1'22 
EAltl.Y COLONISTS. 
Siberian hunters. It is a eurious phenomenon to find the 
rites of the Grreek Chnreh established in one part of America, 
and to sec two nations which inhabit the eastern and 
western extremities of Europe (the Eussians and the 
Spaniards) thus bordering on each other on a continent on 
which they arrived by opposite routes ; but the almost 
savage state of the unpeopled coasts of Oehotsk and Karats- 
ehatka, the want of resources furnished by the ports of Asia, 
and the barbarous system hitherto adopted in the Scandi- 
navian colonies of the New World, are circumstances which 
will hold them long in infancy. Hence it follows, that if 
in the researches of political economy we are accustomed 
to survey masses only, we cannot but admit that the 
American continent is divided, properly speaking, between 
three great nations of English, Spanish, and Portuguese 
race. The first of these three nations, the Anglo-Americans, 
is, next to the English ofEurojie, that whose flag waves over 
tlie greatest extent of sea. AV'^ithout any distant colonies, 
its commerce has acquired a growth attained in the old 
world by that nation alone which communicated to North 
America its language, its literature, its love of labour, its 
predilection for liberty, and a portion of its civil institu- 
tions. 
The English and Poi-tuguese colonists have peopled only 
the coasts which lie opposite to Europe; the Castilians, on 
the contrary, in the earliest period of the conquest, crossed 
the chain of the Andes, and made settlements in the most 
western regions. Thei’e only, at Mexico, Cnndinamarca, 
Quito, and Peru, they found traces of ancient civilization, 
agricultural nations, and flourishing empires. This circum- 
stance, together ■with the increase of the native mountain 
population, the almost exclusive possession of great met.allic 
wealth, and the commercial relations established from the 
beginning of the sixteenth century with the Indian archipe- 
lago, have given a peculiar character to the Spanish posses- 
sions in equinoctial America. In the East Indies, the 
people who fell into the hands of the English and Portuguese 
settlers were wanderuig tribes, or hunters. Ear from form- 
ing a portion of the agricultural and laborious population, as 
on the table land of Anahuac, at Guatimala, and in Upper 
Peru, they generally withdrew' at the approach of the whites. 
