great islands would have considerably augmented the commerce and increased the naval armaments of America; and also have given her a much higher importance in the scale of nations than she now holds. But, diis aliter visum est; the fears and hatreds of her executive chief have materially delayed the career of America towards the summit of national ascendency and great

ness.

As for the Spanish colonies, they will fall, as a matter of course, to the superior energy and enterprise of the United States; for it is as natural for indolence, and ignorance, and procrastination, to yield to industry, to intelligence, and activity, as it is for the tides of the ocean to follow the phases of the moon. It is superla+ tively idle to suppose, that the forlorn and beggarly government of Spain, headed by a patron of the inquisițion, and an embroiderer of petticoats for the Virgin Mary, will be able to resist the constant encroachments, or the direct attacks of a neighbour so enterprising, intelligent, alert, dauntless, and persevering, as the United States.

Nor let England ever lay the flattering unction to her soul, that it is possible ever to make America her friend. These two countries will never cease to be commercial rivals, and political enemies, until one or the other falls. As the world could not bear two suns, nor Persia two kings, so the day is fast approaching when the globe will not be able to endure the existence of these two mighty maritime empires. The maxim of delenda est Carthago never found more cordial advocates in the Roman senate than it now finds as applicable to Britain in the inmost recesses of every American bosom. But it behoves the United States to pause, at least for the present, in their strides towards territorial aggrandizement; for it is understood that the Treaty of Vienna, which is now the basis of national convention law in Europe, as the Treaty of Westphalia was, prior to the French revolution, stipulates, that if one European nation has any domestic quarrels, either with its colonies or within its home dominions, the high contracting par

ties do not interfere; but, if any power attacks the integral empire of any European sovereignty, the parties to the Vienna treaty protect it. Hence, Spain and her colonies are left to fight out their mutual battles, as they best can; but Portugal is forbidden to encroach upon the Spanish domains on the American continent; unless, indeed, the Holy League, which, under the veil of evangelical union between the contracting powers, seems to look towards planting the Russian flag upon the seven towers of Constantinople, should break in upon and derange the provisions of the Congress of Vienna.

If such be the stipulations of the Vienna pact, the United States should be wary in their attempts on the Floridas, the British Northern Provinces, and West India islands, lest they bring all Europe upon them with her numerous and well-disciplined veteran armies. It is the business of the American government to wait, and nourish the growing resources of the Union, till time and circumstance shall dissolve the present unparalleled coalition of European sovereigns, and then gradually bear down all possible opposition from any single foe. As the disposable force of every country must be always mainly proportioned to the compactness of its population, it is self-evident, that, at present, the United States, with only ten millions of inhabitants, spread over a territory of two millions and five hundred thousand square miles, cannot be very powerful for the purposes of offensive warfare; a circumstance, probably, which the statesmen who framed the federal constitution took into their consideration, since they so seem to have moulded that national compact as not to give the general government the power of carrying on an offensive warfare.

These great men, doubtless, desired that their native country might possess all the means of defence, when assailed by an invading foe; and, accordingly, they have made the most admirable provisions in the federal constitution for the accomplishment of this all-important object; their apparent design being, as much as possible, to preserve the United States free from the calamities of foreign warfare, and incite them to avail them

.

selves of their vast physical capacities, and to accelerate the growth of their population and wealth, in order that America, at no distant day, might be able to rank with the first-rate sovereignties of the earth, in the extent, permanency, and disposable efficiency of her national resources. By premature efforts to aggrandize themselves by conquest, the United States will put all their present advantages in jeopardy, and endanger the dissolution of the Union, by the preservation of which they can alone hope to become lastingly prosperous and great. Let them remember Franklin's position, that by patience and perseverance they will be able to outgrow all grievances, all difficulties, and all resistance.

Is Russia now, and for the time to come, deemed formidable to Europe? Behold another and a greater Russia here. With a better territory, a better government, and a better people, America is ripening fast into a substance, an attitude of power, which will prove far more terrible to the world than it is ever possible for the warriors of the Don or the defenders of Moscow to become. Let it not, for a moment, be imagined that I seek to lean upon the exalted character, or to detract from the well-tried prowess of Britain. Under the blessing of Divine Providence, the world owes to her unrivalled exertions, to her vehement and sustained fortitude, a liberation from the most galling, base, profligate, and cruel bondage that ever stained the annals of the human race. Braver than Britons men cannot be. It is not in human nature to do more than affront death with cool, collected, steady, unyielding valour. Is it possible for them that are born of women to display more unbending, more triumphant heroism, than was exhibited by the British on the field of Waterloo and in the harbour of Algiers?

But it is meant to assert, because it can be proved, that the United States, from their territorial extent, their local situation, their political institutions, their peculiar circumstances, do produce a greater amount of physical, intellectual, and moral enterprise, and force in the great mass of their people, than is or can be pro

TO BRITAIN THAN RUSSIA.

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duced in the aggregate population of any other country. Indeed, an enquiry into the condition and character of the English people would serve as the best basis on which to build the investigation of the characteristic qualities of the American population, seeing that both nations ere sprung from the same native stock, speak the same language, and exercise the same religion, are governed by similar laws, exhibit in their lives and deportments similar habits, manners, and customs. And if, under the physical and moral circumstances of England, her comparatively narrow territory, her actually crowded population, her continual wars, her frequent internal convulsions, her prodigious national expenditure, her enormous public debt, the great body of her people have been progressively improving, physically, intellectually, and morally, during the last entire cen tury, and are now, as they have long been, decidedly superior to the population of every other European country-a fortiori, must the people of the United States during the same period have been bettered in all their qualities and conditions, by the progress of civilization diffused among a comparatively thin population, spread over a vast and various soil, by unfrequent foreign wars, by internal peace, by a small national expenditure, by a trifling public debt, by institutions, political, moral, and religious, which give the freest scope to personal activity and individual enterprise.

A late minister from the court of St. James, near ? the American government, Mr. Jackson, who had sur-ma, veyed with a statesman's eye every court and every country, every cabinet and every people in Europe, both insular and continental, told me," That he had passed through and diligently studied the states of New-York and New-England, that he had never seen such decided materials of national greatness as their population exhibited; that the American people were right-minded, strong-minded, sound-minded, and highminded." And in all the soberness of solemn truth, the people of this country have verified the prophetic words of the departed statesman; they have, indeed, fully

shown that Englishmen do not degenerate in the soil of America; for they have compelled the meteor-flag of England, which had waved in triumph on the ocean for a thousand years, to lower its ancient ensign beneath the new-born standard of her child; they have driven back from before their hardy yeomanry the conquerors of France, the deliverers of Portugal, the liberators of Spain, the emancipators of Europe; they have twined round their victorious brows wreaths of naval and of military glory, which will flourish in eternal verdure, long as the everlasting hills shall rest upon their foundations, and the stars of Heaven continue to shed their light.

In the turmoil of battle, and in the pursuits of peace, the Americans effect more by a given number of people than the population of any other country can effect. At present, indeed, the European land tactics are impracticable in the United States: huge masses of cavalry, numerous parks of artillery, and solid columns of infantry, cannot act in a country overgrown with trees, and bushes, and underwood, which afford means and shelter for the deadly musketry and riflemen of America, to destroy their enemy at their own leisure- themselves unseen and inaccessible. The United States must wait till their country is more cleared of its forests, particularly on their borders, before they can exhibit any military conflicts on a large and comprehensive scale. Meanwhile the ocean is open, and will, ere long, have its waters deeply died with American and British blood, contending for the exclusive dominion of that element, which is, emphatically, the cradle and the home of the mariners of both nations.

From the commencement of the French revolution, in the year 1789, to the close of the late war between America and England, in 1815, the political parties in the United States were opposed to each other with exceeding bitterness. Party spirit used to prevent social intercourse, and poison domestic peace. The tyranny of faction was much greater in this country than it ever has been in Britain, where it neither disturbs the harmony of families, nor trenches upon the decorum of