A STRONG English interest attaches to America, as a great mass of mankind descended of English ancestry, as exhibiting the capabilities of the human race, in subduing the wilderness, and, generally, as forming a new field for the activity, the enterprise, and the happiness of man. Without arrogating to the whole population of our country the character of philosophers, it is certain that no country is more in the habit of regarding things with a less personal eye-or of looking more into that remote future, which, extending beyond all the impulses and business of the existing age, makes the natural contemplation of the philanthropist and the philosopher. The conduct of America is a perpetual provocation to other feelings. She exhibits all the caprices of a spoiled child. Every hour produces some expectoration of peevishness. No low scoundrel can insult the British laws in an English colony, but finds himself instantly exalted into a patriot in the United States; no ruffian conspiracy can be hatched in the British settlements that does not find multitudes of "sympathizers," ready to run over and sweep the frontier with fire and sword; and no effort of reason, conciliation, or even concession, on the part of England, is received by the public of the United States but as an insult, to be retorted by arms on the first opportunity. Do we charge this to any original folly in the Transatlantic mind-to any ab. solute incapacity for acting with justice-or to the total absence of all perception of truth, morals, or religion, on the American soil? By no means. We attribute it to the republicanism of America. The unfortunate deficiency of her government in all that constitutes strength and order, has laid her highest interests at the mercy of the multitude. Paradoxical as it may sound, there is no public opinion in the United States: for public opinion is a grave thing, -formed on deliberate grounds,-the work of reason operating on the intel

ligent portion of the people. In America we have for its substitute popular clamour, fed by "fourth of July harangues," nonsense about "flying eagles and never setting stars," rambling rights of seizure, universal citizenship, and the infinite superiority of the Yankee over all mankind, past, present, and to come. The Americans must get rid of this folly before they can deserve the name of a wise nation: and they must get rid of their republicanism before they can ever be a safe one. At this hour, there is not a country on earth where a man, honest and high-minded enough to defy the popular humour, would be less listened to; where any opposition to the most extravagant absurdity of the populace would be surer to exclude him from all public employ; or where any one of those acts which in other times and countries have formed the political hero, would be more certain to ensure the fate of the political martyr. And this is the boasted freedom of republicanism !

To take a single example: every rational man in America must have feit that the seizure of M'Leod was an act of injustice; every man acquainted with international law must have known that the act was an offence to its whole spirit; every practitioner in the courts must have known that there was no ground for a conviction; every religious man must have known that every life lost by America in a quarrel so totally groundless, was an act of criminal homicide by the provoker; and even every statesman in her councils must have known that such a war must be as impolitic and hazardous as it was rash and criminal. Yet of this whole graver population not one great body ever raised its voice-not one public man had the manfulness to stand forward and fight the battle of common sense-not even one private individual ventured to exhibit himself as the solitary sustainer of national honour! Republicanism is the true answer. The rabble voice extin

guished all others. Every man's mouth was shut before the open jaws of democracy; and in obedience to the popular will, the country was on the point of being precipitated into a conflict, which might have left of her but a name. We say all this, much more in sorrow than in anger. A struggle of this order, between two such countries, would be almost a civil war. Every drop of blood shed in this unnatural strife, would be a mutual drain-the contest would be suicidal-victory would be without triumph—and the defeated would be ruined.

England and America are like two railroad carriages, to borrow the prevailing metaphor of the day. They are both making way with a speed which leaves all other governments fairly out of sight; and, so long as they run in parallel lines, the faster they both run the better for themselves and mankind; but the least divergence from the right linethe least bending to one side, and above all, the least attempt to check each other's progress-is sure to bring on a collision; and then, woe be to one of those mighty machines, or to both!

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But, while we confess that an American war would do serious injury to England, we can have no hesitation in saying that it would ruin the present republic of the United States. shore of 1500 miles cannot be defended by either fleets or fortresses; even if America had either, a thinly-peopled country must be easily invaded, if not easily overrun. Vast provinces with different interests, opposite habits of thinking, and even with discordant habits of domestic life, are easily dislocated by the pressure of war; and those who know that New York is nearly as far from New Orleans as Paris is from Moscow, may reflect on the species of connexion which could be maintained by the perplexed and feeble authority of a President and his democratic clerks, in the confusion, the casualties, and the temptations of a great war-and, above all wars, one with an antagonist which could assail her in every quarter at once-front, flinks, and rear.

England unquestionably wishes for none of those things. She has no desire for American territory. Canada and its dependencies give room enough

for her superfluous population. She has no desire to spend a shilling in shot and shells; and she has quite as little of ambition to shed the blood of other nations, or her own. But America must not walk over the course, for all that. The rabble of Maine must not be suffered to cut off New Brunswick (as large as an European kingdom) from the Canadas; nor must the blustering of newspaper editors, or the roar of a rabble, carry every thing before them, as if their presses were line-of-battle ships, or the clamour of the populace were the thunders of artillery. We have now no wish to go into the New Brunswick dispute; but it is one which ought to be settled, and there can be no better time for the purpose. We have now got rid of the wretched, shifting, quibbling government, which could have had no more respect abroad than it had at home. The Boudoir ministry was made to be laughed at; and we cannot wonder that the street orators of New York scoffed at the pitiful frivolities of that faded flower of fashion—the premier. But we have now other men at the helm; and Jonathan should be taught that we lie at single anchor, ready to slip at the first signal from friend or enemy.

Nothing can be more unjustifiable than the conduct of the people of Maine. From the treaty of 1773, the border between New Brunswick and Maine had been so far under the jurisdiction of the British government as to be kept up from both English and Americans, who were alike prohibited from cutting timber, or taking possession, until the lingering claim to the territory should be settled. But Jonathan, who likes to take the law into his own hands, when he finds an easy opportunity, and who is, besides, rather too much given to speculation, seeing foul weather brewing in Europe, suddenly began to think that the disputed territory might as well be taken possession of, without asking the leave of any one. The consequence was, that the Mainites, with the greatest sang-froid imaginable, with a regular survey or at their head, walked in, took possession of the country by triangles and squares, in the most geometrical and dashing style, and began to cut down the timber without ceremony of any kind. Of course, the New Brunswick woodsmen, not seeing any reason