preserve to the British crown--and observe, with mixed feelings, two
principal matters: a perilous but temporary error of overweening
ambition on the part of Great Britain, yet retrieved with power and
dignity; and converted into an opportunity of displaying--where, for the
interests of Great Britain, it was imperiously demanded--her
irresistible valour, her moderation, her wisdom; exhibiting, under
circumstances the most adverse possible, in its full splendour and
majesty, the force of that OPINION by which alone we can hold India.
Passing swiftly over to the Western Continent, gaze at our vast
possessions _there_ also--in British North America--containing
considerably upwards of four millions of square geographical miles of
land; that is, nearly a ninth part of the whole terrestrial surface of
the globe![1]--besides nearly a million and a half miles of water--five
hundred thousand of these square miles being capable, and in rapid
progress, of profitable cultivation! at more than three thousand miles'
distance from the mother country, and in immediate juxtaposition to the
territory of our distinguished but jealous descendants and rivals--a
rising nation--the United States! Pausing here in the long catalogue of
our foreign possessions, let our fancied observer turn back his eye
towards the little island that owns them; will he not be filled with
wonder, possibly with a conviction that Great Britain is destined by
Almighty God to be the instrument of effecting His sublime but hidden
purposes with reference to humanity? Assume, however, our observer to be
actuated by a hostile and jealous spirit, and to regard our foreign
possessions, and the national greatness derived from them, as only
nominal and apparent--to insinuate that we could not really hold them,
or vindicate our vaunted supremacy if powerfully challenged and
resented. Let him then meditate upon the authentic intelligence which we
have just received from the East: what must then be his real sentiments
on this the 1st day of January 1843? Let us ask him, in all manly