of paradox, than to sober reflection and extended inquiry.

To suppose the savage state permanent, we must suppose the numbers of those who compose it to be stationary, and the various passions by which men have actually emerged from it to be extinct; and this is to suppose man a very different being from what he really is. To prove such a permanence beneficial (if it were possible), we must have recourse to matter of fact, and judge of the rude state of society, not from the praises of tranquil· literati, but from the narratives of those who have seen it, through a nearer and better medium than that of imagination. There is an argument, however, for the continuation of evil, drawn from the ignorance of good; by which it is contended, that

to teach men their situation can be better, is to teach them that it is bad, and to destroy that happiness which always results from an ignorance that any greater happiness is within our reach. All pains and pleasures are clearly by comparison; but the most deplorable savage enjoys a sufficient contrast of good, to know that the grosser evils from which civilisation rescues him are evils. A New Hollander seldom passes a year without suffering from famine; the small-pox falls upon him like a plague; he dreads. those calamities, though he does not know how to avert them; but doubtless would find his happiness increased, if they were averted. To deny this, is to suppose that men are reconciled to evils, because they are inevitable; and yet hurricanes, earthquakes, bodily decay, and death, stand highest in the catalogue of human calamities.

Where civilisation gives birth to new comparisons unfavourable to savage life, with the information that a greater good is possible, it generally connects the means of attaining it. The savage no sooner becomes ashamed of his nakedness, than the loom is ready to clothe him; the forge prepares for him more perfect tools, when he is disgusted with the awkwardness of his own his weakness is strengthened, and his wants supplied, as soon as they are discovered; and the use of the discovery is, that it enables him to derive from comparison the best reasons for present happiness. A man born blind is ignorant of the pleasures of which he is deprived. After the restoration of his sight, his happiness will be increased from two causes ; from the delight he experiences at the novel accession of power, and from the contrast he will always be enabled to make between his two situations, long after the pleasure of novelty has

ceased. For these reasons it is humane to restore him to sight.

But, however beneficial to the general interests of mankind the civilisation of barbarous countries may be considered to be, in this particular instance of it, the interest of Great Britain would seem to have been very little consulted. With fanciful schemes of universal good we have no business to meddle. Why we are to erect penitentiary houses and prisons at the distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous expense of feeding and transporting their inhabitants to, and at such a distance, it is extremely difficult to discover.* It certainly is not from any deficiency of barren islands near our own coast, nor of uncultivated wastes in the interior; and if we were sufficiently fortunate to be wanting in such species of accommodation, we might discover in Canada, or the West Indies, or on the coast of Africa, a climate malignant enough, or a soil sufficiently sterile, to revenge all the injuries which have been inflicted on society by pickpockets, larcenists, and petty felons. Upon the foundation of a new colony, and especially one peopled by criminals, there is a disposition in Government (where any circumstance in the commission of the crime affords the least pretence for the commutation) to convert capital punishments into transportation; and by these means to hold forth a very dangerous, though certainly a very unintentional, encouragement to offences. And when the history of the colony has been attentively perused in the parish of St. Giles, the ancient avocation of picking pockets will certainly not become more discreditable

* The transportation committee of last year in their report arrive at the same conclusion, but not till after 7,000,000l. have been spent in the experiment.

from the knowledge, that it may eventually lead to the possession of a farm of a thousand acres on the river Hawkesbury. Since the benevolent Howard attacked our prisons, incarceration has become not only healthy, but elegant; and a county gaol is precisely the place to which any pauper might wish to retire to gratify his taste for magnificence,, as well as for comfort. Upon the same principle, there is some risk that transportation will be considered as one of the surest roads to honour and to wealth; and that no felon will hear a verdict of 'not guilty,' without considering himself as cut off in the fairest career of prosperity. It is foolishly believed, that the colony of Botany Bay unites our moral and commercial interests, and that we shall receive hereafter an ample equivalent, in bales of goods, for all the vices we export. Unfortunately the expense we have incurred in founding the colony will not retard the natural progress of its emancipation, or prevent the attacks of other nations, who will be as desirous of reaping the fruit, as if they had sown the seed. It is a colony, besides, begun under every possible disadvantage it is too distant to be long governed, or well defended: it is undertaken, not by the voluntary association of individuals, but by Government, and by means of compulsory labour. A nation must, indeed, be redundant in capital, that will expend it where the hopes of a just return are so very small.

It may be a curious consideration, to reflect what we are to do with this colony when it comes to years of discretion. Are we to spend another hundred millions of money in discovering its strength, and to humble ourselves again before a fresh set of Washingtons and Franklins? The moment after we have suffered such serious mischief from the escape