It May Well Be, However, That The
Government Of King Louis Philippe - Whose Chief Advisers During The Period
Were Thiers (1839 To 1840) And Guizot (From July 1840) - Desired To Make
Their Inquiry In A Semi-Official Manner To Avoid Causing Offence.
Yet the fact cannot escape notice, that at this particular time the
French were busily laying the foundation of that new colonial dominion
with which they have persevered, with admirable results, since the
collapse of their oversea power during Napoleon's regime.
Though their
aptitude for colonisation had been "unhappily rendered sterile by the
faults of their European policy,"* (* Fallot, L'Avenir Colonial de la
France page 4.) the more far-seeing among their statesmen and publicists
did not lose sight of the ideal of creating a new field for the diffusion
of French civilisation. They commenced in 1827 that colonising enterprise
in Algiers which has converted "a sombre and redoubtable barbarian coast"
into "a twin sister of the Riviera of Nice, charming as she, upon the
other side of the Mediterranean."* (* Hanotaux, L'Energie Francaise
(1902) page 284.)
Lord John Russell was not likely to be regardless of this movement, nor
unaware of the strongly marked current of opinion in France in favour of
expansion.
Twenty years later Lord John Russell had the position of Australia, as a
factor in world politics, brought under his notice again, through a
document to which he evidently attached importance, and which is still
the legitimate subject of historical curiosity. He was then Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs in the second Palmerston Administration (1859
to 1865). A great change had meanwhile taken place affecting the economic
value of this large island in the South Seas.
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