1-52 



a prototype, it would seem, of that familiar refrain to 

 which, at last, Americans can listen with composure : 



Rule, Britannia ! Rule the waves ! 

 Britons never will be slaves. 



The Englishman writes as follows : 



"But if neither Britain singly, nor the maritime ports 

 of Europe jointly, will treat with Spain for a passage 

 across Darien, it requires no great gift of prophecy to 

 foresee, that the period is not far distant when, in order 

 to procure the precious metals at once, the States of 

 America will seize upon that pass with ease, wresting it 

 from the feeble violence of Spain. ***** Their next 

 move will be to take possession of the Sandwich Islands, 

 discovered by the immortal Cook. 



"Stationed thus in the middle and on the east and 

 west sides of the new western world the English-Ameri- 

 cans will form not only the most potent but the most 

 singular empire that has ever appeared ; because it will 

 consist in the dominion not of a part of the globe but 

 of the whole ocean. For, on the one side of the new 

 continent, from the Sandwich Islands, they may, by 

 turning a little to the south, run on the trade wind to 

 the East Indies, or, *?y turning less than twenty degrees 

 north, run on the great west wind, which blows here ten 

 months out of the twelve every year, to the coast of 

 Mexico, by which the gold of the East and the silver of 

 the West will be within their reach. 



" From Darieu they will sail to China ; from China to 

 India; from India to Chile, and from Chile by the south 

 land wind, which never varies, to Darien ; that is, they 

 will make the tour of the Indian and Southern seas, 

 everywhere collecting wealth by trade, in a little more 

 time than it takes for the voyage from London to Venice. 



