182 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



adequately developed. The evidence for a deduction unfavorable to the 

 Spanish authorities, who made so many efforts to settle and improve the 

 counti-y, is to be found in the results of three hundred and thirty-one 

 years struggle. And although we have barel}' alluded to the attempt to 

 settle this country, yet enough has been presented to sustain a conclu- 

 sion most unfavorable to the national or commercial enterprise of the 

 people who discovered and strove to settle one of the richest countries 

 in the world. Suppose we were to institute a comparison between the 

 efforts of the Spaniards to settle, subjugate, and improve California, and 

 the English who attempted the occupanc}' and development of the United 

 States. In sixteen hundred and seven, eleven years after the attempted 

 settlement of Santa Cruz, the English Government made its first perma- 

 nent effort to colonize Anierica by settling Jamestown, in Virginia. 

 The vast continent of America was then almost completely in the hands 

 of or claimed by Spanish authorities. England had no contiguous pos- 

 sessions, no particular pretext for the immense territory she was almost 

 grasping; she had less encouragement from climate, and much more 

 troublesome and almost invincible aborigines to contend against, and yet 

 only look at the comparative results of the two settlements — of Santa 

 Cruz under Spanish patronage, and Jamestown by English enterprise. 

 In two hundred and fifty-eight j-ears the one had led to the accumulation 

 of old adobe walls, and Ihe bleached bones of a few thousands of domes- 

 ticated Indians, as the onlj^ remaining indications of the success attained 

 for a season, and as the signs of a national lethargy that has slept away 

 its own possessions. 



So much for the Spaniards and Santa Cruz. In two hundred and forty- 

 seven years the English settlement of Jamestown has grown into one of 

 the mightiest nations that figures in the histor}^ of the world. From a 

 little village of adventurers, it has expanded itself into a confederation 

 of thirty-six States, each one of which would sustain a respectable nation- 

 ality among the kingdoms and enipires of Europe. From this little 

 nucleus of settlers has" sprung up a population of thirt}' millions of people, 

 whose moral habits, whose social and intellectual claims, whose physical 

 endurance and political reputation, are unsurpassed; whose enterprise 

 has overridden all obstacles to its progress, and w^hose territorial posses- 

 sions are nearlj' ten tin-ies as large as Great Britain and France com- 

 bined ; three times as large as the whole of France, Britain, Austria, 

 Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark, together. 

 Such are the results of the two national eft'orts referred to — the Santa 

 Cruz and Jamestown settlements. The one sustained by an immense 

 patronage, by geographical contiguity, by climatic advantages, and the 

 feeblest "savage resistance. The other, supported by limited resources, 

 by an inexti'nguishable energ}^ and fearlessness, and antagonized by- 

 remoteness from the source of patronage, by the most inhospitable win- 

 ters, and by powerful and treacherous tribes of Indians. The one, dead 

 and decaying in its own birthplace; the other, in comparative exile, 

 rearing monuments of vitalit}', enterprise, and glory over its grave. 



Such a system of comparison, which is just in facts and observation, 

 affords tbe'easicst and most convincing method of reflection and inference 

 that can be adopted in the consideration of comparative peculiarities, 

 whether national or individual. It holds up the irrefragible signs of the 

 past; and whether they appear as the delaced and disfigured gravestones 

 of perverted or futile enterprises; whether as the crumbling and dingy 

 walls of an abandoned and depopulated country; whether as the historic 

 records of a blighted nation, or circumscribed and finally ruined mission- 



