But even this is but a partial view of the case; for the Americans would actually borrow the money in England that they would invest in the colonies, and yet enrich themselves by doing so. The colonies, in truth—joined to the States—would prosper by diluted benefits, the Americans reaping all the advantages of the dilution. Connected with Great Britain—did Britain confide in them as she might, and understand them as she should, and were they in a situation to inspire that confidence, and to occasion that understanding—they must inevitably reap, in many respects, double the benefits they would enjoy with the States.
But the States would benefit the colonies all they could. Will England?
The scheme of imperial representation for the North American colonies may be, and doubtless is, open to many objections; and many difficulties would have to be got over before it could be accomplished. The first, if not the only great difficulty, is—Would the colonies bear the burden of taxation, and the responsibility of being part and parcel of the British empire, for better or for worse, for all time to come? And could they, if they would?
In considering these questions, it is but fair to view them, not only in regard to the responsibilities the system we propose would entail, but also in regard to the responsibilities they would and must incur by any other system they might adopt. For this may be taken for granted—they must soon become all American, or all English. They must enjoy English credit and English permanency, or they must have some other. A great country, with an industrious, enterprising people, cannot long remain without credit, without prosperity, and without either the use or the hope of capital. The Canadas are now in this situation.
If, then, the colonies should become independent, and it were possible for them to continue so, they would have to pay for their own protection. And if they became a republic, they would have to take their stand with the other powers of the world, and bear the expense of doing so. If, on the other hand, they were taken into the American Union, they would have to contribute, in addition to the cost of their own local or state governments, to the support of the general government of the whole Union; they would have, too, to contribute to the forming a navy for the States, such as England has now got; and they would be obliged to contribute, too, for the construction of military defences for America, which England is pretty well supplied with. They would have, in short, to expend upon America a great deal of what England, in three or four centuries, has been expending upon herself as a nation.
It may also be fairly presumed, that, with interests every day becoming more independent of England; with a system of government which leaves England nothing in America but a name—or, as Lord Elgin says, a "dignified neutrality," and which really means a dignified nothingness—with a system of government such as this, every sensible man must foresee that England will soon get tired of paying largely for the support of her dignified nothingness in America; that she will—as indeed she has already done—inquire what right or occasion she has for protecting colonies from their enemies from without, or, what is much more serious to her, from themselves within, when she has ceased to have a single interest in commerce with them; and when she must see—if the present system be kept up much longer—that every day must separate her still more widely from them in feeling, and in all the essential principles that bind a people to each other, or a colony to a mother country?
In view, therefore, of all these considerations, taken separately or together, it is but reasonable to suppose that the colonies may soon be called upon to pay for their own protection from their enemies from without, or for their own squabbles within, if they must indulge in such expensive amusements. And the question then arises—Would their being practically identified with the British empire, participating in all its greatness, and enjoying the prestige of its stability and its credit, entail upon them greater cost or responsibility, than they would have to incur to maintain a puny, helpless independence, or in becoming states of the American Union?
It is out of our power to make the calculation, as it is impossible for us to know upon what terms England would agree to the colonies participating in her government as we propose. It is likewise impossible for us to tell how much might be saved by removing the tea-pots, so pregnant with tempests, in the shape of colonial legislatures; in removing governors to preserve "dignified neutrality;" and courts to keep up the shadow of England's government in America, the substance having grown "beautifully less" of late years. But after much thought and investigation, by both ourselves and others better accustomed to such matters than we are, we have come to the conclusion—that imperial representation might cost the colonies nothing more, if as much, as any other change they would have to make; that England would gain immensely by the change; and that the proceeds of the vast tracts of country lying north and north-west of the Canadas, their fisheries, their mineral resources, and their other unused and unappropriated wealth in timber and other things, might be converted into a sinking fund by the united governments of England and her colonies, that, in its effects, might astonish both England and the world. We can but throw out the suggestion; it is for others to consider it.
But if the connexion of the colonies with Great Britain is to be made a mere matter of time and convenience, as to when it shall end, or how, then it is of little use in hoping much, or thinking deeply, upon what may be pregnant with such vast consequences to England's race in America, and even America's own race in it. A time, it would seem, which has taught Britons to know what their institutions are worth, must cost them in America these institutions. A time, which has exhibited, during the principal settlement of the Canadas, the fall alike of the fabric of the political enthusiast and the fortress of the despot in Europe, must cost, it seems, the colonies that government which bore freedom aloft through the wild storm. England has stood upon a rock, and, after pointing out to her colonies the wreck of human institutions, she is about to push them off to share the fate she has taught them so much to dread. If England has the heart to do it, it must be done. Three millions of people will cease to say "God save the Queen!" The sun will set upon her empire. Full many an honest tear will be shed at hearing that it must. Full many a heart will be torn from what it would but too gladly die for. But the days of chivalry are gone; the days of memory are fled. The selfish, mercenary nineteenth century will be marked with the loss of the best jewel in Britain's crown.
Hamilton, Canada West,
August 1849.