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Society, either among the leaders or followers of the two great contending parties which divide, agitate, and govern that kingdom.-See the "Resources of the British Empire," pp. 351-376, for the facts and reasons to prove, that no free government can be carried on but by the agency of contending parties; and that no danger is to be apprehended either to the ministry or the people from the prevalence of party spirit. Since the peace of 1815, Mr. Monroe's tour, aided by the circumstances of the country and the times, has considerably abated the acrimony of faction in the United States, and democrats and federalists now dine at the same table without any fear of reciprocal offence.

Some of the wisest and best men of America, particularly Washington, Hamilton, and Ames, laboured to convince their fellow citizens of the necessity of extinguishing parties in our popular and elective government. President Washington's "Farewell Address" to the people of the United States, General Hamilton's Essays in the Federalist, and Mr. Fisher Ames's lucubrations scattered over all his works, contain most forcible and eloquent arguments against the mischiefs of faction. But, after all that can be said or written on the subject, a country must either be governed by the bayonet, and be enslaved; or governed by party, and be free. Parties in the United States are substantially like those in England. Two great rival sections of the people contend with each other for the exclusive administration of the government, not because they think themselves always right, and their opponents always wrong, but because, on the whole, they think they could manage the government better than their antagonists. They differ more about the means than the end: they both wish to exalt their country, and render her prosperous at home, and respectable abroad, however they may disagree as to the measures by which this common object can be best attained.

Indeed, now, the federalists and democrats do not differ, even as to the means; they both wish to exalt their country by the same means. For more than twenty

years, truly, they varied most essentially in their notions respecting the best mode of administering the government; the democrats denouncing foreign commerce, foreign diplomacy, internal taxation, a national bank, a regular army, and a fighting navy, as being all extremely anti-republican. But for the last two or three years they seem to have outgrown these theories, and to have begun, like other people, to take experience and fact as the best foundation, and safest guides of political economy.

The United States are so very favourably circumstanced for a rapid growth in wealth, and population, and national strength, that it requires only the exercise of a little common sense to administer the home government, and permit the laws and institutions, which are generally most propitious to the establishment and furtherance of popular liberty, to take their due course. It requires, however, considerable sagacity and prudence so to conduct our foreign affairs as to secure the friendship and respect of other potentates. But there is no occasion to enter into any detail on this point, seeing that General Washington has left a bright example of all that a wise and upright administration of government can accomplish, for the welfare of the country; and our future presidents have only to follow faithfully in his foot-tracks, in order to ensure, under Providence, the internal prosperity, and the external respectability of America.

In one, and that the most important department of foreign policy, namely, diplomacy, the American government, under all its administrations, has exhibited great talents and skill. In the United States there is no corps of regularly bred statesmen, as in Europe; but our politicians generally, and more especially our diplomatists, are taken from the class of practising lawyers, who, being men of business, shrewd observers, and well acquainted with mankind, have always been a match, and often an overmatch, for the European ambassadors, and plenipotentiaries, who have been systematically trained in the routine of office, amidst all the frms and

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devices of the closet. During the last fifty years, American diplomacy has signalized itself in every court and cabinet of Europe; and the names of Jay, Adams, Morris, King, Jefferson, Marshal, Monroe, Pinkney, and the Commissioners at Ghent, will deservedly rank as high as those of any diplomatic characters which have adorned other countries. The peace concluded with England in 1793, by Mr. Jay, Mr. Adams, and Dr. Franklin, and the commercial treaty made with England in 1794, by Mr. Jay, are evidences of consummate diplomatic wisdom and skill. A very slight perusal of the American State papers, lately published at Boston, will show that the American diplomatists, invariably, wield a more pointed and powerful pen than their European antagonists; that they press their arguments with more force, place them in a greater variety of lights, and defeat, or evade, or parry, the strokes of their opponents with more adroitness and effect. The Marquis of Wellesley, in April 1815, said in his place on the floor of the House of Lords, when discussing the negociation between the United States and Britain, respecting peace, "that the American commissioners had shown the most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole of the correspondence. The noble Earl (Liverpool) opposite, probably felt sore at this observation, as no doubt the British papers were communicated from the common fund of ministers in England."

The American commissioners at Ghent. were Mr. Gallatin, late Secretary of the United States Treasury, and now Ambassador to France; Mr. John Quincy Adams, a Massachusetts lawyer, formerly minister to the courts of Berlin, Petersburgh, and London, now Secretary of State; Mr. Bayard, a Delaware lawyer, and a senator of the United States; Mr. Clay, a Ken*tucky lawyer, and Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress; and Mr. Jonathan Russel, formerly a merchant in New York.

Considering that diplomacy is much more effectual to permanently aggrandize a nation than war and conquest, it is astonishing that so few governments, in the history

of the world, have availed themselves of its aid. Un less we admit the United States within the circle, there are only three nations that have successfully seconded their efforts at extension and power by diplomatic skill; namely, ancient Rome, modern France, and Russia. The reasons why British diplomacy has been for the last five hundred years, in general, so deplorably defective, are detailed at length in " the Resources of the British Empire," pp. 333, 344.

Now, the only sound policy of every nation is to secure its independence, to augment its power, to elevate its rank. Neither of these three great objects can be pursued singly; they are inseparably interwoven with one another. The national independence of a state can only be secured by an unremitted progression in positive power, of which a greater relative rank is the neces sary consequence. It is as much the duty of states as of individuals constantly to use all honourable means of advancing themselves in wealth, character, influence, authority, and power. All nations begin to decline from the moment they cease to rise. Non progedi est regredi is the great political axiom of human affairs. As soon as a man ceases to improve his mind by obser vation, study, and reflection, his intellect begins to lose ground in acuteness, strength, splendour, and comprehension. The ambition, avarice, and ignorance of individuals allow to nations no intervals of stationary quiet, or drowsy security.

In modern times, however, the only European governments that seem to have acted on any digested system of national aggrandizement, are, that of France, since the accession of Louis the 14th, in 1643; and that of Russia, since the commencement of Peter's reign, in 1696. These two great monarchs felt the internal strength, and appreciated the immense natural resources of their respective empires. Although Louis did not in his own person succeed in the ultimate object of acquiring a universal French monarchy, he yet fixed the ascendency of France over the other European powers on a broad and permanent basis, When he ascended

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the throne, his dominions were hemmed in, on all sides, by powerful neighbours. The House of Austria, in its two great branches, swayed the sceptres of Germany and Spain, whose territories almost surrounded France; the republic of Holland completed the line of circumva lation. Nevertheless, although, during the last thirty years of his reign, Louis was almost incessantly beaten by the allied armies of Austria, England, and Holland, he contrived, by the superior skill of French diplomacy, to enlarge his own hereditary possessions, by consider able acquisitions from Germany; to place a Bourbon on the throne of Spain, to shatter Austria, to crush Holland, to cripple England, to leave France 30 intrinsically powerful, as to enable her, under the augmented impulses of revolutionary action, to be an overmatch for the other powers of continental Europe, not merely single-handed, but for a combination of them all; so that, in 1813, 1814, and 1815, about a century after the death of Louis the Fourteenth, it required the united strength, in its full exertion, of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, aided by the fleets and armies of England, to rescue the whole European continent from the humiliation of French oppression.

Contrast the adroit diplomacy of France with the most miserable negotiations of England, at the peace of Amiens. So low, indeed, had England fallen under the degrading conditions of this treaty; so completely evaporated was that spirit, which, under the auspices of Marlborough, had rendered her the arbitress of Europe; that spirit which, under the presiding mind of Chatham, had smitten both branches of the House of Bourbon, and loosened the joints of the loins of France and Spain; that the Addington administration actually submitted to the mandate of Bonaparte, and indicted Mr. Peltier for a libel against Napoleon, whom he represented as a ruffian, an upstart, and an assassin. It was high time for Messrs. Addington and Company to obliterate from the memory of the English people, and to raze from the records of history all mention of the fields of Poictiers, Cressy, and Agincourt, of the battles of Blenheim,