42 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



that will double its three-quarters of a million of people in twenty 

 years, and draw its quota of increase from the rock-hewn cities of 

 India, and the celestial and flowery kingdom. Boston, like the 

 Saxon and Norman kings looks for the enlargement of her empire- 

 San Francisco every other year springs from its ashes with renewed 

 life and beauty, and St. Petersburg, a year or two since, thought 

 the best remedy she could suggest for the sick man she had in 

 view was to rob him of his chief city, Constantinople, and was no 

 doubt astonished that her patient refused the prescription. Their 

 financial chiefs are not unworthy comparison with warriors, states- 

 men, and philosophers, the Rothschilds and Barings of the Old 

 World, and Girard, Astor, Peabody, Lawrence, and Cooper, of 

 greater fame in the New, under whose direction industry thrives, 

 colleges, schools of science and art, and public libraries are estab- 

 lished. Nevertheless, It is a fair subject of inquiry how far the 

 happiness of a people is to be secured by commerce alone. 



The pursuit of wealth does not of itself liberalize men. A 

 negative quality is the surest evidence of a capacity for accumu- 

 lation. The steady gains that too often depend upon closing the 

 avenues of the heart to the calls of charity, and even of liberty, 

 are the lowest characteristics of trade. A more adventurous 

 spirit strikes out new channels of communication, and binds 

 together states that, separated by friths and seas, were left in 

 enmity or ignorance. Such generous enterprises compensate for 

 the narrower and harder spirit of trade, and by courageous intel- 

 ligence achieves benefits that never spring from the closely-hoarded 

 accumulation of inconsiderable gains. Chance, however, at the 

 end, is the great arbiter of its destinies. The conflagration sweeps 

 over a city, and its accumulated treasures are destroyed. Extra- 

 vagance, corruption, crime, sap the integrity of its agents, and 

 defalcations, forgeries, bankruptcies ensue. A causeless panic 

 spreads universal terror, the boldest men are paralyzed with fear, 

 and lose all confidence in each other. Contagions blight its nerve- 

 less agents, or the earth puffs with wind, and, like the argosies of 

 the merchant of Venice, their frail ventures are lost : 



" From Tripoli, from Mexico and England, 

 From Lisbon, Rarbary and India, 

 Not one venture 'scapes the dreadful touch 

 Of merchant-marring storms and rocks." 



