our rivalships with England, we are the rising and the gaining
party. There can be no end to answer, therefore, but the
gratification of resentment--a mere spirit of retaliation--and
even that is impotent. Our retorts are never republished in
England; they fall short, therefore, of their aim; but they
foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers; they
sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns and
brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulate
through our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excite
virulent national prejudices. This last is the evil most
especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by
public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the
purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is
knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice,
wilfully saps the foundation of his country's strength.

The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid
and dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the
sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come
to all questions of national concern with calm and unbiassed
judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations with
England, we must have more frequent questions of a difficult and
delicate character with her, than with any other
nation,--questions that affect the most acute and excitable
feelings: and as, in the adjustment of these, our national
measures must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we
cannot be too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent
passion or prepossession.

Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers every portion of