No. 149.] 293 



although in each you may find much to admire, and something 

 to adopt, no -where on this broad earth will you see united in one 

 spot so many of those blessings which humanity craves as in this 

 favored country. From Lapland to La Plata, and from Persia to 

 Peru, I have witnessed every form of government, and every con- 

 dition of society ever devised to bless or curse mankind ; and 

 the result of this world-wide experience has been, with heartfelt 

 gratitulc to exclaim, '' Thank God, I am an American." 



All nations present a market for our skill. Our arts and ideas 

 are sought and promulgated, even where the charge of copying 

 from America would be repelled with scorn. A few years since 

 the foreman of the largest machine shop in the world, at Man- 

 chester, was a Rhode Islander, from Providence. The active 

 head of the banking house in London, which has the most wide- 

 spread correspondence in tlie world, is from Weymouth, in Massa- 

 chusetts ; and the late leader of the branch in Liverpool, the 

 lamented Galr, was from my native city. The engineer of the 

 only railroad in Russia, the late Major Whistler, was an ofl&cerin 

 the Amerlc^an army, and his successor, the scientific Brown, is 

 from the shores of Lake Erie. The superintendent of Prussian 

 manulactuj-es was born in Baltimore. The architect of the 

 Turkish navy was a New- York man, and his successor was of 

 Rhode Island extraction. And if we look to India, or our 

 southern continent, we shall find our country fully represented 

 in their merchants and their engineers. 



We have thus enumerated some of the triumphs which our 

 nation has achieved, and have pointed to the industrial pui'suitsi 

 of our people as the source of theii* power. Can we longer won* 

 der that the influence which American industi-y has wrought, is 

 felt " to earth's remotest bound," 



And shall we now abandon all that a wise system of protec- 

 tion to American industry has secured'? When the eyes of the 

 world are upon us, and Europe is sending her myriads of emi- 

 grants to people the great valley of the West, shall we scatter to 

 the winds a fabric which the toil of years has reared, and cease 

 to be " the model" by becoming a dependent nation? How sui- 

 cidal is that policy which^ with all the facilitiee for independ- 



