The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-02-16 00:00:00

TIE BRITISH COLONIES.

• If there can exist any doubt as to the vital importance
of our colonies, and of Canada in particular, as channels
and ducts, which are necessarily pouring their ample
supplies into the great reservoir and river-head of oar
national trade and commerce, it will be removed, we
think, by the simple perusal of the following statistical
paper. We have extracted it from one of our daily pa-
pers, but we believe that it is copied, or rather that the in-
formation which it contains, is derived from that valua-
ble repository of political and commercial facts, " Mac.
culloch's Trading Dictionary." Our colonial possessions,
and their pecuniary and trading value, may be briefly
enumerated as follows :
In North America.—Canada, Upper and Lower, New Bruns-
wick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Isle, Cape Breton. and
Newfoundland ; area, 4.35,0(X) square miles, or 279,400,000
acres, with a population of 1,500,000 white colonists. (Inde-
pendent of the foregoing, Hudson's Bay territories extend over
370,000 square miles.)
In South America.—Demerara, Essequibo, Berbice, Hon-
duras, and the Falkland Isles; area, 165,000 square miles, or
105,660,000 acres, with a population of 120,000.
In the West Indies.—Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada,
St. Vincent, Barbadoes, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, Mont-
serrat, Nevis, St. Kitt's, Anguilla, Tortolla, and the Virgin
Isles, New Providence and the Bahama Isles, St. George's and
the Bermuda Isles,- area, 13,000 square miles, or 7,720;000
acres? population, 1,000,000.
In Africa.—The Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Mahe, and
the Seychelles Islands, St. Helena, Ascension, Sierra Leone,
the Gambia, Accra Cape Coast, &c., area, 250,000 square
'miles, or 160,000,000 acres; population, 350,000. .
In Australia.—New South Wales, Tan Diemen's Land,
Swan River, King George's Sound, South Australia. Norfolk
Island, &c.; area, 500,000 square miles, or 320,000,000 acres;
population, 120,000.

In Asia.—Ceylon, area, 24,644 square miles, or 11,771,160
acres ; population, 1,900,00.

In -EUrOpe.—Gibraltar, Malta, Gozo, Corfu, Cephalonia,
Zante, Santa Maura, Ithaca, Paxo, Cerizo, &c., awl Heligo-
land; area, 1,500 square miles,] or 1,000,000 acres; popula-
tion, 400,000.

Total under the Colonial Secretary.-1,750,000 square miles,
equal to 1,120,000,000 acres; with a population of at least
5,u00,000 of British subjects, and daily increasing.
The languages used in these different colonies embrace the
English, Freud), Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek,
Maltese, Cingalese, &c,

The laws are more or less based on the customs of the different
nations from whom these languages are derived, and from whom
:re obtained the possessions.

The religious .embracethe English, Episcopalian, Dutch,
Lutheran, Roman Catholic; and Greek churches, with various
shades of Pagan idolatry and forms of worship.
The value of the maritime commerce of the above-mentioned
possessions is in the aggregate £35,000,000 per annum, and the
value of the property, public and private, moveable and im-
moveable, in lands, houses, roads, forts, canals, ships, trading
stock, and horses, jaxer, sheep, &c., is £15000,000.
Let us add to this the immense empire of India, pos-
sessed and governed by Great Britain, with its popula-
tion of one hundred millions, and with every character
and species of soil and climate, and nothing more will
be necessary to show the justice of Buonaparte's fre.
quent exclamation,---that there was only one way of ef-
fectually subduing England, that of assailing her in her
ships, her commerce, and her colonies. These, indeed,
are the feeders of our national greatness, and let one or
more of the principal of them be cut off by foreign, re-
bellion, or domestic faction or treason, and we shall soon
become a dry and withered trunk; all that remains of us
will soon follow the fate of the limbs which we have lost,
and we shall become an example to future nations—that,
in national, as well as in private affairs, courage is ge-
,nerally the best part of prudence—and that none are
ready to assist those who are indolently and ignomini-
ously wanting in their own self-defence.