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The immense extent of our still unreclaimed territory in the West, and the importance of bringing it under occupation for the purpose of building military roads and highways of communication between the eastern and western slopes of the continent, presents us with a very large field for inquiry into the best means of carrying into effect some plan of colonization in that quarter. Certainly, so far as physical adaptation of colonists is concerned, we might reasonably expect that soldiers, especially American soldiers, would constitute the very best of pioneers. With a practical experience of life in the field, and the endurance acquired by active exercise, they cannot fail to prove themselves equal to any emergencies or hardships; and, with the additional quality of intelligence possessed by them, they may be relied upon to lay the foundation of future States in a permanent and trustworthy manner. Americans are, by nature, adventurous, loving a life of novelty, experiments and exploits. Hence they can always be depended upon, not only to occupy a country, but also to improve and develop its resources. Our military agriculturists, in contra-distinction from those of Russia, Austria, or France, would prove themselves something more than mere tillers of the soil. They would colonize with reference to creating new States -- would pave the way, by their industry and intelligent foresight, for the subsequent influx of artizans and merchants, and lighting their torches at the altar of Hestia, would bear with them into the wilderness the laws, religion, customs and traditions of their native land. Such has been the general rule observed in the foundation of our new States, and such it would be desirable to keep it, in order to insure perpetuity of republican institutions upon this continent.

Unfortunately for these suggestions, schemes of military colonization have not always been undertaken in a commercial point of view. Founded upon other necessities than those of peace, they have everywhere retained an exclusively military character, tending rather to paralyze than to foster the development of commercial arts. It is true that, in modern times at least, military colonies have been attempted almost solely by nations in which the military element greatly predominated over the civil, and whose form of government recognized as a cardinal maxim the subordination of the latter to the former. A brief sketch of their history in Europe will suffice to illustrate this assertion, while, at the same time, it should serve to admonish us that, because they have not there done all which was expected of them, it does not follow that they would fail here to the same extent. We are an essentially different people in character and habits of conduct. Aside from a larger versatility of talents, and a readier power of co-ordinating means to ends, the elastic temper of our institutions permits, if it does not even invite, undertakings of a magnitude and complication which it would be unsafe to commit to less intelligent masses, or such as did not respect the elements of individuality and municipal freedom. Under such favoring circumstances, we are little amenable to the causes operating upon populations like those constituting Russian or Austrian colonies; for the spontaneity of action which everywhere distinguishes the American mind, authorizes us to indulge expectations founded, in part, on experience, of a character the most satisfactory in relation to the progress and ultimate success of such colonies. While ore would be dug, mines opened, streams bridged, water-privileges secured, grist and saw mills erected within a few weeks after an American colony had planted itself upon any soil, the sterile banks of the Danube, and the almost patriarchal husbandry of the Banat, are a perpetual monument of the non-progressive character of the Sclavic races.

EUROPEAN MILITARY COLONIES.

Frederick II. asserts that the first idea of military colonies in Europe originated with the Czar Peter the Great. The object in view was to organize a species of mobilized militia, which could, whenever called upon, furnish a contingent to the regular army. The scheme was a bold one in its inception, and not without justification statistically, for, between St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kasan, and the Ukraine, there was scattered a population of full twelve millions of men, from among whom very valuable auxiliary and irregular troops could be obtained. This plan of Peter, although not completed in his lifetime, has been systematically followed and improved upon by his successors. As early as 1711 he had formed Cossack colonies in the trans-Caucasus, and along the Kouban and Terek rivers, but it was only with the reign of Anne, that anything like an organization and a relation to the army proper was given to these colonists. They were chiefly intended to guard the frontier against those invasions of Turks and Tartars, which were a hereditary terror to the nations of Europe, up to the time when the prestige of Saracen invincibility was destroyed under the walls of Belgrade.