train of consequences auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, and truth.

I. When the first settlements were made upon the coasts of America by Europeans, a voyage across the Atlantic must have been much more formidable, to all except seafaring people by profession, than it is at the present day. Persons, like most of those who composed the company of the Mayflower, no doubt regarded with natural terror the passage of the mighty deep. Navigation, notwithstanding the great advances which it had made in the sixteenth century, was yet, comparatively speaking, in its infancy. The very fact that voyages of great length and hazard were successfully attempted in very small vessels, (a fact which, on first view, might seem to show a high degree of perfection in the art,) in reality proves that it was as yet but imperfectly understood. That the great Columbus should put to sea, for the discovery of a new passage across the Western Ocean to India, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks, may, indeed, be considered the effect, not of ignorance of the art of navigation, but of bitter necessity.* Sir Francis Drake, near a hundred years afterwards, the first naval commander who ever sailed round the earth, enjoying the advantage of the royal patronage, and of no little personal experience, embarked on his voyage of circumnavigation with five vessels, of which the largest was of one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen tons.† This fact must be regarded as proof that the art of

*❝ Ex regio fisco destinata sunt tria navigia; unum onerarium caveatum, alia duo levia mercatoria sine caveis, quæ ab Hispanis caravelæ vocantur.” Peter Martyr de rebus oceanicis. p. 2.

† The great extent to which the fishing business was very early carried, on the Banks of Newfoundland and the New England coasts, must have familiarized men with the idea of a passage across the Atlantic, and thus have been one cause of the readiness of so many persons to undertake the voyage. It appears that, as early as 1578, there were employed, in this fishery, of Spaniards, 100 sail, besides 20 or 30 in the whale fishery on the same coasts; of Portuguese, 50; of French, 150; of English, from 30 to 50.-Hakluyt, Vol. III, p. 132, cited in North American Review for July, 1824, p. 140.—Captain Smith remarks that according to Whitbourne's "Discovery of Newfoundland," the banks and coasts of that region were visited by 250 sail of English fishermen annually.-Vol. II. p. 246, Richmond edition.

VOL. I.

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navigation, in the generation preceding our ancestors, had not reached that point where the skilful adaptation of means to ends supersedes the necessity of extraordinary intrepidity, aided by not less extraordinary good fortune. It was, therefore, the first obstacle which presented itself to the project of the Pilgrims, that it was to be carried into execution across the ocean which separates our continent from the rest of the world. Notwithstanding, however, this circumstance, and the natural effect it must have had on their minds, there is no doubt that it is one of those features in our natural situation, to which America is indebted, not merely for the immediate success of the enterprise of settlement, but for much of its subsequent prosperity.

The rest of the world, though nominally divided into three continents, in reality consists of but one. Europe, Asia, and Africa are separated by no natural barriers which it has not been easy, in every age, for an ambitious invader to pass. The consequence has been, on the whole, unfavorable to social progress. The extent of country inhabited, or rather infested, by barbarous tribes, has always far outweighed the civilized portions. More than once, in the history of the world, refinement, learning, arts, laws, and religion, with the wealth and prosperity they have created, have been utterly swept away, and the hands moved back on the dial-plate of time, in consequence of the irruption of savage hordes into civilized regions. Were the early annals of the East as amply preserved as those of the Roman empire, they would, probably, furnish us with accounts of revolutions on the Nile and the Euphrates as disastrous as those, by which the civilized world was shaken in the first centuries of the Christian era. Till an ocean interposes its mighty barrier, no region is secure from foreign violence. The magnificent temples of Egypt were demolished, in the sixth century before our Savior, by the hordes which Cambyses had collected from

The information contained in this treatise must have been very widely dif fused, for by an order of council of 12th April, 1622, it was ordered to be distributed to every parish in the kingdom. —Ancient Right of the English Nation to the American Fisheries, &c. London, (1764.)

the steppes of Central Asia. The vineyards of Burgundy were wasted, in the third century of our era, by roving savages from beyond Caucasus. In the eleventh century, Gengis Khan and his Tartars swept Europe and Asia, from the Baltic to the China Sea. And Ionia and Attica, the gardens of Greece, are still, under the eyes of the leading Christian powers of Europe, beset by remorseless barbarians, whose fathers issued, a few centuries ago, from the Altai Mountains.

Nor is it the barbarians alone who have been tempted, by this facility of communication, to a career of conquest and plunder. The Alexanders and the Cæsars, the Charlemagnes and the Napoleons, the founders of great empires, the aspirers to universal monarchy, have been enabled in no small degree, by the same circumstance, to turn the annals of mankind into a tale of war and misery. When we descend to the scrutiny of single events, we find that the nations who have most frequently and most immediately suffered have been those most easily approached and overrun; and that those who have longest and most uniformly maintained their independence have done it by virtue of lofty mountains, wide rivers, or the surrounding sea.

In this state of things, the three united continents of the Old World do not contain a single spot where any grand scheme of human improvement could be attempted, with a prospect of fair experiment and full success, because there is no spot safe from foreign interference; and no member of the general system so insignificant, that his motions are not watched with jealousy by all the rest. The welfare and progress of man, in the most favored region, instead of proceeding in a free and natural course, dependent on the organization and condition of that region alone, can only reach the point which may be practicable in the general result of an immensely complicated system, made up of a thousand jarring members.

The continent of America accordingly opened, at the time of its first settlement, and still opens, a new theatre of human development. Notwithstanding the prodigious extent of

commercial intercourse, and the wide grasp of naval power, among modern states, and their partial effect in bringing us into the political system of Europe, we are yet essentially strangers to it; placed at a distance which retards, and for every injurious purpose neutralizes, all peaceful communication, and defies all hostile approach. To this it was owing that so little was here felt of the convulsions of the civil wars which followed in England, soon after the emigration of our fathers. To this, in a more general view, we are indebted for our steady colonial growth, our establishment of independence, and our escape amidst the political storms which, during the last thirty years, have shaken the empires of the earth. To this we shall still be indebted, and more and more with the progress of our country, for the originality and stability of national character. Hitherto, the political effects of our seclusion behind the mighty veil of waters have been the most important. Now that our political foundations are firmly laid; that the work of settlement, of colonization, of independence, and of union, is all done, and happily done; we shall reap in other forms the salutary fruits of our remoteness from the centres of foreign opinion and feeling.

I say not this in disparagement of foreign states: their institutions are doubtless as good, in many cases, as the condition of things now admits; or, when at the worst, could not be remedied by any one generation of men. But, without disparaging foreign governments, we may be allowed to prefer our own; to assert their excellence, to seek to maintain them on their original foundations and on their true principles. That great word Independence, which, if first uttered in 1776, was most auspiciously anticipated in 1620, comprehends much more than a mere absence of foreign jurisdiction. I could almost say, that, if it rested there, it would scarcely be worth asserting. In every noble, in every true acceptation, it implies, not merely an American government, but an American character and an American feeling. To the formation of these, nothing will more powerfully contribute than our geographical separation from other parts of the world.

In these views, there is nothing unsocial; nothing hostile to a friendly and improving connection of distant regions with each other, or to the profitable interchange of the commodities which a bountiful Providence has variously scattered over the earth. For these and all other desirable ends, the perfection to which the art of navigation is brought affords abundant means of conquering the obstacles of distance. At this moment, the trade of America has penetrated to the interior of Asia Minor, the plains of Tartary, the centre of Hindostan and China, and the remotest islands of the Indian Ocean. While ambition and policy, by intrigue and bloodshed, are contesting the possession of a few square miles of territory, our peaceful commerce has silently extended its jurisdiction from sea to sea, from continent to continent, till it holds the globe in its grasp.

But, while no one can doubt the mutual advantages of a judiciously conducted commerce, or be insensible of the good which has resulted to the cause of humanity from the cultivation of a peaceful and friendly intercourse with other lands, it is yet beyond question, that the true principle of American policy, to which the whole spirit of our system, not less than the geographical features of the country, invites us, is separation from Europe. Next to UNION AT HOME, which ought to be called, not so much the essential condition of our national existence as our existence itself, separation from all other countries is the great principle by which we are to prosper. It is toward this that our efforts, public and private, ought to tend; and we shall rise or decline in strength, improvement, and prosperity, as we obey or violate this principle. This is the voice of Nature, which did not in vain disjoin our continent from the Old World; nor reserve it beyond the ocean, for fifty centuries, only that it might become a common receptacle for the exploded principles, the degenerate examples, and the remediless corruptions of older states. This is the voice of our history, which traces every thing excellent in our character and prosperous in our fortunes to dissent, non-conformity, departure, resistance, and independence.