154 Actual State of the British Empire. 



may expect that the lapse of two or three more centuries will 

 produce effects on which, at present, it is impossible to calcu- 

 late. Before that time, we may hope that universal diff'usion 

 of instruction will enable mankind more effectually to under- 

 stand their interests, and to regulate their passions. It is also 

 probable that an increased taste for luxuries, and an improved 

 sense of enjoyment, will render men more fearful of poverty and 

 its consequent privations. They will then act more on foresight 

 and calculation, and when that spirit is once aroused, the busi- 

 ness is accomplished. 



In fulfilling the grand primeval command of replenishing 

 the earth — the express injunction of nature and revelation — 

 there can be no doubt that the countries already peopled would 

 be greatly benefited by the new nations which they successively 

 sent out. The young and vigorous offspring would generally 

 improve on the parent stock. The science of government, 

 which is more in a state of infancy than almost any other, 

 might be advanced, like the rest, by repeated and success- 

 ful experiments. A degree of enterprize in this particular, 

 which old states are afraid to hazard, can be undertaken 

 by new governments without material danger. They are not 

 encumbered by old, and corrupted, and feudal institutions, or 

 checked by the fear of a wealthy aristocracy, or alarmed by the 

 clamours of an ignorant populace, pent up in large cities. 

 Besides these advantages, they start with all the lights, and all 

 the experience of the mother-country, and of all other coun- 

 tries. In a society where the population is no where dense, 

 where few are discontented and none are superfluous, the 

 greatest degree of practical freedom may be safely essayed. 

 We see this in the instance of America. A degree of licen- 

 tiousness which would endanger the safety of an European 

 state, is there found to be very compatible with public tran- 

 quillity. Her remote position, her security from hostile attack, 

 her superabundant produce, and her consequent exemption 

 from many of the vices and miseries of an old nation, admit a 

 relaxation of vigour in the government, which in the perilous 

 politics of modern Europe would inevitably prove fatal. In 

 general, I very greatly admire the government of the United 

 States ; but it cannot, I think, be denied, that the superior 



