*.] 
TENDENCY IN ENGLISH HISTORY. 
15 
It is an old saying, to which Turgot gave utterance a 
quarter of a century before the Declaration of Independence, 
Colonies are like fruits which cling to the tree only till 
they ripen.’ He added, ‘As soon as America can take 
care of herself, she will do what Carthage did.’ What 
wonder that when this prediction was so signally fulfilled, 
the proposition from which it had been deduced rose, 
especially in the minds of the English, to the rank of a 
demonstrated principle ! This no doubt is the reason why 
we have regarded the growth of a second Empire with 
very little interest or satisfaction. .‘ What matters,’ we have 
said, ‘its vastness or its rapid growth ? It does not grow 
for us. And to the notion that we cannot keep it we have 
added the notion that we need not wish to keep it, because, 
with that curious kind of optimistic fatalism to which 
historians are liable, the historians of our American war have 
generally felt bound to make out that the loss of our colonies 
was not only inevitable, but was oven a fortunate thing 
for us. 
H bother these views are sound, I do not inquire 
Row. I merely point out that two alternatives are before 
us, and that the question, incomparably the greatest 
question which we can discuss, refers to the choice 
etween them. The four groups of colonies may become 
our independent states, and in that case two of them, 
f o Dominion of Canada and the West Indian group, will 
uve to consider the question whether admission into the 
uited States will not be better for them than independ 
ence. In any case the English name and English insti- 
utions will have a vast predominance in the New World, 
an ào separation may be so managed that the mother- 
country may continue always to be regarded with friendly 
co mgs. Such a separation would leave England on the