island was inhabited by three men; an American, a Portuguese, and a German. They lived upon fish and birds' eggs, and covered their huts of straw with sealskins.

VI.

The peopling of Pitcairn's Islands has excited much interest in Europe, and in all the British Asiatic settlements. Captain Bligh having sailed, in 1790, in order to plant the bread fruit-tree in one of the South Sea islands, his crew mutinied, and putting him in a boat, they sailed for Otaheite, where each sailor took a wife. With these women, and six Otaheitan men-servants, the mutineers again set sail; and after passing a Lagoon island, which they called Vivini, and where they procured birds' eggs and cocoa nuts, they ran their ship ashore on Pitcairn's Island, situate 25° 2' south latitude, 130° 0' west longitude.

Finding the island small, having but one mountain, and that adapted for cultivation, they put up temporary houses, made of the leaves of the tea-tree, until they were able to cover them with palms. In this island they found yams, taro, plantains, the bread-fruit-tree, and ante, of which they made cloth. They climbed the precipices, and procured eggs and birds in abundance : they made small canoes, and fished; and they distilled spirits from the roots of tea. In this manner the whole party lived four years: during which time there were born to them several sons and daughters. But a jealousy arising between the English and their Otaheitan servants, the latter revolted, and murdered all the former, except one,-Adam Smith;-whom they severely wounded with a

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pistol-ball. The women, upon thus losing their husbands, to whom they had become exceedingly attached, rose in the night, and, stealing silently to the place where their countrymen lay, murdered them. By this act there remained upon the island only one Englishman (Smith), the Otaheitian women, and the children.

Thus left to their own exertions, Smith and the women applied themselves to tilling the ground; in which they cultivated plantains, nuts, bananas, yams, and cocoas. Their animals consisted of pigs and fowls; but having no boilers, they dressed their food after the manner of Otaheite. They made cloth, and clothed themselves also like the Otaheitians. Thus situated, they were at length discovered by an American captain, who chanced to sail that way. At this time the children had grown to be men and women; and the population amounted to thirty-nine. They looked upon Smith as their patriarch; they spoke English; and they were brought up under his tuition, in a moral and religious manner.

Since the time, in which they were discovered, their population has increased considerably; they have parted with their still, and obtained a boat. Their ceremonies of marriage, baptism, and funerals, are plain and simple; none of them have learnt to read; but great strictness is observed in respect to religious duty. Many ships have since visited them: and in September, 1819, a subscription was entered into, at Calcutta, to supply them with ploughs and other useful articles. These were sent by Captain Henderson, who undertook to land them in the Hercules, on his voyage to Chili. In 1819, not a quarrel had taken place among the inhabitants for eighteen years!

VII.

The manner in which cities have been founded, and states organised, is another interesting subject for remark. Colonies have been formed, as checks on conquered countries; as media of extending particular branches of commerce; or in order to discharge a superabundant population. Some by persons, labouring under civil or military inconveniences; others by martyrs in the cause of their faith. Some derived their origin from contagious disorders, ambition of chiefs, vows, or commands of oracles. The Greeks established theirs for all of these causes; but chiefly in order to relieve their cities from a redundancy of inhabitants. The Tartars, Huns, Goths, and Vandals, emigrated with similar views: the Romans formed colonies as checks on the countries they had conquered: the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English, chiefly for the purposes of commerce.

The most celebrated of colonial establishments in ancient times, were those of the Italians in Sicily, before Christ 1294; of Evander, who led a colony of Greeks into Italy in 1243; of the Phenicians to Carthage, 1235; of the Ionian colonies in 1044; of the Messenians to Rhegium in 723; and of the Athenians to Byzantium in 670. Miletus, the Athens of Ionia, sent many colonies along the shores of the Euxine, Propontis, and Hellespont. The Cretans, previous to the time of Agamemnon, had made settlements on many coasts of Europe and Asia: while the Samians sent a colony even to Upper Egypt. Samos itself, after many revolutions, was colonized by the Athenians, and partitioned into two thousand parts; one part being apportioned to one colonist.

The Lydians colonized Tuscany'; the Rhodians founded Naples, and some cities in Iberia; while the Phocians sent a colony to Marseilles. This settlement was highly important for the harmony, which, for so many ages, it preserved; and for the benefits which resulted to the country, in which it was established. Marseilles being the Athens, Oxford, and Cambridge, for the youths of Gaul, and no inconsiderable portion of Spain, Germany, and Britain. And yet though Marseilles was eminent for so many ages, it is curious to remark, that not one author, residing within its walls, has survived the wreck of learning and science.

VIII.

The most remarkable emigration, in modern times, is that of 500,000 Tour-Goths, from the shores of the Caspian to the Chinese frontiers. Nor did ever a government receive a greater insult, than that of Russia in the resolution of those emigrants to encounter so long and so difficult a journey, in order to throw themselves under the protection of a foreign prince, rather than submit to the insults of an unprincipled conquest.

But history presents no colonization, so agreeable to the imagination as that of Pennsylvania by the immortal Penn; whose enlightened philosophy; private and public difficulties; faith with the native Americans; the urbanity of his companions; their order, purity, and precision; present a combined picture, whether relating to manners or to circumstances, which throw into the shade

1 Propert. lib. iii. Hor. Sat. vi. v. 1, 2.

the whole history of empires:-deformed, as it is, with every variety, arising out of sacrilege, robbery, treachery, assassination, and public murder ;-sanctioned by custom, dignified by law, and hallowed into glory.

The United States of America are chiefly indebted for their population, civilization, and consequent power, to the impolicy of European administrations. Factions, civil wars, difficulties in procuring subsistence, or the hope of bettering their condition, having induced a great number of Swiss, German, French, Irish, Scotch, and English emigrants to quit their native soils, and seek in a distant country subsistence and repose.

The origin of new tribes in solitudinous countries has frequently arisen from certain men and women having retired from the justice or the persecution of their countrymen. In others, from children having been wilfully, or accidentally, left by their parents. This has been exemplified even in Europe. The Tartars and Russians, in their excursions into Poland, were accustomed to take women with them. These having by accident, or design, left their children in the solitudes, those children found foster-mothers in those wild animals, among which they were afterwards found. Many of these beings have been discovered in Poland, and even in some parts of Germany.

One observation, in respect to colonists, it is very important to remark. They are mere merchants: seeming to have no conception beyond the vulgar wants and passions of life. What have the colonists either of Spain, Portugal, France, or England, done for the imagination or the judgment of superior men? Those settled in