oans as an annual burden, but the loans themselves. I translate the
text, the letter having appeared in French:--"The greater part of this
sum, about twenty-two millions of dollars, has been expended during the
last twelve years--that is to say, while the population _was half or
two-thirds less than it is to-day_, offering an _average of not more
than_ 800,000 _souls_, (the present population of Pennsylvania being
1,350,161:) It follows, that each inhabitant has been _taxed_ about two
and a half dollars, annually, for internal improvements during this
period."

I think, under ordinary circumstances, and as against a logician who did
not appear supported by the confidence and favour of the government of
the United States of America, I might have got along with this
quotation, by showing, that 800,000 is neither the _half of_, nor
_two-thirds less_ than 1,350,161; that Pennsylvania, so far from
trebling, or even doubling her population in twelve years, had not
doubled it in twenty; that Pennsylvania, at the commencement of the
twelve years named, had actually a population more than twenty-five per
cent. greater than that which Mr. Harris gives as the average of a
period, during which he affirms that this population has, at least,
doubled; and by also showing that money borrowed and invested in public
works, which are expected to return an ample revenue, cannot be
presented as an annual charge against the citizen until he is called on
to pay it.

Having said so much about the part that Mr. Harris has had in this
controversy, I owe it to truth to add, that his course has, at least,
the merit of frankness, and that he is just so much the more to be
commended than that portion of our ex-agents and actual agents who have
taken the same side of the question, covertly.

I have dwelt on this subject at some length, because I think it is
connected, not only with the truth, but with the character, of America.
I have already told you the startling manner in which I was addressed by
one of the first men in England, on the subject of the tone of our
foreign agents; and since that time, occasions have multiplied, to learn
the mortifying extent to which this unfavourable opinion of their
sincerity has spread. If the United States has neither sufficient force
nor sufficient dignity to maintain its interests abroad, without making
these sacrifices of opinion and principle, we are in a worse condition
than I had believed; but you will r