Thence, too, in its wilder and unrestrained excesses, the greatest crimes which have disfigured the dark annals of human wickedness the massacres of Athens and the banishments of Florence-the carnage of Marius and the proscriptions of the Triumvirate-the murders of Cromwell and the bloodshed of Robespierre.

As the democratic passion is thus a principle of such vital and searching energy, so it is from it, when acting under due regulation and control, that the greatest and most durable advances in social existence have sprung. Why are the shores of the Mediterranean the scene to which the pilgrim from every quarter of the globe journeys to visit at once the cradles of civilisation, the birthplace of arts, of arms, of philosophy, of poetry, and the scenes of their highest and most glorious achievements? Because freedom spread along its smiling shores; because the ruins of Athens and Sparta, of Rome and Carthage, of Tyre and Syracuse, lie on its margin; because civilisation, advancing with the white sails which glittered on its blue expanse, pierced, as if impelled by central heat, through the dark and barbarous regions of the Celtic race who peopled its shores. What gave Rome the empire of the world, and brought the venerable ensigns bearing the words, "Senatus populusque Romanus," to the wall of Antoninus and the foot of the Atlas, the waters of the Euphrates and the Atlantic Ocean? Democratic vigour. Democratic vigour, be it observed, duly coerced by Patrician power; the insatiable ambition of successive consuls, guided by the wisdom of the senate; the unconquerable and inexhaustible bands which, for centuries, issued from the Roman Forum. What has spread the British dominions over the habitable globe, and converted the ocean into a peaceful lake for its internal carriage, and made the winds the instruments of its blessings to mankind; and spread its race in vast and inextinguishable multitudes through the new world? Democratic ambition; democratic ambition, restrained and regulated at home by an adequate weight of aristocratic power; a government

which, guided by the stability of the patrician, but invigorated by the activity of the plebeian race, steadily advanced in conquest, renown, and moral ascendency, till its fleets overspread the sea, and it has become a matter of certainty, that half the globe must be peopled by its descendants.

The continued operation of this undying vigour and energy is still more clearly evinced in the AngloAmerican race, which originally sprung from the stern Puritans of Charles I.'s age, which have developed all the peculiarities of the democratic character in unrestrained profusion amidst the boundless wastes which lie open to their enterprise. M. Tocqueville has described, with equal justice and eloquence, the extraordinary activity of these principles in the United States.

"The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the axioms of their profession; they escape from all the prejudices of their present station; they are not more attached to one line of operation than to another; they are not more prone to employ an old method than a new one; they have no rooted habits, and they easily shake off the influence which the habits of other nations might exercise upon their minds, from a conviction that their country is unlike any other, and that its situation is without a precedent in the world. America is a land of wonders, in which every thing is in constant motion, and every movement seems an improvement. The idea of novelty is there indissolubly connected

with the idea of amelioration. No natu

ral boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.

"This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. As the same causes are continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately impart an irresistible impulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance specimen of his coun

trymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and above all of innovation. The same bent is manifest in all that he does; he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations; he bears it with him in the depth of the back woods, as well as in the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime

commerce, which makes him the cheap

est and the quickest trader in the world."

"It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme equality which sub, sists amongst them, but the political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamour is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the immediate Every thing is in motion around you: here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little further, the delegates of a district are posting to the town in order to consult upon some local improvements; or in another place the labourers of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school. Meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disap: probation of the line of conduct pursued by the Government; whilst, in other assemblies, the citizens salute the authoities of the day as the fathers of their country. Societies are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils under which the state labours, and which solemnly bind themselves to give a constant example of temperance.

satisfaction of their social wants.

"The great political agitation of the American legislative bodies, which is the only kind of excitement that attracts the attention of foreign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of continuation of that universal movement which originates in the lowest classes of the people, and extends successively to all the ranks of society. It is impossible to spend more efforts in the pursuit of enjoyment."

The great system of nature thus expands to our view. The democratic principle is the great moving power which expels from the old established centres of civilisation the race of men

to distant and unpeopled regions; which in the ancient world spread it with the Athenian galleys along the shores of the Mediterranean, and with the Roman legions penetrated the dark and savage forests of central Europe; which laid the foundation in the kingdoms formed out of its provinces, of the supremacy of modern Europe, and is now with the British navy extending as far as the waters of the ocean roll; peopling at once the new continent of Australasia, and supplanting the sable millions of Africa; piercing the primeval forests of Canada, and advancing with unceasing velocity towards the rocky mountains of America. Nor is it only by the subjects of Britain that this impelling force is felt. It exists in equal force among their descendants; and from the seats where the Puritan contemporaries of Cromwell first sought an asylum from English oppression, an incessant craving, an unseen power, is for ever impelling multitudes to the yet untrodden forests of the West.

"It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing preponderance over all the other European races in the New World; and that it is very superior to them in civilisation, in indus. try, and in power. As long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly-peopled dense population upon its route, through countries, as long as it encounters no which it cannot work its way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked out by treaties will not stop it; but it will every where transgress these imaginary barriers.

"The geographical position of the British race in the New World is peculiarly favourable to its rapid increase. Above its northern frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend; and a few degrees below its southern confines lies the burning climate of the Equator. The Anglo-Americans are therefore placed in the most temperate and habitable zone of the continent."

"The distance from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along the whole of

this immense line; sometimes falling

within its limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it into the waste. It has been calculated that the whites ad

vance every year a mean distance of seventeen miles along the whole of this vast boundary. Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves, and as soon as they are re-united they proceed onwards. This gradual and continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God.

“Within this first line of conquering settlers, towns are built, and vast States founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the

whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly four millions. The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place, that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the most remote Western States are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris.

"It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British race in the New World can be arrested. The dis

memberment of the Union, and the hostilities which might ensue, the abolition of republican institutions, and the tyrannical government which might succeed it, may retard this impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies to which that race is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the emigrants that fertile wilderness, which offers resources to all indus

try and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever nature they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their

climate or of their inland seas, of their great rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy, be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which seem to be the distinctive characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge which guides them on their way.

from the coast of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean; the territory which will probably be occupied by the AngloAmericans at some future time, may be computed to equal three quarters of Europe in extent. The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to that of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it is therefore evident that its population will at some future time be proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a population of 410 inhabitants to the square league. What cause can prevent the United States from having as numerous a population in time?"

"The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of men will be living in North America, equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the same civilisation, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact new to the world, a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination."

No

It is not without reason, therefore, that we set out in this speculation, with the observation, that great and durable effects on human affairs are destined by Providence for the British race. And it is too obvious to admit of dispute, that the democratic principle amongst us is the great moving power which thus impels multitudes of civilized beings into the wilderness of nature. thing but that principle could effect such a change. Civilized man rarely emigrates; under a despotic government never. What colonies has China sent forth to people the wastes of Asia? Are the Hindoos to be found spread over the vast archipe. lago of the Indian Ocean? Republican Rome colonized the world; Republican Greece spread the light of civilisation along the shores of the Mediterranean; but Imperial Rome could never maintain the numbers of its own provinces, and the Grecian empire slumbered on with a declining population for eleven hundred years. Is Italy, with its old civilized millions, or France, with

its ardent and redundant peasantry, the storehouse of nations from whence the European race is to be diffused over the world? The colonies of Spain, torn by internal factions, and a prey to furious passions, are in the most miserable state, and constantly declining in numbers! * The tendency of nations in a high state of civilisation ever is to remain at home; to become wedded to the luxuries and enjoyments, the habits and refinements of an artificial state of existence, and regard all other people as rude and barbarous, unfit for the society, unequal to the re, ception of civilized existence, to slumber on for ages with a population, poor, redundant, and declining. Such has for ages been the condition of the Chinese and the Hindoos, the Turks and the Persians, the Spaniards and the Italians; and hence no great settlements of mankind have proceeded from their loins. What, then, is the centrifu. gal force which counteracts this inert tendency, and impels man from the heart of wealth, from the bosom of refinement, from the luxuries of civilisation, to the forests and the wilderness? What sends him forth into the desert, impelled by the energy of the savage character, but yet with all the powers and acquisitions of civilisation at his command; with the axe in his hand, but the Bible in his pocket, and the Encyclopedia by his side? It is democracy which effects this prodigy; it is that insatiable passion which overcomes alike the habits and affections of society, and sends forth the civilized pilgrim far from his kindred, far from his home, far from the bones of his fathers, to seek amidst Transatlantic wilds that freedom and independence which his native country can no longer afford. It is in the restless activity which it engenders, the feverish desire of ele. vation which it awakens in all classes, the longing after a state of existence unattainable in long established states which it produces, that the centrifugal force of civilized man is to be found. Above an hundred thousand emigrants from Great Britain, in the year 1833, settled in

the British colonies; nearly two hundred thousand annually pass over to the whole of North America from the British isles; and amidst the strife of parties, the collision of interest, the ardent hopes and chimerical anticipations incident to these days of transition, the English race is profusely and indelibly transplanted into the boundless wastes prepared for its reception in the New World.

As the democratic passion, however, is thus evidently the great moving power which is transferring the civilized European race to the remote corners of the earth, and the British navy, the vast vehicle raised up to supreme dominion, for its conveyance; so it is of the utmost importance to observe, that if undue power is given to this impelling force, the machine which is performing these prodigies may be destroyed, and the central force, instead of operating with a steady and salutary pressure upon mankind, suddenly burst its barriers, and for ever cease to affect their fortunes. A spring acts upon a machine only as long as it is loaded or restrained; remove the pressure, and its strength ceases to exist. This powerful and astonishing agency of the British race upon the fortunes of mankind, would be totally destroyed by the triumph of Democracy in these islands. Multitudes, indeed, during the convulsions consequent on so calamitous an event, would fly for refuge to the American shores, but in the grinding and irreversible despotism which would necessarily and speedily follow its occurrence, the vital energy would become extinct, which is now impelling the British race into every corner of the habitable earth. The stillness of despotism would succeed the agitation of passion; the inertness of aged civilisation at once fall upon the bounded state. From the moment that British freedom is extinguished by the overthrow of aristocratic influence, and the erection of the Commons into despotic power, the sacred fire which now animates the vast fabric of its dominion will become extinct, and

England will cease to direct the destinies of half the globe. The Conservative party in this country, therefore, are not merely charged with the preservation of its own freedom-they are intrusted with the destinies of mankind, and on the success of their exertions it depends, whether the democratic spirit in these islands is to be preserved, as heretofore, in that subdued form which has directed its energy to the civilisation of mankind, or to burst forth in those wild excesses which turn only to its own ruin, and the desolation of the world.

While the naval strength and colonial dominions of England have steadily and unceasingly advanced in Western Europe, and its influence is in consequence spread over all the maritime regions of the globe, another, and an equally irresistible power, has risen up in the Eastern Hemisphere. If all the contests of centuries have turned to the advantage of the English navy, all the continental strifes have as unceasingly augmented the strength of RUSSIA. From the time of the Czar Peter, when it first emerged from obscurity to take a leading part in continental affairs, to the present moment, its progress has been unbroken. Alone, of all other states, during that long period it has experienced no reverses, but constantly advanced in power, territory, and resources; for even the peace of Tilsit, which followed the disasters of Austerlitz and Friedland, was at tended with an accession of territory. During that period it has successively swallowed up Courland and Livonia, Poland, Finland, the Crimea, the Ukraine, Wallachia, and Moldavia. Its southern frontier is now washed by the Danube; its eastern is within fifty leagues of Berlin and Vienna; its advanced ports in the Baltic are almost within sight of Stockholm; its south-eastern boundary, stretching far over the Caucasus, sweeps down to Erivan and the foot of Mount Ararat-Persia and Turkey are irrevocably subjected to its influence; a solemn treaty has given it the command of the Dardanelles; a subsidiary Moscovite force has visited Scutari, and rescued the Osmanlis from destruc

tion; and the Sultan Mahmoud retains Constantinople only as the viceroy of the northern autocrat.

The politicians of the day assert that Russia will fall to pieces, and its power cease to be formidable to Western Europe or Central Asia. They never were more completely mistaken. Did Macedonia fall to pieces before it had subdued the Grecian Commonwealths; or Persia before it had conquered the Assyrian monarchy; or the Goths and Vandals before they had subverted the Roman empire? It is the general pressure of the north upon the south, not the force of any single state, which is the weight that is to be apprehended; that pressure will not be lessened, but on the contrary greatly increased, if the vast Scythian tribes should separate into different empires. Though one Moscovite throne were to be established at St Petersburgh, a second at Moscow, and a third at Constantinople, the general pressure of the Russian race, upon the southern states of Europe and Asia, would not be one whit diminished. Still the delight of a warmer climate, the riches of long established civilisation, the fruits and wines of the south, the women of Italy or Circassia would attract the brood of winter to the regions of the sun. The various tribes of the German race, the Gothic and Vandal swarms, the Huns and the Ostrogoths, were engaged in fierce and constant hostility with each other; and it was generally defeat and pressure from behind which impelled them upon their southern neighbours; but that did not prevent them from bursting the barriers of the Danube and the Rhine, and overwhelming the civilisation, and wealth, and discipline of the Roman empire. Such internal divisions only magnify the strength of the northern race by training them to the use of arms, and augmenting their military skill by constant exercise against each other; just as the long continued internal wars of the European nations have established an irresistible superiority of their forces over those of the other quarters of the globe. In the end, the weight of the north thus matured, drawn forth and disciplined, will ever be turned to the fields of southern conquest.