he told me one day that he was really glad to
observe that such excellent dockyards were making at Bermuda, as in a
few years they would no doubt belong to the Union. This was not said
boastingly, but seriously.]

It is actually astonishing, and will scarcely be credited at home,
that all except the most reflecting people in the United States have,
within the last five years, become really and seriously impressed with
the notion that the whole continent of the New World is a part of
their birthright, and that it is about to pass under their dominion,
as a matter of course, as well as that all the powers of the Old World
cannot hinder this consummation one day, or even exist themselves much
longer, as a political millennium is speedily coming on.

As an example of the self-sufficiency of this feeling, I quote a
letter from a governor of a State, lately written to his constituents,
perhaps on the strength of re-election, but really developing the
national notion. In reply to a letter addressed to him by the whigs of
Chautauque county, desiring his consent to stand as one of their
candidates for the delegates to the Constitutional Convention,
ex-Governor Seward wrote a reply of which the following is an
extract:--

"I want no war--I want no enlargement of territory sooner than it
would come if we were contented with a masterly inactivity. I abhor
war, as I detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the
continent that remains to be _annexed_.

"But I cannot exclude the conviction that the popular passion for
territorial aggrandizement is irresistible. Prudence, justice,
cowardice, may check it for a season, but it will gain strength by its
subjugation. An American navy is hovering over Vera Cruz. An American
army is at the heart of what was Mexico. Let the Oregon question be
settled when it may, it will, nevertheless, come back again. Our
population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy
barriers of the north, and to encounter oriental civilization on the
shores of the Pacific. The monarchs of Europe are to have no rest,
while they have a colony remaining on this continent. France has
already sold out. Spain has sold out. We shall see how long before
England inclines to follow their example. It behoves us then to
qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our destiny. We can do
this, and can only do it by early measures which shall effect the
abolition of slavery, without precipitancy, w