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son, called "Jonathan America." At what time, and for what "manifest destiny" was this youngster born? A few facts connected with our own

history will yet further illustrate the divine use of Commerce.

The tide of civilization had flowed from the Euphrates to the Thames, accumulating all diverse elements as it swept from clime to clime, from sea to ocean, a mighty amalgam, to be recompounded on a yet remoter and grander field, for a sublimer use. On the 13th of May, 1607, an English colony was planted at Jamestown, Virginia. These were aristocratic Cavaliers, sent out under the auspices of a decorated knight, Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1620, a colony of democratic Roundheads, lead by a parson, also departed for the new world, and in the north, like their predecessors of the south, found a domain well fitted for their use. Neither as the special paradise of dignified laziness, nor as the asylum of privileged bigotry, had God made this continent. In 1609, Hendrick Hudson, an Anglo-Dutchman, in the service of the East India Company of Holland, sailed from the Texel for the discovery of the north-west passage to India, and landed on the North River Flats, a long way above Manhattan Island. This grand blunder won from the States general a patent for the exclusive trade of the Hudson, and in 1621 this metropolis of New-Netherlands was built. About the time Hans Hendrick accomplished his commission so well, the London Company directed their chief to explore some stream running from the north-west, for the purpose of finding a passage to the Pacific Ocean. Accordingly, Admiral John Smith the first sailed up the Chickahominy as far as he could in flat-boats, and ran into a nest of Indians, who did themselves the pleasure to kill and scalp the whole expedition, save the immortal John, and would have served him ditto, but for the tender mercies of Her Royal Highness, Mademoiselle de Pocahontas. Never mind; sublime purposes are struggling into fulfillment. A succession of colonies are planted, national independence is declared, and both civil and religious freedom are won. Now we behold the ultimate design of Providence more clearly unfolding. The chivalrous south and puritanic north have sprung into the matured development of hereditary character and local prepossession. From the first, and always, they are antagonistic in spirit and pursuit. Bring an ultra Northener, with his one idea, and an ultra Southerner, with his one idea, suddenly together, with no mitigating conservatism between, and they instantly explode, to the great damage of contemptible littleness on both sides. But the Dutchman. has vis inertia enough in his make to moderate anything; and Infinite Wisdom put him at the outset in exactly the right situation to the primitive elements and prospective relations of all this mighty land and conglomerated population. The Hollanders were the pioneers and masters of Commerce on every ocean; and the emporium of trade they founded on our shore, God designed to become the center of all commercial enterprises amongst mankind.

The third President of the United States, perhaps least solicitous in behalf of maritime prosperity, did most to promote it. Mainly by his influence, Louisiana was purchased, and thus we came in possession of the Mississippi, with its myriad tributaries. Simultaneously with this, an anomalous craft moves out amidst distrust and jeers from the foot of Courtlandt-street, to find its strange way against wind and tide, impelled by a momentum hitherto impracticable or unknown. Why the steamboat at this time, and in this place? Young and feeble as is our trade, we own more inland navigation than all the world besides, and divinely directed genius has given us

at the right moment the mighty instrument of aggrandizement we most of all need. These rivers of God, rendered fruitful by Fulton's creation, shall accumulate our greatest wealth, and guaranty our firmest liberties. The little North and the little South may prate in vain; for when their impotent impertinence demands, "Shall we rend this national compact?" a power infinitely grander and more conservative than they, the great West, towers like a Colossus amidst pigmies, and exclaims in thunder, "No! you shall not divide the Union!" Every puff of the tiniest engine that winds its way to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, answers to the merry cry of seamen weighing anchor on board the hugest craft at New Orleans or New York, "No you shall not break a single strand of the triple cable of patriotism, religion, and Commerce, destined to bind all America in one grand brotherhood!"

The exact middle of the nineteenth century arrives, and finds two startling and significant events transpiring at the same moment. The first is a thrilling cry from the far-off Pacific, resounding everywhere, “Gold, gold!" Why then, and in that particular region? Because the old antagonists, Feudalism and Freedom, are in the arena, hot for the fight, and portentous clouds darken the scene. Most opportunely, that which for six thousand years has been kept hid, is suddenly revealed. The combatants are charmed into peace, or disertated by spectators. The Anglo Scotchico-Irishico-Frenchico, Dutchico-Americans, who will go to the mouth of the cannon, or the mouth of hell, any time, for a dollar, rush after the glittering prize, and in self-defense plant free institutions on the Pacific, as on the Atlantic coast. Thus will they make the mightiest mountain terrace of our continent the well-proportioned pedestal to Liberty's central altar for all mankind.

The other fact to which we alluded was, that, just preceding this new outbreak of emigration, one who for many years has been identified with Fulton's invention and sphere, laid the keel of the first successful steamship ever registered in this port. She was not dispatched for Havre, or Bremen, or Liverpool, but for New Orleans. Why? Because the "Crescent City" was predestined to form the first link in the most stupendous chain of Commerce under heaven. Where is the mind capacious enough, and armed with prophetical audacity enough, to conceive and announce the magnitude of Western trade in America, as it shall swell and waft towards its first home and latest seat of predominant power, New York?

But the past is a warning as well as incentive. The republic of Venice built itself upon maritime prosperity, grew rich, forgot God, and perished. Italy refused to use the priceless treasure of heavenly truth as its Author requires, and her wharves, like her altars, are rottenness only. The Spanish Peninsula imitated the fatal example, and her national power sank like lead in the deep with the shattered Armada. The supreme sway of the seas passed into the hands of England the very year her sons first settled in America. Since then, filial emulation has fully shared that glorious supremacy; and now the word of God and the welfare of nations is intrusted entirely to the devout fidelity of those speaking our mother-tongue, and swaying almost the entire tonnage of the world. Let us fear lest Tyre shall be at once our type and history. If we are loyal to our Maker, our growth can never outrun our stability; but if we are recreant to our highest duty, prosperity will surely become our speedy ruin.

Art. IV.-COFFEE, AND THE COFFEE TRADE.*

THE Coffee-Tree or Coffea Arabica is an evergreen shrub, with oblong pulpy berries, which are first of a bright red, but afterwards become purple. It is stated by Niebuhr to have been brought from Abyssinia, to Yemen by the Arabs, from a country similar to their own plains and mountains. By that people it has for ages been cultivated in the hilly range of Jabal, in a healthy temperate climate, watered by frequent rains, and abounding in wells and water-tanks. A combination of circumstances seems to favor the cultivation of coffee in Arabia, which can hardly be attained elsewhere. Frequent rains, and a pure and cloudless sky causing an almost uninterrupted flood of light, communicate an excessive stimulus to all the functions of vegetation, and are causes of the perfect elaboration of those delicate principles on which the aroma of the coffee is dependent.

The seed consists of much horny albumen and a peculiar principle or alkaloid, termed cafeine, which is identical with the active principle of tea, theine, as well as with paraguaine, the alkaloid of the Paraguay Tea. The seed is used in a raw state in medicine; but when roasted, it forms the well-known coffee of Commerce. The coffee-plant begins to produce fruit when two or two-and-a-half years old; but the quality of the seeds from young stems is not so good as that from stems four or five years old. The size and color of the bean (as the inner part of the seed is called) vary considerably, those from the West Indies being larger than those from the East.

Much more depends upon the manner of roasting and making the coffee than upon the quality of the bean. The superiority of French coffee, in the preparation of which little or no Mocha coffee is used, proves this position. The taste of raw coffee is somewhat sweetish; but the application of heat in the process of roasting produces important changes. The bean increases to nearly twice the original size, while it loses about a third of its weight: a powerful and agreeable odor is evolved, and a large quantity of empyreumatic oil, which appears in small drops on the surface, is formed along with a bitter principle, probably by an alteration in the cafeine and of the saccharine matter. The roasting should take place in a close revolving iron cylinder, over a clear but moderate fire, and should not be carried too far: when the beans have acquired a light chestnut color, the roasting should be discontinued. The beans are then to be cooled quickly by being tossed up into the air, and the grinding, or rather rough pounding, should be performed in a covered mortar or mill. The drink should be prepared from it as soon as possible, by infusion, which is preferable, unless some apparatus be employed by which a kind of decoction is made in a close vessel. About half an ounce of coffee-powder should be used for every eight ounces (half a pint) of water. In Britain the roasting is generally carried too far; and the subsequent partsof the process, instead of being performed immediately, are often postponed for days or even weeks, by which the aroma is dissipated; when made, the liquid is generally deficient in strength and clearness. The employment of white of egg or fish-skin to clarify is decidedly objectionable: clearness is thus purchased, but at the expense of the strength.

For articles on this subject see Merchants' Magazine for July and August, 1850, (vol. xxiii., pages 50 and 172,) also the number for December, 1851, (völ. xxv., page 690, &c.) For statistics of imports and exports see" Coffee," in index of each volume.

It was an endeavor to establish an improved mode of roasting coffee that led to the death of Mr. Dakin, of London in 1848. His plan consisted in placing the coffee in a cylinder lined with silver, and in inclosing this cylinder within a cellular steam oven, or cylinder, patented by other parties. The heat attained within the oven was very great, and the metal of the oven was not sound enough to resist its action; an explosion ensued, with a fatal result. The silver or silvered cylinder was an intended means of retaining the fine qualities of the coffee, without acquiring any defective qualities during the roasting.

The addition of milk (which should always be hot) and of sugar bighten the nourishing qualities of coffee, and in the morning render it a more substantial article for breakfast. When taken after dinner to promote digestion, it should be without milk, and, where the palate can be reconciled to it, with out sugar.

The coffee-trade has been wholly created since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Nearly all the coffee which now comes to Europe is the produce of trees propagated from a single plant, which, having been raised from seed procured from Mocha in Arabia, by Van Hoorn, governor of Batavia, was sent by him to the Botanical Garden at Amsterdam, and the progeny of which was, in the year 1718, twenty years after its reception from Java, sent to Surinam.

The coffee imported into England in 1849, amounted to the following quantities:

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Of this quantity nearly 37,000,000 lbs., were brought from Ceylon alone.*

The rapid increase of of the quantity of coffee produced in the Brazils is expressed in the following table, compiled by the Brazilian Consul General:--

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It would seem, from this table, that the production of coffee in Brazil doubled every five years up to 1840, since when it has increased 80 per cent. The increase since 1835 has been 200 million pounds, and of that increase, the United States have taken one-half.

The following table shows the quantity annually imported into the United States from the four leading countries of production, and also the whole quantity imported into the Union during the past 18 years:-

Knight's Cyclopedia.

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1851....

107,578,257

3,099,084 13,205,766 2,423,968 152,453,617 Nearly the whole increase in the import of Brazil coffee was, it appears, at New Orleans, to supply the Western trade. The import of coffee from Brazil in 1844 was extraordinary, amounting to nearly half the whole product of that country. Coffee, up to 1832, paid a duty of 5 per cent; since that year it has been free. The effect of this change is seen in the following table:

IMPORTS OF COFFEE INTO THE UNITED STATES, WITH THE EXPORTS AND QUANTITY RETAINED FOR CONSUMPTION, ALSO THE DUTY AND AVERAGE PRICE.

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