182 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



ocean, and subject to their own local laws, will sooner or later be established as measures of 

 necessary expediency and convenience to our growing commerce. 



The moment a vessel at the present day leaves the American shores upon a foreign voyage, go 

 where she will, her officers and men, in entering port, become subject to laws often oppressive 

 and generally at variance with the spirit of our institutions. 



Whatever of prejudice there may be in the minds of many of our rulers to these proposed 

 settlements, their coming into existence cannot be prevented, nor can the onward spirit of our 

 people be stayed by any laws that could be made, consistent with the conservative elements of 

 our Constitution. The people will emigrate and settle in remote places, and the notice and 

 sympathies of the country will be drawn toward them ; and in this way we shall have foreign 

 settlements, even if they are not established by positive enactment. 



They may not be considered strictly as colonies, but all such settlements would very soon, if 

 composed of our countrymen, make their own constitutions and local laws. They would be 

 offshoots from us rather than, strictly speaking, colonies; and it would be hard to say how they 

 could be prevented by any government. 



m. e. p. 



