Great as was once the weight of New-England in the American councils, her influence of late has been borne down by the preponderance of the west. New-England, including Massachusetts and Maine, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, covers only a surface of little more than sixty thousand square miles, and contains a population of about one million and a half; whereas, the western country already counts a greater number of states-ás Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiani, and Louisiana, which give it a preponderance in the senate of the United States;-in addition to which there is an immense extent of surplus territory, out of which new states without number may be carved in the lapse of a few years. Its population already reaches. between two and three millions, which enables it to vote down New-England in the House of Representatives; and it covers a surface of more than one million five hundred thousand square miles; that is to say, more than fifteen times as large as the British Isles, England, Ireland, and Scotland, put together, and averages a fertile soil, admirably adapted to sustain a very full and numerous population; a population abundantly sufficient to outvote not only the NewEngland, but all the other Atlantic States, all the states that composed the old Union which converted America from a British colony into an independent empire.

The commercial policy is necessary to the very existence of New-England, whose depopulation must follow as an inevitable result from its destruction or restriction, and its tide of emigration augments the numbers and resources of that western country, which is inclined to strike a deathblow to the prosperity of the Atlantic seaboard. There cannot well be a more erroneous political theory, than that the interests of agriculture are opposed to those of commerce, and conversely; for the facts and proofs that merely agricultural nations can never become either prosperous or powerful, and that commerce most materially forwards the improvement of agriculture itself, and of national wealth and civiliza

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tion, see "the Resources of the British Empire," pp. 383, 398, 487, 490. If the western and agricultural policy should prevail, the Atlantic States will suffer, in the following order; New-England most, then NewYork, New-Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, then Pennsylvania, which being a great manufacturing state, depends less upon foreign commerce; then Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, which are great planting states, their staples being tobacco, rice, and

cotton.

The tendency of all this, beyond a peradventure, is either to break up the Federal Union, and entail a perpetuity of anarchy and civil broils throughout the whole continent, or to crush the Atlantic States beneath the enormous hoofs of the western mammoth.

If however, from these, or from any other causes, the British government should suppose that the United States are destitute of resources, and the people reluctant to engage in a new war, on account of the events of the recent conflict, it is egregiously mistaken. The resources, territorial, intellectual, and moral, of this country, are immense and various, and widening on all sides with inconceivable rapidity; and the settled conviction of the American people, arising out of the cir cumstances of the last war is, that they are decidedly superior to the British, and can always beat them man to man, ship to ship, gun to gun, bayonet to bayonet, both on the flood, and in the field. And uncounted myriads of American hearts now beat high and quick, in cager aspirations for another contest with Britain; a spirit which the government carefully cherishes, by newspaper effusions, by public toasts and orations, by congressional and state legislative speeches and resolutions; the great objects of American ambition being to annex to their already too gigantic dominion the British North-American colonies on the continent, and the West-India Islands; and also the Spanish colonies bordering on the southern states.

The general government, indeed, was itself broken down during the last war; it fled at Bladensburgh;

gave up Washington to the flames of a victorious enemy, and was unable to send a single recruit to its skeleton armies, or to pour a single stiver into its exhausted treasury. But the people never despaired of the republic; they always showed what feats of heroism they were capable of performing, when directed by competent leaders; at Plattsburgh, at Baltimore, at NewOrleans, they rolled back the tide of invasion, and demonstrated the fatal folly of attempting to fix a hostile army on the soil of America. On the lakes, and on the ocean, the American stars were flying above the redcross flag of England; the American ships were better built, better manned, and better fought than those of Britain; as is natural to suppose, when of two kindred nations equally brave, the one has an overgrown navy too large for its population and resources; while the other has only a few select ships, the crews of which are all picked men and skilful seamen. The fashionable popular logic in this country is, "the British beat the French both by sea and land, the Americans beat the British; and therefore, the United States have nothing to fear from European prowess; certainly not from England, if she conducts her future wars so clumsily as she did the last."

The American government will probably never again exhibit such a spectacle of nerveless impotence as was displayed during the last war. It is daily and hourly acquiring fresh strength; its influence over the United States bank will give it the command of the national purse, and facilitate the raising of loans. Its military academies throughout the Union are rendering abundant the materials of a skilful, well-disciplined, well-appointed regular army; its dock-yards and arsenals are well-supplied, and no effort or expense spared, to create a powerful navy, consisting of first-rate ships of the line, large frigates, sloops, steam batteries, &c. besides the fleets on the lakes; all which, manned by American sailors, will give to the general government a formidable influence, both in peace and war, with the greatest European sovereignties. The American rulers have

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become wiser by their own experience, have profited by their own blunders, have extracted strength from a sense of their own weakness. They are not likely again to plunge into a war, without funds, and without men: they are now preparing, in the bosom of peace, the means of future conflict; by building up the finances of the country, by planting every where the germs of an army, by sowing those seeds which will soon start up into bands of armed warriors, by a rapid augmentation of their navy; and, above all, by attempting to allay the animosities of party spirit, and endeavouring to direct the whole national mind and inclination of the United States towards their aggrandizement by conquest, alike on the land and on the ocean; by adding to their present immense empire the continental possessions of Spain and England, and the British insular domains in the West Indies.

The federal government, to be sure, is radically weak in its frame and composition; but, like all other governments, it will continually increase in strength the longer it lasts, by the natural tendency of power in the hands of all men, whether good or bad, wise or foolish, to augment itself; by the constant growth of executive patronage and of public expenditure; by the latitude of construction which ambitious ingenuity may fasten upon the words and letters of the constitution of the United States. Whence, in the course of a few years, the American government will be quite strong enough to act a very offensive part to those European powers who vainly flatter themselves with the hope that the United States are in themselves impotent, and destitute of those resources which are requisite to give a country. a commanding attitude in its intercourse, pacific or belligerent, with other nations.

The great question now at issue between America and Europe, is, which of the two shall change its form and system of government? whether Europe shall become more democratic, or the United States more aristocratic? It is scarcely credible with what eagerness the presidential messages are read in every European court and

cabinet, and among every European people. Not understanding the nature, if they know the existence of our separate state sovereignties, they are exceedingly surprised to find that the general government of ten millions of people is carried on at an expenditure of less than six millions sterling a-year, while the expenses of their own governments range from fifty to one hundred millions sterling per annum. And, as every very expensive government must be oppressive, because it impedes the progress of productive industry, and perpetuates the hopeless poverty of the great mass of the people, the Europeans are naturally led to desire that their own governments might approximate to that of the United States, in popular liberty and in moderation of expenditure, while the American rulers, observing that the European sovereigns have more command over the population and resources of their respective countries than they can exercise over those of the Union, as naturally desire to build up into more extensive and permanent power the system and administration of the federal government.

The probable result is, that the governments of America and Europe will approximate towards each other, in fact, although in name they may still remain different; the generality of mankind being governed by names, and very apt to be shocked and roused into tumult by their sudden change. The European governments generally, although still retaining the name of monarchies, will, perhaps, become more representative, more democratic; while the government of America, still retaining the name of a republic, will, peradventure, become more aristocratic, more powerful in its executive, and more permanent in its senate. The great difficulty, however, will be to temper the strength of the government with the personal liberty of the people; for it is a general rule, with as few exceptions as most general rules, that the freer the people the weaker the government, and conversely; the danger therefore is, lest the Ame rican government in strengthening itself, should so far restrain the liberties of the people, as to render them in