Part III.] Morris Birkbeck, Esq. 333 



have it here. They want gowl land, good roads, good 

 markets : they have them all here. What should they 

 run rambling about a nation-making for I What have 

 they to do about extending dominion and " taming the 

 " wilderness r' If they speculate upon becoming 

 founders of republics, they will, indeed, do well to get 

 out of the reach of rivals. Jf they have a thirst for 

 power, they will naturally seek to be amongst the least 

 informed part of mankind. But, if they only want to 

 keep their property and live well, tliey will take up their 

 abode on this side of the mountains at least. 



629. The grand ideas about the extension of the 

 empire of the United States are of very questionable 

 soundness: and they become more questionable from 

 being echoed by the Edinburgh Reviewers, a set of the 

 meanest politicians that ever touched pen and paper. 

 Upon any great question, they never have been right, 

 even by accident, which is very hard ! The rapid ex- 

 tension of settlements to the West of the mountains, is, 

 in my opinion, by no means iavourable to the duration 

 of the present happy Union. The conquest of Canada 

 would have been as dangerous ; but not more dangerous. 

 A nation is never so strong and so safe as when its ex- 

 treme points feel for each other as acutely as each feels 

 for itself; and this never can be when all are not equally 

 exposed to every danger ; and especially when all the 

 parts have not the same interests. In case of a M'ar 

 with England, what would become ofyour market down 

 the Mississippi ? That is your sole market. That way 

 your produce must go ; or you must dress yourself in 

 skins and tear your food to biis with your hands. Yet 

 that way your produce could not go, unless this nation 

 were to keep up a Navy equal to that of England. De- 

 fend the country against invaders I know the people 

 always will ; but, I am not sure, that they will like in- 

 ternal taxes sufficient to rear and support a Navy suffi- 

 cient to clear the gulf of Mexico of English squadrons. 

 In short, it is my decided opinion, that the sooner the 

 banks of the Ohio, the Wabash, and the Mississippi, 

 are pretty thickly settled, the sooner the Union 

 •will be placed in jeopardy. If a war were to break 

 out with England, even in a few years, the lands 

 of which the Mississippi k the outlet would lose a great 



