A colony of Europeans in proximity with barbarian neighbours naturally desires before long an increase of territory at the expense of the latter. The first sign of such a desire is the expedition of missionaries into the country, who not only serve to spy it out for the benefit of the colony, but invariably weaken the native political force by the creation of a division of feeling, and of an opposition between the love of old traditions and the temptation of novel customs and ideas. The innovating party, being at first the smaller, consisting of the feeblest and poorest members of the community, and of those who gladly flock to the mission-stations for refuge from their offences against tribal law, the missionaries soon perceive the impossibility of further success without the help of some external aid. The help of a friendly force can alone turn the balance of influence in their favour, and they soon learn to contemplate with complacency the advantages of a military conquest of the natives by the colony or mother-country. The evils of war are cancelled, in their eyes, by the delusive visions of ultimate benefit, and, in accordance with a not uncommon perversion of the moral sense, an end that is assumed to be religious is made to justify measures that are the reverse. When the views and interests of the colonial settlers and of the missionaries have thus, inevitably but without design, fallen into harmony, a war is certain to be not far distant. Apparently accidental, it is in reality as certain as the production of green from a mixture of blue and yellow. Some dispute about boundaries, some passing act of violence, will serve for a reason of quarrel, which will presently be supported by a fixed array of collateral pretexts. The Press readily lends its aid; and in a week the colony trembles or affects to tremble from a panic of invasion, and vials of virtue are expended on the vices of the barbarians which have been for years tolerated with equanimity or indifference. Their customs are painted in the blackest colours; the details of savage usages are raked up from old books of travel; rumours of massacres and injuries are sedulously propagated; and the whole country is represented as in such a state of anarchy, that the majority of the population, in their longing for deliverance from their own rulers, would gladly welcome even a foreign conqueror. In short, a war against them comes speedily to be regarded as a war in their behalf, as the last word of philanthropy and beneficence; and the atrocities that subsequently ensue are professedly undertaken, not against the unfortunate people who endure them, but to liberate them from the ruler of their choice or sufferance, in whose behalf however they fight to the death.