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seizing one throne after another, until it has become sovereign of nearly the whole of Central Asia, and is daily meditating the vulture's descent upon the small remainder. The Punjaub has, thus far, been exempt from its interference; but the Calcutta Englishman, of a very recent date, heads an article with the ominous words, "Every appearance of a Punjaub war," and goes on to exhibit the "extreme disorder" prevailing in that country, and to speak of the " probability that British intervention cannot be much longer delayed." Scinde was seized upon even in impatient advance of what Blackwood calls the "principle of unavoidable expansion."

SO

The London Times proclaims that conquest must go on in Asia until the " natural limits of empire" are reached; and the Foreign Quarterly Review has proclaimed that "to Great Britain, as to a conquering and civilized caste, the government of all India belongs, not much through any paltry right derivable from custom, or originating in popular notions, as from that sacred right impart ed by Providence to intellect and justice, to rule over violence and ignorance."t And this career of conquest, which has been continued without interruption and with increasing vigor down to the present time, and which is still advancing with strides worthy of its gigantic power and stupendous purpose, has beyond all doubt involved more perfidy and corruption, more robbery and murder, more butchery and blood, more crime and outrage of every grade and every hue, than the most ruthless deeds of Roman ambition, or, indeed, than can be matched in the history of any single power, of ancient or of modern times. The East India Company has always been one of those convenient and super-serviceable agents whose transactions the sovereign power of Great Britain could avow or disavow at its sovereign pleasure. But now it has come to be universally recognized as simply Great Britain in Asia. Its arm is that of Britain. British ambition is the life that throbs through all its giant frame. British troops are its instruments. The British seal has been affixed even to its most atrocious deeds; the avails of its robberies have swollen the vast tide of British wealth; its conquests-bloody, ruthless, unprincipled as

* Blackwood's Magazine, No. 328, p. 273. F. Q. Rev. Jan. 1844, p. 271.

they are-no matter by what perjuries, by what treasons, by what assassinations, what secret or open crime they may have been achieved, are marked upon the map as British possessions. And Great Britain may most righteously be arraigned before the world, in place of him against whom, as the head of this vast, irresponsible and despotic power, BURKE thundered his terrible denunciations, when he said, "We charge this offender with no crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is criminal to harbor; with no offences that have not their root in avarice, rapacity, pride, insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper; in short, in nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart, died in grain with malice, vitiated, corrupted, gangrened to the very core." And this is the model upon which is to be formed the projected British Company in California! This Western Continent is to be the theatre on which these scenes are to be reënacted!

Nor is the suggestion we have cited our sole or chief authority, for suspecting the British Government of projects of dominion in this portion of the North American Continent. There has sprung up of late a very general demand from all sides of the British press, for the prompt accomplishment of these designs. The Foreign Quarterly Review closes some speculations upon the probable destiny of California, with the remark that "an active minister, who had a forecast of the future, might secure it as an appendage to Oregon, our unquestionable right to which is too clear to be surrendered. The Mexicans," it is added, "would not be sorry to part with it to us upon fair terms." The urgent recommendations of the Mexican correspondent of the London Times, we have already quoted; and we have now to offer, from the same source, this explicit and, beyond all doubt, authentic announcement of a fact which our previous citations must have shown to be probable. In his letter, dated September 29, 1845, after speaking of the arrangement in progress between the governments of Mexico and the United States, on the question of boundary, this writer says:

"The question of frontier will also be

embarrassing on the Pacific coast, and interfere with the negotiation NOW GOING ON between the British and Mexican governments for the adoption of a frontier parallel, NECESSARY TO BRITISH INTERESTS."

With this evidence before us, it is impossible, or at least unwise, to doubt that Great Britain is striving to secure from Mexico sovereignty in California, absolute, it may be, or perhaps "somewhat in the manner of the East India Compa

ny."

The next question naturally suggested relates to the probability of her success. This must be simply a matter of opinion. It would be useless to disguise our fear that, so far as Mexico is concerned, she may accomplish her purpose. We have less confidence than perhaps is just, in the good faith of the friendly disposition towards the Government and people of the United States, which Mexico is said of late to have evinced. Our acquisition of Texas is yet too recent-our port towards Mexico has been too commanding-our exactions have been too rigorous, for the wound they inflicted upon this sensitive and resentful race to have yet fully healed. The sonorous blasts of our mutually defiant armies must even yet be echoing among the marshes between Metamoras and Aransas Bay, nor can the proclamations of the Mexican powers, so

"Horribly stuffed with epithets of war," have yet wholly passed from their recollection. Their soldiership, we are well aware, was " mere prattle without practice," and they found themselves, like Iago, so

"be-lee'd and calm'd

ment of the fairest of her possessions, should now, so soon after the obnoxious deed is finally and fully accomplished, manifest even an intemperate eagerness to resume with us friendly relations, and to negotiate for a boundary upon so liberal a basis as she is said to have proposed. We fear these measures are but the fair-seeming dictates of a "necessity lieved her seaboard from the presence of of present life." They have already refrom the pressure of our troops. They our squadron, and her Texan frontier have averted, or at least deferred, a blow against which she had found it impossible to interpose the shield of British

power,

and have released her from

clared that "

the fatal necessity of engaging, singlehanded, the power of the United States. Of such a struggle the result has repeatedly been predicted in Europe. The French Journal des Debats has dewould be a wide step towards the enthe conquest of Mexico slavement of the world by the United States, and a levy of bucklers by the Mexicans at this moment would lead the way to this subjection." The London Times remarks that Mexico has had the sagacity to perceive that a declaration of war would enable the United States to seize upon and retain the Mexican territory. These views were doubtless enby the representatives of both France and forced upon the Mexican administration

Great Britain: and the result has been that all thought of immediate war has passed away. Meantime, a negotiation has been set on foot with Great Britain

for the cession of California, and is "now

in progress." Suppose it to be successful, and the British power to be planted in the Bay and around the tributary waters of San Francisco; will not the European powers be then in a condition to attempt to reduce to practice the theory of M. GUIZOT, that "the integrity of ex"Though they do hate us as they do hell isting powers in America must be mainpains,

By clamorous creditors,"

that

Yet, for necessity of present life,

tained ?" "Between the autocracy of Russia on the East, and the democracy of

They must show out a flag and sign of America, aggrandized by the conquest of

love,

Which is, indeed, but sign."

It seems to us improbable that a government marked and swayed by Mexican temper, which persisted against the advice and example of the leading nations of the earth, in refusing to recognize the independence of Texas, for a long series of years of enforced inaction, which has, from first to last, charged upon the United States the robbery and despoil

Mexico, on the West," says the Journal des Debats, the official paper of the French government, "Europe may find herself more compressed than she may one day think consistent with her independence and dignity." It cannot be disguised that apprehensions of the future power of the American people are arousing the fears, and influencing the policy of the principal nations of Europe. The leading journal of Great Britain but a few days

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since, declared, that “no European politician can look forward to the power of the United States, within the present century, but with the most appalling prospects." And so the Paris Debats remarks, that for the political balance of the world, the conquest of Mexico by the United States may create eventual dangers, which, although distant, it may not be superfluous to guard against." And so again, upon another occasion, the same official journal employed this still more emphatic language:

"A cry of war between America and Mexico has been raised: although it is not believed that the threats will be followed by acts, yet it would be well for us to be prepared for anything. North America presents her ambitious plans for conquering all the American continent. She began by the annexation of Texas, by which she divides Mexico, and a war will give her a welcome pretence for possessing herself of all Mexico. Soon the smaller states will follow, and the Isthmus of Panama fall into the hands of North America. Europe should not tolerate this, NOR SUFFER NORTH AMERICA TO INCREASE, or the independence of Europe might sooner or later be wedged in by the two colossuses of Russia and North America, and suffer from their oppression."

It seems well nigh incredible that any or all the European powers should seriously resolve upon measures to prevent and check the growth, in power and influence, of the United States. To the casual observer we seem to be so far removed from them, the ocean that rolls between us seems so broad, as to stifle and destroy that envy and jealousy which, under other circumstances, might ripen into displeasure and end in open and effective hostility. But farther reflection, we apprehend, will weaken the force of these considerations. The affairs of the whole world are, in many very important respects, linked and even fused together. Commerce, which has come to be the ruling power upon this globe, makes its home upon the broad sea that knows no bounds-its familiar paths are upon the world's great highways; and it knows comparatively little, in its highest and most far-reaching relations, of those national limits which divide, and therefore weaken, the aggregate of human power. That nation of the earth which

has most power, upon land and sea, must have over every other, and over all others, advantages, the weight of which no distance from them can ever seriously impair. Supremacy of this kind long enjoyed will never be readily yielded; nor can any prospect, however remote, that it will be snatched away by some vigorous and growing competitor, fail to be met with discontent which may ripen into scowling defiance and open hostility. These considerations, and others which must readily occur to every one upon slight reflection, must remove or at least modify the incredulity with which the chance of European intervention for the purpose, whether avowed or not, of checking and fixing limits to the growth of American power, is very naturally received.

But there are other considerations which may tend still farther to render probable such intervention. Between the political institutions of the great European states and those of this country, there is a radical and a vital differencea difference which cannot fail to ripen into hostility whenever the two systems shall threaten collision. Many years ago this difference was thus defined: "The European alliance of emperors and kings have assumed, as the foundation of human society, the doctrine of inalienable allegiance. Our doctrine is founded upon the principle of inalienable right."* This is a difference which has become irreconcilable. It exists as an impassable gulf between the family of sovereigns and the great body of the people. It can never be broken down, and can only disappear when kings shall become perfect and undisputed despots, or when they shall cease to wear their crowns. ereigns of Europe, by their frequent intermarriages, by their position which elevates them above all other society, and especially by this identity of interest and of. safety against the encroachments of the republican spirit, are more closely knit together, and animated by a stronger esprit du corps than any other body in the world. It must therefore be expected that they will make common cause against their common enemy, wherever he may have his seat, whenever he shall threaten to disturb their peace, and from whatever quarter, or in whatever shape, his aggressive movements may come. For the last three hundred years the progress

The sov

* Hon. J. Q. Adams, Secretary of State, in a letter to Mr. Anderson, U. S. Minister to Colombia, dated 27th May, 1823.

of Republican principles has been uninterrupted. In the sixteenth centurythe age of Elizabeth-the defeat of Philip II. of Spain, the head of the Catholic world, by the entire destruction of the immense armada he had despatched against England, established the independence of the Dutch commonwealth so renowned, under the name of the Republic of the United Provinces. The seventeenth century beheld the execution of an English king, and the establishment of a commonwealth on the ruins of the throne, under the Protectorate of Cromwell. Our own revolution, and the bloody scenes which attended the overthrow of royalty in France, rendered the eighteenth forever illustrious. Already has the nineteenth been marked by the triumph of popular power in Spain, Belgium, Norway, and several other nations of Europe, over previous and still recent despotism; and now the growth of a gigantic, overshadowing Republic on the Western Continent, seems likely to affix the seal of decay and death to the startled and halfcrumbling monarchies of the Eastern world. The rapidly approaching consummation of this great and universal tendency has only one aspect-that of fear and holds out but one result-that of utter downfall and extinction-to the whole family of European sovereigns. To the world at large, to the millions of its inhabitants and the general interests of humanity, reason may urge that it is vastly, immeasurably beneficial. But kings can never so regard it; or, if they do, they will never act upon this conviction. Their interests, their personal prosperity and power, their existence even, are menaced and threatened with destruction by this tendency; and they do, therefore, but obey the universal instinct of self-preservation when they combine their forces and unite their counsels and their power, to resist and defeat, and turn back in its channel this rapid, often tumultuous, and sometimes crimson tide of popular ambition. Hence, as a British writer has remarked, "among all their mutual jealousies, sovereigns have always had a strong fellow feeling for a king against a people," and nearly all the interventions of European powers in the affairs of other nations of modern times, have been made in support of kings against the people, or in some way for the benefit of the kingly power.

This feeling of hostility to republican

ism, which, as we have said, is simply the instinct of self-preservation, naturally acquires strength from the magnitude and pressure of the danger to be incurred. When, therefore, we reflect upon the most wonderful advancement of this, our republic, in wealth, population, territory, and all the elements of national greatness and power; upon the spectacle which we present to the world, of eighteen millions of people, active, intelligent and happy, enjoying all the protection and feeling none of the burdens of government, dwelling in peace and in plenty, made conscious of law only by the immunities and blessings it bestows, hearing of no tithe or tax-gatherer, holding their rights and possessions at the caprice of no lord or petty tyrant, but under the sanction of the commonwealth of which they are constituent members, and enjoying all the blessings of a well-ordered State, with what MILTON calls "the utmost bound of civil liberty that wise men look for;" when we look upon the gigantic fabric of power which is thus shooting upward, with a rapidity to which history affords no parallel, towards an overshadowing influence which must make itself felt by land and sea, and in all the departments of human action among the nations of the earth; and when we remember that the resources of modern practical science and art have made it impossible to prevent this unbounded and stupendous achievement from being a cynosure to the whole world; that the people of Europe must and do turn painfully under the yoke which their kings and kingly governments have laid upon their necks, and gaze upon the contrast with their own condition which we present, it can scarcely seem matter longer for surprise that the London Times should deem the probable power of the United States within the present century an “appalling prospect," or that the official organ of the French monarchy should proclaim that Europe must not TOLERATE this rapid growth, NOR "SUFFER NORTH AMERICA

FURTHER TO INCREASE!"

The existence of this feeling among the sovereigns of Europe towards this country, cannot be cloaked by honied diplomatic assurances of distinguished consideration, nor disproved by angry or contemptuous denial. We look upon it as a fact-a "fixed fact," which must have weight in any speculations, that

* Edinburgh Review. † Speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

claim to be intelligent, concerning our present and future foreign relations. We have introduced it here for the purpose of saying that Mexico cannot be ignorant of its existence, and that, in our judgment, she intends, with more of wisdom than we have given her credit for, to make it serviceable in "feeding fat the grudge" she bears us. She cannot lack the sagacity to perceive that, with Great Britain firmly fixed in California, she could not engage in war with the United States without a certainty, or, at the least, a very strong probability of having Great Britain for an active ally. This is an object worthy her endeavor. It is one likely, we fear, to be attained through the "negotiation now in progress for the adoption of a frontier parallel," on her northern border, deemed, by Great Britain, necessary to British interests." Should it prove successful, our government, we fear, will find reason to regret its forbearance in not having regarded the declarations and acts of Mexico, consequent upon the Annexation of Texas, as in fact, declarations of war against a portion of the American Union, and thus forcing her to a speedy and final adjustment of all points of disagreement.

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We deem it impossible that Great Britain should expect to occupy California, either as a colony, or "somewhat in the manner of the East India Company," with the acquiescence or indifference of the United States. In no spot upon the continent could she establish her power, where it could be so effectually wielded to our lasting injury. It can scarcely be doubted that the Pacific Ocean is hereafter to bear upon its bosom a far greater commerce than now floats upon the Atlantic. Whatever may be its relation to Europe, to the United States it is destined to be the highway to Asia, the avenue to the unbounded wealth of the " gorgeous East." Even now, our whaling fleet counts 675 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 2,200,000 tons, and the majority of these, with 16,000 of our countrymen, and valued at $25,000,000 under the American flag, are upon its waters ;* and in half a century our commerce with Asia and the Islands of the Pacific must be counted by hundreds of millions of dollars. San Francisco is one of the finest if not the very best harbor in the world. "Few are more extensive," says Com. Wilkes, or

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could be as readily defended as it; while the combined fleets of all the naval powers of Europe might moor within it." It lies directly in the track of all transit between Asia and America, and is by far the best, the safest and most valuable harbor on the Western Coast of the Western Continent.

With this port for her naval depôt, Great Britain would indeed be MISTRESS OF THE SEAS,

"not for a day, but for all time!" An armed squadron, sailing thence, by a single blow could sink millions of American property, seize upon tens of thousands of our citizens, sweep our commerce, and drive our flag from the Pacific Seas.

With California in that part of our dominions, Canada upon our northern frontier, Halifax overhanging our northeastern coast, a portion of the West India Islands whence to hurl her brands of open war, and her infernal enginery for exciting civil contention, in our southern section, with Mexico for an ally, and her ports as points d'appui for assailing our southern and southwestern cities, she would certainly have enfolded us as completely in her net, as the bloodiest intentions of extermination could possibly desire!

Such a consummation, we venture to say, and England must know, can never be effected with the acquiescence, or without the utmost possible resistance, on the part of the United States. It was, indeed, long ago proclaimed by the Executive of our government, and has recently been reaffirmed by our present chief magistrate, as a principle on which, in all time to come, this country would act, that any attempt on the part of European powers" to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, would be considered as dangerous to our peace and safety," and that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers." And concerning this declaration, and the rights which it established, a writer in the Edinburgh Review, for July, 1845, remarks:

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"Had Europe acquiesced in this declaration, instead of protesting against it, it would in time have given to the United States a prescriptive right to act upon it."

* Exploring Expedition. Vol. v., p. 485. Pres. Monroe's Message, December 2, 1823.

† Ibid., Vol. v., p. 159.

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