OCEANA.

CHAPTER I.

The Dream of Sir James Harrington.—The Expansion of the English Race.—The American Colonies.—Second Group of Colonies.—Colonial Management.— Policy of Separation.—The England of political Economists.—Population and national Greatness.—Popular Desire for Union.—Indifference of States* men.—Difficulties.—The Problem not insoluble.

In the seventeenth century, when the once brilliant star of Spain was hastening to its setting, when the naval supremacy which Spain had once claimed and made her own was trans­ferred to Great Britain and Holland, and when the superior power of Great Britain, her insular position and her larger po­pulation, had assured to her rather than to the Dutch Republic the sceptre of the sea, Sir James Harrington, in a sketch of a perfect commonwealth, half real, half ideal, which he addressed to the Protector, described the future destiny which he be­lieved to be reserved for the Scotch, English, and Anglo-Irish nations.

“The situation of these countries, being islands (as appears by Venice how advantageous such an one is to the like govern­ment), seems to have been designed by God for a common­wealth. And yet Venice, through the straitness of the place and defect of proper arms, can be no more than a common­wealth for preservation; whereas Oceana, reduced to a like government, is a commonwealth for increase, and upon the