338 OF THE UNITED STATES. 



progress, how important, above all other things, is peace 

 with Europe to the United States ! The revolts and 

 revolutions and proscriptions of Continental, and the home 

 discontents and overflowing populations of Insular Europe, 

 are the life and aggrandisement of the United States. 

 New emigrants are not mere additions to the tillers of their 

 virgin soils, or to the ware-makers of their workshops 

 new dragons teeth, the promise of armed men who 

 are to spring up for their future defence. They consist 

 of, or at least comprehend, those daring and resolute 

 if not always prudent men who are driven from disturbed, 

 or who voluntarily leave more peaceful countries. Thus, 

 in mind and force of character, a stream of select men 

 is constantly flowing from Europe to America, by whose 

 more energetic agency the filling up of the vast western 

 continent is hurried forward, its material resources 

 developed, and, by the sacrifice of many foreign lives, the 

 first difficulties of settling it overcome. But disturb, by 

 the cannon of war, the now undreaded navigation of the 

 Atlantic, and this stream of brave hearts is arrested. 

 The population will, like that of European countries, 

 thenceforward augment by a natural increase of home- 

 born tamer men only. The superfluous mind of other 

 countries, the greater force of character which is pro 

 duced by the breaking-up of home associations, and by 

 the excitement of a new world, and the influence of its 

 example on the minds and character of the native-born, 

 will all be lost. The great breadth of unsettled land 

 would then, like the wild forests and plains of Russia and 

 Poland, rather indicate what the country under other 

 circumstances might become, than what, within any 

 assignable time, it is likely to be. 



In our eyes, also, the United States are interesting I 

 might almost say there is a bond of endearment between 

 us and all North America not only because of its being- 

 peopled by a race of kindred blood, but because it holds 



