The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1857-08-21
The Crisis of India.

Events In India suggest to the London Spectator
the serious and pertinent question whether impe
rial States can abandon their dependencies and We,
retain their greatness, question to which it cor
cedes that precedents do not justify affrmatiy,
answer.
with two remarkable exceptions" says the
Spectator, 1.-The examples of colonizing cOuntrr,
that have asserted dominion over territories tai
beyond the confines of the parent state exhibit d
loss of dependencies and loss of greatness nearly
simultaneous if not connected with each other. III
cases it is difficult to say which is the
and which the consequence Perhaps they react
The examples that speak to us through history are
those of Tyre, Greece, Carthage, kOme, Venice, &c
noa, Spain, Portugal, France and Denmark. Re
speeding the manner of Pho nician colonization W,
know almost nothing, and the Greek Dependencies
were quite unlike our Indian empire. We come
nearer to the point when we arrive at Carthage
which for centuries held an undisputed sway oven
three hundred African cities, besides the more dis
tant dependencies of sardinia Corsica, Sicily Malta
the Baeric Isles, GAMBIA and Senegal, together
with settlements Oh the coast of Spain and Britain
The war with Rome originated in the dispute oyel
some of those colonies, and il was in CONSEQUENCE,
of them that Carthage fell. The colombo of Rom,
were not the cause why Rome herself succumbed
but the central state on the Tiber in falling drag
ged with itself its dependencies, and opened then
to the conquest of the barbarian. Venice is CRANE
example Of d state declining through the loss o
It's tributaries. Reduced 10 herself Venice wa
like a brain without body, and the ruined marbl
mansions of the Bride of the Adriatic tell even i,
our own day, a sad tale of departed glures Genoi
declined when she lost her settlements at Galats
katfa and in the Crimea. Spain and Portugal wert
sinking when they lost their Transatlantic posses
sions. Ii is the same with Denmark, and still,
more with Holand-a rival of England while sh,
drew wealth from colonies in great part alien never
largely peopled by the parent state, but held by
military and mercantile tenure France alun,
seems in modern days to form the exception to the
general rule that the loss of large and powerful!
dependencies involves the ruin of the important
country; for a century ago France ruled magnf
cent portions of the North American continent
and is strong after the loss of those vast posses
sions ever she was before But the posiliun OF
France is like that of Rome formerly; Rome Wa
and France is in our own day military state The
chief strength of such states lies in the courage
genius and moral condition of their population
aud in their central or home government our
own loss Of the American colonies is in ma;y way.
in its causes, Its incidents and its I. y-,its-ex
ceptiOnal; but II is an experiment that few would
care to repeat.
The spectator concludes that If England be com
pared To any other country, she seek to stud,
her fate In that of similar commercial countries
holding distant possessions, such as Venice Genoa
Denmark and HOLE =" ~tose political greatness
and territorial grandeur e.-icu together and fell
together IL holds that it is the duty of England
TO defend the Indian Empire as the outpost of the
power and even Of the national character Of Great
Britain