Six months in the West-Indies, in 1825

279 BARBADOS. of the mighty robe which was never destined for their use.

The colonies of a free state are more embarrassing problems of government than those of a country where the monarch is absolute.

The Spanish possessions in America were twenty times as big as Old Spain; yet were they for three centuries regulated by a European Council, which with the exception of its errors in commerce, and prejudices concerning race and rank, governed them well, and ultimately effected the reception of those humanizing decrees which have justly raised the name of the Spanish Colonists over those of any other nation. Nothing lay between the k i n g of Spain and the Mexican or Peruvian Creole except the Atlantic; and although the space of separation was great, the arm of power steadily raised was at most times able to reach across it. A different relation arises between a free nation and its distant colonies: they carry their freedom with them, and claim a right to the same or similar privileges whereever they exist within the pale of their own empire. A thousand Englishmen leave England and settle an island in another hemisphere.

How shall they be governed ? Not by the king alone; for the king of England is no despot;—not by Parliament,—for they are not represented in Parliament: therefore the spirit of the Constitution is obliged to grant to them and their heirs the forms of the Constitution, and they must govern themselves like the rest