uperior where snow
lies half the year--from Nantucket and the Chesapeake to the affluents
of Hudson's Bay and the spacious harbors and sheltered roadsteads of
Nootka Sound. And this vast extent of country, the Briton remarks with
pride, we have not merely overrun, as the Spanish so rapidly traversed
South America, but have really appropriated and in good degree
assimilated, so that the far shores of the Pacific, which have but for
three or four years felt the tread of the Anglo-American, are now dotted
with energetic and thriving marts of Commerce, into whose lap gold mines
are pouring their lavish treasures, while a profusion of steamers, ships
and smaller watercraft link them closely with each other, with the
Atlantic States and the Old World, while their numerous daily journals
are aiding to diffuse the English language through the isles of the
immense Pacific, and their "merchant princes" are coolly discussing the
advantages of establishing a direct communication by lines of steamships
with China and opening the wealth of Japan to the commerce of the
civilized world. All this is marked with something of wonder but more of
pride by the ruling classes in Great Britain--the pride of a father
whose son has beaten him and run away, but who nevertheless hears with
interest and gratification that the unfilial reprobate is conquering
fame and fortune, and who with beaming eye observes to a neighbor, "A
wild boy that of mine, sir, but blood will tell!" If the United States
were attacked by any power or alliance strong enough to threaten their
subjugation, the sympathy felt for them in these islands would be
intense and all but universal.

And yet there is another side of the picture, which in fairness must
also be presented. The favored classes in Great Britain, while they
heartily admire the American energy and its fruits, do and must
nevertheless _dread the contagion of our example_; and this dread must
increase and be diffused as the rapidly increasing power, population and
wealth of our country commend it more and more to the attention of the
world. While we were some sixty days distant, and heard of mainly in
connection with Indian fights or massacres, fatal steamboat explosions
or insolvent banks, this contagion was not imminent and did not
seriously alarm; but, now that New-York is but ten days from London, and
New-Orleans (by Telegraph) scarcely more, the case is bravely altered,
and it becomes daily more and more pa