In yet another way does the national genius affect the growth of sea
power in its broadest sense; and that is in so far as it possesses the
capacity for planting healthy colonies. Of colonization, as of all
other growths, it is true that it is most healthy when it is most
natural. Therefore colonies that spring from the felt wants and
natural impulses of a whole people will have the most solid
foundations and their subsequent growth will be surest when they are
least trammelled from home, if the people have the genius for
independent action. Men of the past three centuries have keenly felt
the value to the mother-country of colonies as outlets for the home
products and as a nursery for commerce and shipping; but efforts at
colonization have not had the same general origin, nor have different
systems all had the same success. The efforts of statesmen, however
far-seeing and careful, have not been able to supply the lack of
strong natural impulse; nor can the most minute regulation from home
produce as good results as a happier neglect, when the germ of
self-development is found in the national character. There has been no
greater display of wisdom in the national administration of successful
colonies than in that of unsuccessful. Perhaps there has been even
less. If elaborate system and supervision, careful adaptation of means
to ends, diligent nursing, could avail for colonial growth, the genius
of England has less of this systematizing faculty than the genius of
France; but England, not France, has been the great colonizer of the
world. Successful colonization, with its consequent effect upon
commerce and sea power, depends essentially upon national character;
because colonies grow best when they grow of themselves, naturally.
The character of the colonist, not the care of the home government, is
the principle of the colony's growth.

This truth stands out the clearer because the general attitude of all