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region extending between the Alleghany mountains on the east, and the Rocky mountains on the west. Its average breadth is about 1400 miles; its length as much, and its whole superficies nearly a million and three quarters of square miles. If peopled to one-third of the density of England, it would contain a hundred millions of inhabitants. Its most remarkable feature is the great regularity of its surface, which is scarcely any where broken by considerable hills, except at its extremities, descending from each side to the bed of the Mississippi, with a declivity so uniform and gradual, that nearly all the rivers which water this immense area are navigable almost to their sources. These rivers constitute, in fact, a vast system of inland navigation, of which the Mississippi is the central trunk, and they bestow upon this country a capacity of improvement yond what is enjoyed by any other region on the face of the globe. The whole extent of these natural canals cannot yet be exactly known, but it may be estimated in round numbers at 40,000 miles. They are so regularly distributed over the surface, that there is seldom a tract of considerable extent without its navigable stream; and many of these streams approach so near to each other laterally, and are separated by ground of such a description, as to admit readily of cross cuts; so that, when the resources of a civilized population are applied to the improvement of this territory, its most distant parts will possess an unparalleled facility of intercourse; and we may anticipate the time when the whole of its extensive surface will be locked together by a system of water communications like the most level parts of Holland. New Orleans will, no doubt, remain the emporium for foreign trade. But the main trunk of the Mississippi must necessarily be the principal scene of the inland commerce; and it is pretty evident from the course and situation of the large tributary streams, that the focus of its greatest activity will be near the mouth of the Ohio. Here, at some period not very distant, great cities may be expected to rise, filled with an industrious population, the scats of arts and manufactures, and the centres of commercial intercourse. It is pleasing to look forward to the boundless field which this highly favoured region opens up to the talent, activity, and enterprize of civilized man.'

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This valley is the richest and most interesting portion of North America. Its mean temperature is higher than that of the Atlantic states, and it is less subject to the extremes of heat and cold. The coast of the Pacific Ocean is conceived to be still warmer than this central valley, agreeably to

the general law deduced by Humboldt, that the western side of large continents has always a higher temperature than the eastern.

The agricultural productions of the United States afford a curious scale of the gradations of climate in the the cold is too severe to allow wheat country. At the northern extremity to come to perfection, and at the southern, sugar, a tropical production, is raised. The culture of tobacco, our author informs us, begins about the latitude of 39° or 40°; of cotton and rice about 37°; of sugar about 33°; but the climate well adapted for sugar does not extend farther north than 314. The vine grows spontaneously in the southern and western states, and can be raised as far north as Pennsylvania. The mulberry, also, is abundant in the natural state.

With the most useful minerals America appears to be very abundantly supplied; and, as our author observes, the distribution of these productions is singularly adapted to the situation of the country. Salt, for instance, an article indispensable to human life, is even more abundant in the interior than on the sea coast. Salt springs are so numerous on the western side of the Alleghany mountains, that a great natural bed of this mineral is believed to extend over both sides of the great central valley; and it is thought, that the coal formation accompanies it over the same space. Limestone, iron, and lead, are also found in abundance. At a future period, these mineral treasures will afford great facilities to manufacturing industry. It is rather a curious fact, that even, at present, the greatest manufacturing town in America, Pittsburg, is situated on the western side of the mountains, in the newly settled country. We suspect it is in this section of the country that manufactures, at least those of domestic materials, will be found to succeed best. Besides the advantages it derives from an inexhaustible supply of coal, and a more fertile soil, the enhanced price of European articles, from the expence of inland carriage, must operate in favour of native manufactures here, more than on the eastern side of the mountains.

The population of the United States is diffused over such an extent of surface, that the mean density of the

whole is but about fourteen persons to the square mile; and it is remarkable, that the most populous district, New England, is, at the same time, the most barren. This last circumstance is the consequence of the great number of persons, in the district in question, who are engaged in commerce. Our author shows, that the population naturally spreads itself over a great surface, in order to occupy the best soils, because so long as there are such soils at a little distance, inferior land, though nearer the market, will not bear the expence of cultivation. One consequence of the facility with which good land can be procured is, that rent scarcely exists in America; and the aristocracy of landholders, the most important class in all old countries, is entirely unknown. Another consequence of using only good soils is, that the returns are large, or, in other words, profits are high, and the rate of accumulation is extremely rapid. From valuations, made for the purpose of taxation, in 1799 and 1814, it appeared that the capital of the country was doubling every eleven years, a rate of increase certainly unprecedented in any other country.

The chapter on Commerce is particularly full and satisfactory. It not only contains tables of the quantity and value of each commodity exported, but also an account of the shipping and tonnage, the duties, dues of entry, terms of credit, the dimensions and prices of boats used in inland navigation, &c. It is foreign to our present purpose to enter into these details. We must content ourselves with noticing some of the general results. The trade of the United States was nourished to an extraordinary magnitude by long wars in Europe. In 1807, their exports amounted to 108,000,000 dollars, but after Mr Jefferson's non-intercourse act, they fell to 22,000,000. In the last year of their war with Britain, so effectually was their commercial activity restrained, that the exports were reduced to 7,000,000. Since the peace, they have again risen to 87,000,000, and the United States are now the second commercial nation in the world. From data, which appear entitled to confidence, the author concludes, that from the year 1700 to the Revolution, the commerce of the colonies had doubled every thirty-five years; and that since

VOL. IV.

the revolution, the period of doubling has been eighteen years.

No circumstance, the author observes, connected with the United States, has attracted so much atten tion as the rapid growth of the population. This is an advantage with which there is no contending. However far America may be behind any of her neighbours, or rivals, in riches or power, at a given period, allow her but time, and she will outstrip them all. The mean rate of increase for the whole states is about three per cent. per annum, so that the population doubles every twenty-three years. The author thinks the ratio may have been nearly uniform from the foundation of the colonies. It is, however, very unequal in the different states, but this arises, not from any material variation in the proportion of births, but from the number who emigrate from the one state to another. Proceeding at this rate, it is computed, that in one hundred years from the present period, North America will have two hundred millions of inhabit-* ants; and this number will people the whole region claimed by the United States to the Pacific Ocean, to the same density as Massachusetts, the most populous state in the Union. One curious consequence of this progressive state of the population is, that the number of young persons bears a much greater proportion to the old, than in countries where population is nearly stationary. In the middle and southern states, it appears that persons under sixteen years of age form one-half of the population, or 502 in the 1000, whereas in Europe, they are only 331 in the 1000. This explains the scarcity of old men in America, often remarked by travellers; a person seventy years of age, the author observes, belongs, by his birth, to a society eight times less than that in which he lives, or the present generation will furnish eight times as many old men as that in which he was born.

The average price of labour in the United States is estimated at 80 cents per day; that of wheat at 1 dollar 50 cents per bushel; beef, mutton, and veal, at 6 cents per pound. The wages of an English labourer he states at 1s. 10d. per day, which is about one-half of the former. Flourishing as America is, however, with

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Review-Warden's America.

these high wages, she is not without paupers. Their number, which we never saw estimated before, is stated by our author at 1 to 230 inhabitants on the Atlantic coast, and 1 to 350 in the interior. But he adds, that a great proportion of these are foreigners and worn-out negroes. The expence of maintaining these paupers is about 45 dollars per annum each. The sum paid by each individual, for taxes of all kinds, he estimates at three dollars per annum. But these are paid indirectly in the shape of duties on foreign articles, excepting a trifling sum for state taxes. The amount of taxation, however, to which the people of any country are subject, is a very fallacious criterion for estimating the degree of comfort they enjoy. So far as taxes are raised for the ordinary purposes of the principle might be reversed. One government, main object of government is to protect and encourage private industry, and the greater the sum raised for this purpose, if faithfully applied, the more effectually will the object be attained. In Turkey, where the taxes are very small, the people are more poor and wretched than in any other European state; and generally it will be found, that the countries where taxes are lowest, are the worst governed.

In the chapter on Virginia we have an interesting account of the laws regulating the condition of negro slaves, from which we should have been glad to make an extract, had our limits permitted. These laws show the state of insecurity and apprehension in which the white inhabitants of the slave states live. They exhibit also a feeble attempt to introduce a semblance of humanity and justice into the slave system, an attempt which, from the nature of things, must be illusory, since the execution of the laws in favour of negroes is left entirely in the hands of those whose interest it is to disregard them. It is highly probable that the democratic institutions of the United States have rendered the condition of slaves worse, since there is no superior power to interfere between them and the tyranny and caprice of their masters. We have no doubt that a Virginian planter considers the right of treating his slaves as he pleases, as his birthright. In the Spanish colonies, it is well

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known that the influence of the crown ployed to better the condition of the has always been most anxiously emslaves; and one reason why the number of slaves in these colonies is so established for their protection had small may be, that the regulations them. rendered it less profitable to employ

with the author's remarks on the imWe shall conclude our extracts portant subject of a national religion; and we select these the rather be which the sentiments of an American cause this is one of the points on most widely from those that prevail may naturally be expected to differ in this country.

"There is no national church in the

United States, but the support of religion is left to the voluntary contributions of individuals. This is a singular contrast to yet religion is by no means neglected among the policy of the European states, and us.

general ill supplied with places of worship; It is true, the rural population is in but it ought to be recollected, that this population is thinly scattered over a new coun try, and that Europe owes her amply endowed churches not to the religious zeal of an enlightened age, but to the superstition and bigotry of an age of ignorance. It will be found, however, that in the great outgrown the original church funds, the cities of Europe, where the population has places of worship do not bear a greater

proportion to the population than in those with a population of 40,000, had 23 places of the United States. In 1817, Boston, of worship; New York, with a population of 120,000, had 53; Philadelphia, with 120,000 inhabitants, had 48; and Cincinnati, in Ohio, a town with 8000 inhabitants, though scarcely of seven years standing, had five places of worship, and two more parison can be fairly instituted. And if building. It is only between the large towns of America and Europe that a comthe supply of churches is considered as a criterion of religious zeal, we should take into account, that new churches in Europe as, in America, they are built by voluntary are built by compulsory assessments, where contributions. Even in country districts, ill provided with churches, no impartial observer will say that the moral duties are less attended to than in Europe. truth is, church establishments were foundinterests of religion were little u derstood, ed in a dark and barbarous age, when the and they have since been supported as instruments of state policy. It has no doubt large proportion of the fruits of the earth an imposing appearance, to set apart a to furnish all classes with religious instruç☛

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tion. Something of this kind may have been necessary in the rude times, when Christianity was first established in western Europe. But religion is one of the natural wants of the human mind, and, in an enlightened age, requires no aid from the civil magistrate. His presumptuous at tempts to promote its interests have been the means of corrupting and debasing it; they have lessened its influence over the hearts and conduct of men,-undermined its authority, and filled the world with contention and bloodshed in its name.

Church establishments, connected as they commonly are with exclusive creeds, have been the most effectual engines ever contrived to fetter the human mind. They shut up religion from the influence of new lights and increasing knowledge, give an unnatural stability to error, impose the dogmas and the prejudices of rude and ig; norant times upon ages of knowledge and refinement, and check the genuine influence of religion by associating it with absurd practices and impious impostures. By connecting the church with the state, they degrade religion into an instrument of civil tyranny by pampering the pride of a particular sect, and putting the sword into its hands, they render it indolent, intole rant, cruel, and spread jealousy and irrita tion through all the others. By violating the right of private judgment in their endeavours to enforce uniformity of belief, they multiply hypocrites. To what can we attribute the monstrous tyranny of modern Rome, from which it cost so much to emancipate the human mind? Not to any thing peculiar in its tenets, but to the corrupting influence of power associated with religious functions. The Church of Rome was an established church of the most complete kind, and had in the highest degree all the vices that naturally belong to such a body. But experience will not warrant us in saying, that any, other great sect, placed in the same circumstances, would

have acted with more moderation. It is true that the toleration which the progress of philosophy has wrung from the priest hood, has stript many of the national churches of their most offensive features; but much of the ancient spirit yet remains. It is still the case that men are compelled to pay for the support of a form of religion they do not approve of; that a difference of belief excludes individuals from many civil offices and civil privileges; that the established clergy are every where ready to justify the worst actions of men in power; and if they cannot impose silence upon dissenters, they are often ready enough to harass and mortify them by such means as they still possess. In nothing have the United States more reason to congratulate themselves than in their total exemption from the numerous dissentions, jealousies,

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and oppressions that spring from an exclus sive religious system. On this, as on other points, their experience affords a useful lesson to the world, and confirms the reas sonings of Dr Smith, who pointed out the pernicious effects of such establishments more than 40 years ago."

It is but of late that the political situation of the United States has be come an object of attention in Eu rope. The powers of this quarter of the world were, for a long period, so completely occupied with the con tests among themselves, that the progress of these small states, placed be yond the Atlantic, escaped their notice. When the troubles of the French Revolution began, the latter had been but lately raised from the condition of a dependent colony; had no historical existence, no navy, no army, no thing to make their alliance courted, or their enmity dreaded. But, while the European nations were exhausting themselves in bloody and expensive wars, the United States, cultivat ing in profound peace their vast na tural resources, were advancing silently, but rapidly, to extraordinary wealth and power; and, when peace restored things to their natural state, and brought the internal condition of society more into view, it was found that they had gained prodigiously upon their competitors and rivals. The collision with Britain brought their strength to the proof, and gave a strik ing presage of their future greatness as a inaritime power. Though America gained none of the objects for which she took up arms, the issue of the contest, as Mr Warden observes, certainly raised her character, and the scale of civilized nations which she gave her a weight and importance in did not possess before. The extraor dinary principle of growth operating within her is now also more clearly seen; and she already enjoys by an ticipation some share of the consequence due to the gigantic strength to which she is visibly advancing. All these circumstances have contributed to attract curiosity, and excite discus sion, and to give an extraordinary degree of interest to works treating of the United States.

Mr Warden makes a few observations on the question now often agi tated, Whether the United States, when they reach the extraordinary

magnitude contemplated, will continue united, or separate into different communities? and, like a true American, he decides in favour of the former alternative. We rather think America is not far enough advanced towards this ultimate state to afford data for settling the question in a satisfactory way. But it is pretty evident, that, in speculating on this subject, our judgment must proceed chiefly upon the following considerations: First, Whether the extended empire to which America looks forward will bring into action any stronger principles of disunion than exist in communities of the size we have been accustomed to in Europe; and, secondly, Whether the republican form of government is less calculated than the monarchical to control these principles, and keep the empire together? With regard to the first, America has one advantage over old settled countries. Her population is more homogeneous, and, from the causes mentioned by our author, it will probably continue so, however far it may extend. She is not likely to contain such dissimilar masses in her composition as those united under Austria or Prussia. How widely does the national character of the Scotch, English, and Irish differ? yet no person dreads the dissolution of the triple union. France, the largest kingdom of Europe, is as solidly united as Wirtemburg, the smallest. The ancient Greeks might have argued that a free state could not exist of a larger size than an English county; but experience has enlarged our ideas on this subject, and may still further enlarge the ideas of those who come after us. There does not appear, in fact, to be any natural limit to the magnitude of states so long as their parts are in contact. While this is the case, each section will find its most valuable neighbour, friend, and customer in the rest of the confederacy; and, whatever ties may connect it with foreign states, the strongest ties of interest must connect it with that of which it is a member. The inventions of the post and the press, and especially the circulation of public journals, may be said to have annihilated brought the most distant regions space, and into contact. The inhabitants o Caithness and Cornwall know morf about one another now than those

who lived at the opposite extremities of the small kingdom of Mercia, in the Saxón heptarchy. We do not see, therefore, that the extension of the American republic is likely to bring many causes of disunion into action which do not exist there at present, the other hand, the influence of those and in every other country; and, on principles which bind society together is almost certain to increase.

consider how the tendency to separa It would lead us too far were we to tion is likely to be affected by the republican institutions of America; ject with the single remark, that the we shall, therefore, dismiss the subfederal form of government seems happily adapted to an extensive country, since it combines an attention to local and particular interests with the purposes of general government.

den's work contains the most complete
Upon the whole, we think Mr War-
body of information respecting the
lished.
United States that has yet been pub-

Quadrupeds, Forest Trees, and DisThe general chapters on tions, not to be found, we suppose, in eases, are valuable and curious addiany similar work. He has very judiciously given numerous tables of the prices of land and provisions; and in these and other particulars he has alatest travellers, Birkbeck, Palmer, vailed himself of the works of the Hall, &c. The only improvements we would suggest, when the work reaches a second edition, would be, to make the historical sketch more full, and to extend it back to the year 1783, and to make a separate chapter on the emigration from Europe. A good bers and character of the emigrants, collection of facts respecting the numthe countries from which they come, and their general situation in the United States, would be highly curious and interesting.

Notes on a Visit made to some of the

Prisons in Scotland and the North of England, in company with Elizabeth Fry. By JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY. London 1819.

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of active philanthropy. And well Tuis is another invaluable product sion which it has kept up of active may our country boast of the succesphilanthropists, from Howard down to

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