The first was a mere political conquest, like the Dutch conquest of Java or the extension of the Roman Empire over parts of Asia.

South Africa in some respects stands by itself, because there the English are confronted by another white race which it is as yet uncertain whether they can assimilate, and, what is infinitely more important, because they are there confronted by a very large native population with which they cannot mingle, and which neither dies out nor recedes before their advance.

It is not likely, but it is at least within the bounds of possibility, that in the course of centuries the whites of South Africa will suffer a fate akin to that which befell the Greek colonists in the Tauric Chersonese, and be swallowed up in the overwhelming mass of black barbarism.
On the other hand, it may fairly be said that in America and Australia the English race has already entered into and begun the enjoyment of its great inheritance.

When these continents were settled they contained the largest tracts of fertile, temperate, thinly peopled country on the face of the globe.

We cannot rate too highly the importance of their acquisition.