Excerpt from The Foundation of the American Colonies: A Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford, June 12, 1860 Colony is an ambiguous word; the Phoenician colonies were factories; the Roman colonies were garrisons; the Spanish colonies were gold mines, worked by slaves; France justly placed the products of' her Algerian colony in our Exhibition under the heading Ministry of War. The Greek cities, in the hour of their greatness, founded new cities the counterparts 'of themselves. England has had the honour, an honour which no disaster can now rend from her, of becoming the parent of new nations. To colonize in this the highest sense is the attribute of freedom. Freedom only can give the necessary self reliance. In freedom only can the habit of self - govern, ment requisite for a young community be formed. The life of the plant must be diffused through all its parts, or its cuttings will not grow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.