that angel fhould have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rifing glories of his country, and whilt he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius fhould point out to him a little fpeck, fcarce vifible in the mafs of the national intereft, a fmall feminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him— "Young man, there is Americawhich at this day ferves for little more than to amufe you with ftories of favage men, and uncouth manners; yet fhall, before you taste of death, fhew itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progreffive increase of improvement, brought by varieties of people,by fucceffion of civilizing conquefts and civilizing fettlements in a feries of Seventeen Hundred years,

you

fhall fee as much added to her by America in the courfe of a fingle life?" If this ftate of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the fanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthufiafm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to fee it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to fee nothing that fhall vary the profpect, and cloud the fetting of this day!

Excufe me, Sir, if turning from fuch thoughts I refume this comparative view once more. You have feen it on a large fcale; look at it on a fmall one. I will point out to your attention a particular inftance of it in the fingle province of Pennsylvania. In the

year 1704, that province called for 11,459. in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why nearly Fifty times as much; for in that year the export to Pennfylvania was 507,909 1. nearly equal to the export to all the Colonies together in the first period.

I choofe, Sir, to enter into thefe minute and particular details; becaufe generalities, which in all other cafes are apt to heighten and raife the fubject, have here a tendency to fink it. When we fpeak of the commerce with our Colonies, fiction lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I could fhew how many enjoyments they procure, which deceive the burthen of life; how many materials which invigorate the fprings of national induftry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious fubject indeed-but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter fo vaft and various.

I pafs therefore to the Colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have profecuted with fuch a fpirit, that, befides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has fome years ago exceeded a Million in value. Of their laft harvest, I am perfuaded, they will export

much more. At the beginning of the century, fome of thefe Colonies imported corn from the mother country. For fome time pat, the old world has been fed from the new. The fcarcity which you have felt would have been a defolating famine; If this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breat of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhau ted parent.

As to the wealth which the Colonies have drawn from the fea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You furely thought thofe acquifitions of value; for they feemed even to excite your envy; and yet the fpirit, by which that enterprizing employment has been exercifed, ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your efteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the Whale Fifhery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen receffes of Hudfon's Bay, and Davis's Streights, whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, we hear that they have peirced into the oppofite region of polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen ferpent of the fouth. Faulkland Island, which feemed too remote and romantic an object for the grafp of na

tional ambition, is but a flage and refting-place in the progress of their victorious induftry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more dif couraging to them, than the accumulated wihter of both the poles. We know that whilf fome of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coat of Brazil. No fea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witnefs to their toils. Neither the perfeverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dextrous and firm iagacity of English enterprize, ever carried this molt perilous mode of hardy induftry to the extent to which it has been pufhed by this recent people; who are still, as it were, but in the griftle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things; when I know that the Colonies in general owe, little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not fqueezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and fufpicious government, but that through a wife and falutary neglect, a generous nature has been fuffered to take her own way to perfection: when I reflect upon thefe effects, when I fee how profitable they have been to us, Í feel all the pride of power fink, and all prefumption in the wildom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigour relents. I pardon fomething to the fpirit of Liberty.

It

Tis a remark worthy of notice, that though nothing is more generally defpifed than calumny, yet few can place fufficient fecurity in themfelves at all times to avoid it. If from a difcuffion of another's merits we are too frequently induced, by private refentment, to calumniate his character, nothing more truly characterises a generous mind than the mode of cenfure. If we examine our own actions: if, divefted of prejudice, we invert our optics into the receffes of the heart, we fhall then find all tendency to detraction ftop by the confideration of our own faults, and spare giving our opinions in a manner that favors of ill natured feverity.

That man can have but little pretence to merit, who is willing to exalt himself by declaiming against another's imperfections; because it can only be a property of the Divine Nature to be exempt from evil.-We entertain fo many ideas from prejudice, that even innocence cannot at all times efcape; and too frequently impute thofe failings to others which we evidently poffefs in an abundant degree.

Thofe whofe minds are unemployed in rational purfuits, or who

do not poffefs that generous can dour which flows from a liberal education, are often engaged in fchemes prejudicial to the interefts of individuals. They ex plore other people's business, and publifh every circumstance to his difadvantage; but thefe characters are univerfally fhunned as a peft to fociety. They cannot taste the fweets of friendship, becaufe they are unable to feel fincerely for any; and drag on a miferable existence, execrated and despised by all who knew them. Nor are these the only disadvantages refulting from detraction; for the injured party frequently feek redress, and that at the difgrace, and prehaps ruin, of the of fender.

In fine,there cannot exist a more odious character than the calumniator. He is the bane of fociety,and diffolver of all focial obligations. -He fows diffenfion between friends and relatives, and engenders a distaste for each other that ends but with life: and, in my opinion, I cannot close this fubject better than offering the following quotation from an antient author: "That he who pretends to cor rect the vices of others ought himfelf to be free from the imputation of blame."

A BEAUTIFUL woman and

her husband were once loft in a wood, in the middle of a ve

ry dark night. On all fides they heard nothing but the fhrill whis tle of robbers, or the long cries

of wolves; the sky too was tempestuous. The female became at once motionless through fear. "What will become of us?" cried fhe, clinging round her hufband.

"Let us continue our journey, my love," he replied coolly. "But, good Heavens! the

robbers?"

"Well, then, let us return." "Oh, that's worfe! the wild beafts?"

pendence is not equal. Men depend upon women by their defires; women upon men by their defires and their wants."

Women were created to be the companions of man, to please him, to folace him in his miferies, to confole him in his forrows, and not to partake with him the fatigues of war, of the fciences, and of government. Warlike women, learned women, and women who are politicians, equally abandon

The female then fhut her eyes, stopped her ears, and fuffered her felf to be conducted by her hufband.

Such is the lot of woman. Na ture has pointed out our refpective distinctions, and the difference of our employments by the difference of our conformation. A taller ftature, a more folid and lefs flexible organization, indicate the honorable duties of man. Here the laws of nature and fo, ciety accord.

"Woman and man," fays Rouffeau, "are made for each other, but their mutual de.

tutions have traced round their fex; they convert themselves into men. They renounce the empire which they inevitably exercised by their weakness, to run vainly after the more equivocal empire of force. We hear of women that have fought, written, and governed with fuccefs. What does this prove? The exception does not deftroy the rule. And, befides, where is the feeling and amiable woman who would exchange the ineffable happinefs of being loved for the unfubftantial pleafures of

fame?-Where is the man who would have preferred Joan of Arc to the mild and timid Agnes of Sorel? We admire the mafculine mind of Elizabeth; but we love Mary queen of Scots.

TH

HE ingenious artist, the lover of fcience, and the friend of humanity, will be equally gra

tified with the account of a boat, emphatically called the Life Boat, invented and conftructed by Mr.