PAtfT III.] MORRIS BIRKBKCK, ESQ. 575 



they run rambling about a nation-making for ? 

 What have they to do about extending domi 

 nion and " taming the wilderness?" If they 

 speculate upon becoming founders of republics, 

 they will, indeed, do well to get out of the reach 

 of rivals. If they have a thirst for power, they 

 will naturally seek to be amongst the least in 

 formed part of mankind. But, if they only 

 want to keep their property and live well, they 

 will take up their abode on this side of the 

 mountains at least. 



1029. 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 Edin 

 burgh Reviewers, a set of the meanest poli 

 ticians that ever touched pen arid paper. Upon 

 any great question, they never have been right, 

 even by accident, which is very hard! The 

 rapid extension of settlements to the West of 

 the mountains is, in my opinion, by no means 

 favourable 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 extreme 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 



