Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/234

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TRANSPORTATION

six times more extensive than that of the whole thirteen colonies that revolted from Great Britain on the declaration of American independence, and numerous harbours along that extensive line of coast, equal, if not superior, to any in North America; with a range of climate, and a fertile soil adequate to the production of all the products of American agriculture, in addition to its own peculiar and unrivalled production—fine wool; it is impossible to estimate the stimulus that would be given to the manufacturing industry and the commercial enterprise of Great Britain, by the rapid colonization of that continent with virtuous and industrious free emigrants from Great Britain and the continent of Europe. This I have shown sufficiently could be effected to a vast extent, through the mere appropriation of the colonial land-revenue to the encouragement and promotion of emigration, and without costing the mother country a single farthing. For within a period of time comparatively short, a population of entirely European origin, as numerous as that of the thirteen American colonies in the year 1776, might be successfully established on the continent and islands of Australasia; whose industry and enterprise would afford constant employment to thousands of British ships, and to tens of thousands of British sailors, artisans, merchants, and manu-