ADDRESS. 87 



cles to all enterprises of this kind, would do well to reflect, that 

 the very spirit called forth and kept alive by them is of incalcula- 

 ble utility in a national point of view. It tended to elevate Great 

 Britain, as we have already shown, to a pitch of grandeur unsur- 

 passed- by any nation of ancient or modern time. Other countries 

 have indeed, been the seat of a more dreaded power, but it has 

 been a power depending for its stability upon brute force, without 

 any intermixture of the intellectual and refined ; and accordingly, 

 when the prop which supported it was withdrawn, it sank into 

 contempt and oblivion. It is a striking truth that the nations of 

 the earth, whose riches have passed into a proverb, occupy the 

 most unimportant portion of history ; and their wealth, coupled as 

 it was with nothing great and ennobling, has served only to bring 

 down upon them the derision of posterity. Let us not, then, for- 

 get that wealth to nations, as well as individuals, is a means, and 

 not an end ; and that the most awful reverses have befallen those 

 who have disregarded this unchangeable law, and forgotten that 

 the accumulated harvest of riches arising from past exertions, was 

 intended as the seed of future enterprise. No ! we cannot remain 

 stationary. If we cease to move onward, that instant we retro- 

 grade, and our prosperity, like the stone of Sisyphus, will bear us 

 along with it down the precipitous descent, into the depths of 

 national effeminacy. 



In relation to the more northern expeditions, an able French 

 writer makes these very judicious and liberal remarks : " Even 

 were the discoveries which Captains Ross, Parry, and Franklin, 

 have made in relation to the obscure laws that govern the mag- 

 net, the only fruit of the English expeditions, they had not been 

 undertaken in vain. But they have at the same time expanded 

 the bounds of geographical knowledge, added greatly to the whale 

 fisheries, and proved that man, enlightened by the arts, is able to 

 surmount the obstacles of nature in her wildest ferocity.** 



That they were not successful takes but little from their merits, 



