millions, or about four persons to every square mile. The following table shows the population and surface of some of the most important parts of the world 1; namely, in round numbers, which is sufficient for our present purpose, to point out the proportion of territory and people between the United States and other sovereignties.

So that the United States have the largest home territory of all the nations in the world, except Russia; and their population is gaining fast upon that of all the European powers. China is laid out of the question, because she is barbarous, helpless, and effete; she can never contend for the sovereignty or controlling influence of the world; that question must be decided hereafter, between America and the first-rate potentates of Europe. Britain possesses a hundred and fifty

millions of subjects in her colonial empire, and covers a dominion equal to nearly one-fifth of the whole surface of the globe; but her main strength must always dedend upon the resources, intelligence, spirit, and character of her native population in the British Isles. If these fail, her colonial empire will be soon dissipated into thin air. The following table shows the gross population and surface of the four quarters of the world.

The following tables show how fast the people increase in an extensive country, under the auspices of free and popular institutions. In the year 1749, the whole white population of the North American colonies, now the United States, amounted only to 1,046,000 souls, in the following proportions, as to the respective colonies, now states:

What the national capacities of the State of NewYork are, may be inferred, not only from her territorial extent, which is ten thousand square miles larger than all England and Wales taken together, but also from the fact, that she has already, in 1817, outstripped every other State in the Union, in the number of her population; although, at the close of the revolutionary war in 1783, she did not contain half the number of souls which the States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, respectively possessed. The following facts will show how rapid has been the growth of some particular places in the United States. In the

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year 1783, the population of the city of New-York was only 26,000; in the year 1790, 33,000; in 1800, 60,439; in 1810, 93,914; in 1817, 122,000; thus multiplying four times in thirty-four years. Its harbour, formed by the union of the Hudson with the strait of the Sound, called East river, makes a roadstead capable of containing all the navies of the world. Its commerce far surpasses that of any other city in the Union, and in the course of a few years will be second only to that of London. It imports most of the goods consumed between the Raritan and the Connecticut, a coast of one hundred and thirty miles, and between the Atlantic ocean and the lakes, a range of four hundred miles. In the year 1816, the foreign imports into the city exceeded fifty-six millions of dollars.

Fifty years since, no such place as Baltimore existed; and now it is a city, abounding in commerce, wealth, and splendour, and contains a population of nearly sixty thousand souls.

In the year 1770, there was not a single white inhabitant in all Kentucky; in 1790, there were 73,677 souls; in 1800, 220,960; and now, in 1817, nearly 700,000. In 1783, the city of New-Orleans was inhabited by a few miserable Spaniards, who carried on a small smuggling trade. Now, in 1817, it numbers nearly 40,000 inhabitants: and its exports, during the last year, exceeded those of all the New-England States taken together: the steam-boats have been found able to stem the current of the Mississippi; and henceforth, the struggle to engross the foreign trade of the whole western country will be between New-Orleans, New-York, Montreal, and Philadelphia. The difficulty of ascending the Mississippi, had until the experiment of the steam-boats, prevented New-Orleans from supplying the western States with foreign merchandise, which was purchased cheaper in New-York or Philadelphia, and carried by land to Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, and thence down the Ohio, to the various settlements on

its banks, than it could be transported up the Mississippi and the Ohio. The chief part of this immense and rapidly augmenting commerce will fall, of course, to that place which can supply foreign goods at the lowest rate; the difference of price depending chiefly on the expense of internal transportation. At present, Montreal seems to have the advantage over her rivals. The single portage, at the falls of Niagara excepted, there is a free navigation for vessels from Montreal to Lake Erie, and the vast extent of waters beyond; unless, indeed, the canal, to be opened between Lake Erie and the Hudson, may succeed in diverting the trade of the western country from Montreal to NewYork.

The population of New-Orleans is rapidly increasing by emigrations from all the other States in the Union, and from almost every country in Europe. The exports of Louisiana already exceed those of all the NewEngland States. Nearly four hundred sea vessels arrive and depart annually. And about one thousand vessels, of all denominations, departed during the year 1816, from the Bayou St. John, a port of delivery in the Mississippi district, and were employed in carrying the produce of the Floridas, belonging to the United States. Six hundred flat-bottomed boats, and three hundred barges brought down, last year, to New-Orleans, produce from the Western States and Territo-" ries. Ten millions of pounds of sugar are made on the Mississippi alone. And twenty thousand bales of cotton are exported annually.

If the population of the United States shall increase for the next twenty-five years in the same ratio that it has increased during the last twenty-five years, what European country, single handed, will be able to compete with them, on the land or on the ocean? or what European power will be able to preserve its American colonies, whether in the West-Indies or on the continent, from their grasp? And why the population should not increase as rapidly, in time to come, as in the past periods, it is difficult to prove; for the extent