which has refused to do justice to the country granting it; and war-vessels owned by private individuals, and thus licensed, are privateers.

A treaty is a solemn compact between nations, made by commissioners who represent the sovereign or chief magistrate, and the country which they represent pledges its national honor and truth before the world to keep sacred the stipulations of such treaty and this is as closely binding upon the respective governments as are contracts upon private citizens. In this age a nation would be irredeemably disgraced who would wilfully outrage or violate a treaty.

It is the tendency and design of the law of nations to cultivate the principles of justice and humanity, and to unite in the encouragement of the rational usages of the Christian world.

THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY.

NHE history of America has not, like that of the Old World, the charm of classical or romantic associations; but in useful instruction and moral dignity it has no equal. It is not yet a century since this fair and flourishing republic was a colony of England, scarcely commanding the means of existence without the aid of the mother country, who was herself oppressed by European wars. Our puritan forefathers began in the rough fields of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, on a broad, comprehensive principle, which has gone forth to fraternize the world. Our history, therefore, like that poetical temple of fame reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. The pure light of Heaven enters from above, and sheds an equal and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its extent, it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good men, who have bled or toiled for their country; or it rests on votive tablets inscribed with the names of the blessed benefactors of mankind. The puritans of England-the resolute conquerors of the lakes and forests of the New World-occupied, in the first period of their social existence, the depressed position of a European colony; but the spirit of liberty which had led them to these wild regions, and the gifts of a magnificent and fertile nature, were sufficient to prepare them for their high destiny. This rude apprenticeship lasted more than one hundred and fifty years before the hour of change struck; and in the night of the 18th of April, 1775, the cannons of Lexington called a new-born nation to regenerate the world. The people rose as one man, and turning the ploughshares that tilled the soil into

swords to defend it, they threw themselves upon their unjust oppressors, and proclaimed at Philadelphia the immortal principles of self-government, that made tyrants tremble and every generous heart palpitate with joyful hope. At that moment a new name was inscribed on the catalogue of great nations. If not great in national importance, it was great by the moral influence it immediately exercised on the world. The long and bloody but successful Revolutionary War broke the chains of the thirteen colonies, and offered to the astonished world the most sublime spectacle of ancient or modern times-the fusion of all races, tongues and sects, in the one political religion of liberty.

In our necessarily brief record of these wonderful events and their grand results, we have as historians tried to be faithful, and as chroniclers have endeavored to present facts unbiased by prejudice, and with strict regard to truth. We view the Union from no sectional stand point, but looking over its broad area from east to west, from north to south, we say, with as fervent love as ever swelled the heart of patriot for country, it is ours! God bless America! God bless and preserve our Union! and if too much of pride and exultation mingles with our emotions, we find in her glory and honor our only apology. We naturally ask what is to be the future of our country-what its population-how rapid its growth-what of the generations to come, and for what length of time the present rate of increase can be maintained? Some close their eyes to the brightness which surrounds them, and with retroverted vision, and gloomy forebodings, point to the ruin and decay which cover the land where once flourished the mightiest kingdoms of the world; while, passing to the opposite extreme, hopeful and sanguine men will tell you there are no limits to our growth and prosperity. In favor of our present ratio of increase it may be urged, that with a population of only 40,000,000, we have sufficient territory to accommodate 1,000,000,000, and yet not be so densely populated as China, India, or Japan. An eminent mathematician has estimated that, starting at the present year, with a population of 43,000,000, the same ratio of increase that has prevailed for the last century, would give the United States, in the year 2000, a population of one and a quarter billion, or very nearly the present population of the entire globe. Startling as is the proposition, it is not improbable.

We have abundant resources to support this, or even a greater number in comfort. To-day not one-half of our entire territory is settled, and not one-half of that settled is cultivated, while even this does not produce to exceed, on an average, more than onehalf it is capable of producing under a higher system of agriculture, and with better machinery; yet we have enough even now, to very nearly or quite sustain the population which we shall have ten centuries hence. Those who are living in dread of a famine in consequence of the great rush of emigration, would do well to consider the following facts. Most of the immigrants come from a hard, stern school, in which they have learned lessons of close economy, industry and patient perseverance, preparing them to win from our most sterile lands a richer harvest than rewarded their efforts on the best of their own acres. With simplicity of habit, they possess great power of endurance. Having in their hearts an irrepressible love of freedom, a hungering and thirsting after the liberty with which the generous Republic endows all her sons alike, whether hers by birth or adoption, they become at once the staunchest defenders and the most unbounded admirers of our institutions.

If agriculture is in its infancy, so also is the development of our mineral resources, abundant and unlimited, even to the necessities of all the anticipated increase of population. Christianity and education elevate the masses of the people, and give them the wisdom requisite for the duties of citizens and statesmen, and it is only through the influence of those two agents that we shall escape the fate of Republics which rose and fell before our own had an existence, or its birth was foretold.

So long as numberless church spires pierce the clouds in every city, town, vale and prairie throughout the land, and everywhere are found institutions of learning-from the classic halls that have been the literary alma mater of generations of philosophers to the log school-house on the far frontier, we have little to dread from political power. Neither civil nor religious oppression can be brought to bear heavily upon a people thus guarded and protected. No Republic, except our own, ever attained such triumphs in the test of the great principles upon which it was founded, and perhaps no people ever possessed such advantages for perfecting an experiment that has so often proved a disastrous failure with other nations.