Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts.  (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003)

Excerpt:

SOME IDEAS ABOUT WHAT PREVENTS THE FRENCH FROM HAVING GOOD COLONIES (1833)

Even supposing that the territory that is to contain the colony has been discovered and that it combines the conditions necessary for the success of the enterprise, there still remain the difficulties of execution.  These were great for England; they seem insurmountable for France.

The foremost of all, it must be said, is found in the French genius, which does not appear very favorable to colonization.

France, by its geographic position, the extent of its territory, its fertility has always been in the first rank of continental powers.  The land is the natural theater of her power and glory.  Maritime commerce is but an appendage to her existence; the sea has never excited, nor will it ever excite, those national sympathies and that sort of filial respect that navigating or commercial peoples have for it.  Maritime enterprises will never attract attention in France nor gain the help of wealth or talent.  In general, the only men one sees engaging in such enterprises are those whose mediocre talents, declining fortunes, or memories of a former life forbid the hope of a promising future in their country.

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