rican, taken as a chance specimen of his countrymen, 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 depths of the backwoods, as well as in the business
of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime commerce,
which makes him the cheapest and the quickest trader in the world.

As long as the sailors of the United States retain these inspiriting
advantages, and the practical superiority which they derive from them,
they will not only continue to supply the wants of the producers and
consumers of their own country, but they will tend more and more to
become, like the English, the factors of all other peoples. *k This
prediction has already begun to be realized; we perceive that the
American traders are introducing themselves as intermediate agents in
the commerce of several European nations; *l and America will offer a
still wider field to their enterprise.

[Footnote k: It must not be supposed that English vessels are
exclusively employed in transporting foreign produce into England, or
British produce to foreign countries; at the present day the merchant
shipping of England may be regarded in the light of a vast system of
public conveyances, ready to serve all the producers of the world, and
to open communications between all peoples. The maritime genius of the
Americans prompts them to enter into competition with the English.]

[Footnote l: Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already
carried on by American vessels.]

The great colonies which were founded in South America by the Spaniards
and the Portuguese have since become empires. Civil war and oppression
now lay waste those extensive regions. Population does not increase, and
the thinly scattered inhabitants are too much absorbed in the cares of
self-defense even to attempt any amelioration of their condition. Such,
however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own
efforts in piercing the gloom of the Middle Ages; South America has the
same Christian laws and Christian manners as we have; she contains all
the germs of civilization which have grown amidst the nations of
Europe or their offsets, added to the advantages to be derived from our
example: why th