IV. BOOK came clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great, we may believe, were perfectly determined not to give them any part of theirs. To fatisfy them in fome measure, therefore, they frequently proposed to send out a new colony. But conquering Rome was, even upon fuch occafions, under no neceffity of turning out her citizens to feek their fortune, if one may fay fo, through the wide world, without knowing where they were to fettle. She affigned them lands generally in the conquered provinces of Italy, where, being within the dominions of the republic, they could never form any independent state; but were at best but a fort of corporation, which, though it had the power of enacting byelaws for its own government, was at all times fubject to the correction, jurifdiction, and legiflative authority of the mother city. The fending out a colony of this kind, not only gave fome fatisfaction to the people, but often eftablifhed a fort of garrifon too in a newly conquered province, of which the obedience might otherwife have been doubtful. A Roman colony, therefore, whether we confider the nature of the eftablishment itself, or the motives for making it, was altogether different from a Greek one. The words accordingly, which in the original languages denote thofe different establishments, have very different meanings. meanings. The Latin word (Colonia) fignifies fimply a plantation. Greek word (axia), on the contrary, fignifies a feparation of dwelling, a departure from home, a going out of the houfe. But, though the The Roman Roman colonies were in many refpects different CHA P. from the Greek ones, the intereft which prompted to establish them was equally plain and diftinct. Both inftitutions derived their origin either from irrefiftible neceffity, or from clear and evident utility. THE establishment of the European colonies in America and the West Indies arofe from no neceffity and though the utility which has refulted from them has been very great, it is not altogether fo clear and evident. It was not understood at their first establishment, and was not the motive either of that establishment or of the discoveries which gave occafion to it, and the nature, extent, and limits of that utility are not, perhaps, well understood at this day. THE Venetians, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, carried on a very advantageous commerce in fpiceries, and other Eaft India goods, which they diftributed among the other nations of Europe. They purchased them chiefly in Egypt, at that time under the dominion of the Mammeluks, the enemies of the Turks, of whom the Venetians were the enemies; and this union of intereft, affifted by the money of Venice, formed fuch a connection as gave the Venetians almost a monopoly of the trade. THE great profits of the Venetians tempted the avidity of the Portuguefe. They had been endeavouring, during the courfe of the fifteenth century, to find out by fea a way to the countries from which the Moors brought them ivory and gold duft across the Defart. They discovered the IV. BOOK the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, the Cape de Verd inlands, the coaft of Guinea, that of Loango, Congo, Angola, and Benguela, and, finally, the Cape of Good Hope. They had long withed to share in the profitable traffic of the Venetians, and this laft difcovery opened to them a probable profpect of doing fo. In 1497, Vafco de Gama failed from the port of Lisbon with a fleet of four fhips, and, after a navigation of eleven months, arrived upon the coast of Indostan, and thus completed a courfe of discoveries which had been pursued with great steadiness, and with very little interruption, for near a century together. SOME years before this, while the expectations of Europe were in fufpence about the projects of the Portuguese, of which the fuccefs appeared yet to be doubtful, a Genoefe pilot formed the yet more daring project of failing to the Eaft Indies by the Weft. The fituation of thofe countries was at that time very imperfectly known in Europe. The few European travellers who had · been there had magnified the distance; perhaps through fimplicity and ignorance, what was really very great, appearing almoft infinite to those who could not meafure it; or, perhaps, in order to increase fomewhat more the marvellous of their own adventures in vifiting regions fo immenfely remote from Europe. The longer the way was by the Eaft, Columbus very juftly concluded, the fhorter it would be by the Weft. He propofed, therefore, to take that way, as both the shortest and the furcft, and he had the good fortune to con VII. vince Ifabella of Caftile of the probability of his CHA P. project. He failed from the port of Palos in August 1492, near five years before the expedition of Vafco de Gama fet out from Portugal, and, after a voyage of between two and three months, discovered firft fome of the fmall Bahama or Lucayan islands, and afterwards the great island of St. Domingo. BUT the countries which Columbus difcovered, either in this or in any of his fubfequent voyages, had no refemblance to thofe which he had gone in queft of. Inftead of the wealth, cultivation, and populousness of China and Indoftan, he found, in St. Domingo, and in all the other parts of the new world which he ever vifited, nothing but a country quite covered with wood, uncultivated, and inhabited only by fome tribes of naked and miferable favages. He was not very willing, however, to believe that they were not the fame with fome of the countries defcribed by Marco Polo, the firft European who had vifited, or at leaft had left behind him, any defcription of China or the Eaft Indies; and a very flight refemblance, fuch as that which he found between the name of Cibao, a mountain in St. Domingo, and that of Cipango, mentioned by Marco Polo, was frequently sufficient to make him return to this favourite prepoffeffion, though contrary to the cleareft evidence. In his letters to Ferdinand and Ifabella he called the countries which he had difcovered, the Indies. He entertained no doubt but that they were the extremity of those which had been defcribed by Marco. BOOK Marco Polo, and that they were not very diftant IV. from the Ganges, or from the countries which had been conquered by Alexander. Even when at last convinced that they were different, he still flattered himself that those rich countries were at no great distance, and, in a fubfequent voyage, accordingly, went in queft of them along the coast of Terra Firma, and towards the ifthmus of Darien. IN confequence of this mistake of Columbus, the name of the Indies has ftuck to thofe unfortunate countries ever fince; and when it was at laft clearly discovered that the new were altogether different from the old Indies, the former were called the Weft, in contradistinction to the latter, which were called the Eaft Indies. Ir was of importance to Columbus, however, that the countries which he had difcovered, whatever they were, fhould be reprefented to the court of Spain as of very great confequence; and, in what conftitutes the real riches of every coun try, the animal and vegetable productions of the foil, there was at that time nothing which could well justify fuch a representation of them. THE Cori, fomething between a rat and a rabbit, and fuppofed by Mr. Buffon to be the fame with the Aperea of Brazil, was the largest viviparous quadruped in St. Domingo. This fpecies feems never to have been very numerous, and the dogs and cats of the Spaniards are faid to have long ago almost entirely extirpated it, as well as fome other tribes of a ftill fmaller fize. Thefe, however, together with a pretty large lizard, called the |