It could not but do much more
even than extend commerce and increase wealth among the human race. We
see how this event has acted, how it must have acted, and wonder only
why it did not act sooner, in the production of moral effects, on the
state of human knowledge, the general tone of human sentiments, and the
prospects of human happiness. It gave to civilized man not only a new
continent to be inhabited and cultivated, and new seas to be explored;
but it gave him also a new range for his thoughts, new objects for
curiosity, and new excitements to knowledge and improvement.
Roman colonization resembled, far less than that of the Greeks, the
original settlements of this country. Power and dominion were the
objects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole exterior
aspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at dominion,
from India to Britain, and her measures of colonization partook of the
character of her general system. Her policy was military, because her
objects were power, ascendency, and subjugation. Detachments of
emigrants from Rome incorporated themselves with, and governed, the
original inhabitants of conquered countries. She sent citizens where she
had first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword. Her colonies were a
sort of military establishment; so many advanced posts in the career of
her dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new colony with absolute
sway, and often with unbounded rapacity.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188