found successful individuals of humble origin (not forming exceptions to a rule, but) in numbers sufficient to prove amply that talent and well-directed industry and energy are certain, as human institutions can make them, of being rewarded by the highest stations in society: yet it will not be easy to find among the numerous and efficient employés of the American government a single specimen of the genus, vulgarly, but expressively, classified as the "Jack-in-office," whose absurd or stupid impertinence often clogs the operations of the European bureaux that they infest. There are to be found men of large hereditary or acquired possessions, whose feelings, education and manners would ornament any society, divested of the puerile varieties of an exclusive circle, or the putid puppyisms of the silver-fork school.

Americans may well be excused if their patience is somewhat taxed by the short-sighted and captious criticisms that are sometimes uttered by foreigners. upon their country, their government, or their manners. I look at that immense tract of country west of the Alleghanies, that a very few years ago was comparatively a wild forest, where many millions of acres were thinly occupied by a few thousand inhabitants, and see a population already greater than that of several independent kingdoms, daily

increasing in numbers and adding to their comforts; where cities and towns spring up as if by magic from among the woods; its plains traversed by rail-roads and its gigantic rivers covered with steam-boats. I see all this going on without tumult, bloodshed, or disorder; and when I exclaim, "this is a noble, an extraordinary country!" I am answered in Abigail phrase "but, shocking, the people eat with their knives!"

"Witness the result of free and protecting institutions. Fifty years ago the population westward of the Alleghanies did not exceed 15,000, now it amounts to five millions. The population of priest-ridden Mexico has not increased for centuries.”—See Vigne, Vol. II. p. 85.

CHAPTER VII.

Financial and general prosperity of United States. Its peculiar causes considered.-Principally attributable to a free and protecting government.-Mexican and South American republics compared with the United States.-Report of Mr M'Lane on the finances of the United States. Opinions of Revue Britannique and Quarterly Review on economy of American govern

ment.

THAT part of the American system which, perhaps, most strikes the European observer, is its excellent financial administration, and the success that has hitherto constantly attended all the fiscal arrangements of the union, as well as the continued increase of its sources of revenue not accompanied by a proportionate augmentation of expenditure. Again, if we turn from the contemplation of the revenue and expenses of the federal government to consider the general revenues of the United States as a nation, the growing prosperity and riches of each state, of companies, or individuals, we find generally an equally flourishing state of things.

Many peculiar but sufficiently obvious circumstances contribute to this unexplained prosperity. The virgin soil of immense and fruitful tracts of

unoccupied territory awaiting the increasing wants of an enterprising and industrious population; the non-existence of powerful and jealous neighbouring governments; or, at least, of such as seek to interfere with the growing fortunes of the republic, or who have any interest in so doing; all the facilities for commercial undertakings that are afforded by the command of numerous excellent harbours, maritime cities, immense rivers, every material for shipbuilding, and the possibility of producing the growth of almost every soil or climate within their own territory: these advantages, improved by the peculiar feelings, disposition, and habits, which I may be excused as an Englishman for thinking are inherited from the mother country,-all these contribute, together with many others that might be enumerated, to the unexampled progress of the extraordinary country that we are considering.

But although, when tracing the sources of this prosperity of the Transatlantic republic, due weight must be allowed for the co-operation of all the above causes in producing such successful results, we must not forget that they are mainly attributable to the free institutions adopted from the commencement of the existence of the United States as an independent government. This popular form of government may be said to have

owed its origin and frame work to the system already in force when America formed part of the colonial possessions of Great Britain.

Nor can it be denied that the character of the people and their previous political education (if this term may be allowed), impressed with the habits, and familiar with the mechanism, of representative and free forms of government (one of their best inheritances from their British progenitors), had the greatest influence in forming the system that at present regulates the American federation, and produced the most beneficial effects in carrying into practice the principles adopted at its foundation.

The spirit that animates the institutions of the United States affords encouragement to all classes to improve each of the numerous resources within their reach; by facilitating* education and the diffusion of practical knowledge, the people are prepared to reap those advantages, the possession of which is afterwards protected by the force and stability of the laws. The results so far exceed the rational anticipations of even impartial observers, that in seeking to account for them, we are apt to undervalue the immense effects of free and protecting institutions in producing such gigantic consequences,

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* Vide Appendix, List of Colleges, &c.