334 [Assembly 



more cultivated, so as to render all more friendly, and hence all more 

 prosperous : these will gradually ensure large advances. They will 

 make commerce actually what she has been called figuratively, " the 

 golden girdle of the globe." 



We shall thus be able oftener to carry with us, and to more coun- 

 tries, not only our spinning frames and our looms, with their useful 

 products, but what has still greater charms for patriotism, our school 

 books and bibles, and free constitutions and equal laws, and to obtain 

 in return, it is hoped, some other, if not so great good. One of the 

 anticipated benefits from these causes will be the wider diffusion of 

 American principles. It is not that commerce ought to be used to 

 propagate political principles, unacceptable to other governments, by 

 whom it may be hospitably received : and thus, as once in China and 

 Japan, cause jealousies even of our holy religion, when accompanying 

 them, and terminate in the violent expulsion of both. But that one 

 of the inevitable consequences of all foreign commerce is to bring op- 

 posing opinions together, and to give, in the end, a mastery to the 

 best. Such, too, is the zeal of our people in behalf of their princi- 

 ples, civil and social, no less than political or religious, that wherever 

 the American stars float, whether over the Atlantic or Pacific, or 

 Mediterranean or Baltic, American opinions and American notions, 

 as well as American products, will become more and more known ; 

 and it surely cannot be regretted by ourselves, if, by increased com- 

 merce, and without fire or sword to propagate them, they should more 

 win their way to favour, create new tastes, and often revolutionize the 

 public mind, and gradually reform the governments, born in ages more 

 dark and unpromising. 



What we have seen already in late years, shows how much Ameri- 

 can influence and character in commerce can be improved still further, 

 by increased temperance among seamen, increased attention to their 

 religious instruction, and increased education difl'used among them. 

 Respectability and integrity will be more firmly secured in our com- 

 mercial intercourse, by every advance in these j and as they beget 

 more confidence they will beget more business, and make our mercan- 

 tile marine, as well as navy, be regarded with favour in other hemis- 

 pheres, even under other planets-and stars to canopy them. This 



