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almost said an impious prejudice, to consider 

 the growing prosperity of any other part of our 

 planet as a calamity for ancient Europe. The 

 independance of the colonies will not contri- 

 bute to isolate them from the old civilized na- 

 tions, but will rather bring them closer. Com- 

 merce tends to unite what a jealous policy has 

 long separated. It may be added, that it is the 

 nature of civilization to go forward, without 

 becoming extinct for this reason in the spot that 

 gave it birth. It's progression from east to west, 

 from Asia to Europe, proves nothing against this 

 axiom. A clear light preserves the same splen- 

 dor, even when it illumines a wider space. In- 

 tellectual cultivation, that fertile source of 

 national wealth, communicates itself from step 

 to step, and extends itself without being dis- 

 placed. It's movement is not a migration : and 

 if it appear such to us in the east, it is because 

 barbarous hordes have seized upon Egypt, Asia 

 Minor, and that Greece, heretofore free, the for- 

 saken cradle of the civilization of our ancestors. 



The barbarism of nations is the consequence 

 of the oppression exercised either by interior 

 despotism, or foreign conquest ; and it is always 

 accompanied by a progressive impoverishment, 

 a diminution of the public fortune. Free and 

 powerful institutions, adapted to the interests 

 of ail, remove these dangers; and the growing 

 civilization of the world, the rivalship of labour, 



