400,000 inhabitants, than he ever experienced in London. In books of education, history, and politics, they are not inferior to the principal European nations; and it is their own works that they use in their schools and seminaries, and which form their legislators, jurisconsults, and physicians. Besides their general history of the confederation, they have the histories of the eighteen states of union, composed by national writers, and all of these are veridical and rich in facts; the biography too of their great men, is far from being neglected.

In mathematics and chemistry, they are not on a level with Europe; but in works of botany, metallurgy, ornithology, astronomy, and navigation, they can support a competition. Their grammatical enquiries respecting the languages of their country, have opened a new field to the philologers of France and Germany. The American maps are copied by the geographers of Europe. The atlas of M. Tanner, displays in this respect, great perfection; they have likewise important treatises upon the hydrography of their states; and their authors have published important maritime discoveries; whilst the learned world is indebted to the encouragement of their congress, for the best and most profound of all the statistical collections extant.

The press of Cambridge and Philadelphia, of the Literary Society of New York, and of the Philosophical Society, as well as that of the Congress and others, bring to light every year very interesting literary productions. One of their papers alone, has lately announced more than 150 American works, all new, and consisting of novels, poems, travels, treatises upon moral philosophy, mineralogy, physical and political geography, history, biography, philology, oratory, chemistry applied to the arts, agriculture, gardening, and mechanics; their official writings upon public affairs, and the reports of their chief secretary of state, are very distinguished works.

The United States are also the firmest supporters of the liberty of the seas, and of agriculture in its relation with commerce. They were the first to prohibit the slave trade, and declare it a piracy. Their doc

trine of government and the finances, has even found followers in some parts of Europe.

Printing with them is carried on after a more extensive scale, and to greater advantage than with us; and it is in their own editions, that they most generally read foreign works. Our books, when imported to their country, are, as so much seed for typographical harvests. They expend yearly in publishing, from two to three millions of dollars; but they want a law to protect this kind of property. They have published, since these last three years, 7,500 copies of Stewart's Philosophy; and a capital of 500,000 dollars is employed for the reprinting Rees's Encyclopedia. They have also printed 200,000 copies of the novels by the author of Waverley, which make in all 500,000 volumes: and there is always on their public roads, two hundred waggons loaded with books. A single article, the Life of Washington, by M. Meerns, has had a run of more than 100,000 copies. They print also a great number of journals and literary reviews. The North American Review has a sale of 4000 copies, and they reprint an equal number of our Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. Though they have only ten millions of inhabitants, they have more than one thousand periodical papers, or civil and political journals, each of which has many thousand subscribers. But their great advantage is the liberty of the press, which has been ever indispensable to freedom and prosperity. An American would not take the delights of France and Italy, in exchange for the newspapers that reach him from all parts, bringing him the most useful instruction, and grateful refreshment in his leisure hours. He knows by experience, that the happy fruits of the liberty of the press, not only make amends for its possible abuse, but weakens it effectually. Their licentious papers die away for want of readers; whilst those that succeed, are conformable to sound reason and exempt from satire. Each makes his complaint in the journals when he pleases, and as he pleases; the public do immediate justice to all, after the same manner that the most enlightened and impartial jury might be supposed to proceed in a court-house. Yes,

imprisonment, the scaffold and torture, are less efficacious for repressing the abuse of the press, than that liberty which the Americans enjoy. Though you should arm yourself with judiciary labours, for the end of imposing on credulity, or call in the aid of blasphemy and calumny, you only still increase the evil.

The Americans have in exercise, 44,000 commissions for encouraging invention and improvement in the arts. Neither England nor France has so many; and their conservatory of models is as richly stocked as that belonging to either of these countries. Their manufactories for the spinning of cotton, are productive of more wealth than taxes upon this industry could produce. Their mills, too, are superior to those of Europe; and they have invented twenty different kinds of weaving looms, that are moved by steam, water, wind, or animals. Their spinning machines are now so improved by art, that spinning is with them at a much lower price than with us. It is to the Americans that we are really indebted for the invention of steam boats, which are not less important for maintaining civil and religious liberty, than gunpowder, printing, or the compass.

The United States are also greatly distinguished above other countries, for the construction and equipment of ships of commerce and of war. Their merchant vessels, which have crews so few in number, spare the one-third of the time which the vessels of other nations employ in going the same passage; and it is only those of the British navy that can cope with them for speed. In the art of constructing a plough, a ship, or a house, the Americans can contend with the people of any other nation, without exception. In no part of the world has there been greater progress made in the rational use of the four elements, and their produce, than in the United States; for their inhabitants are better fed, and more comfortably clothed, than those of most other countries. They have but one middling city for a capital, and all their towns together scarcely contain a million of inhabitants; yet their bridges, highways, canals, aqueducts, and facility of communication, excel those of many other

countries. In two years time they will have terminated their great canals by an inland navigation of 10,000 miles from the valleys of the west to the waters of the Hudson and the Chesapeak. There is not at present in Europe any undertaking which surpasses that of the canal of New York, and the hydraulical works of Philadelphia.

The instruction of the children of the poor is even attended to with great care, and almost all children frequent the public schools, in which there are at present more than 300,000 students. They reckon 1200 who are educated for physicians, and about 1000 that are given to the study of the law, and there are more than a hundred seminaries, or literary institutions, which are for the most part ecclesiastical. Instruction is in no part a monopoly or a political instrument; and they know not a congregation which shows a tendency to possess either. There are universities where they confine their studies, as in the colleges of Europe, to Greek, Latin, Logic, and Rhetoric; but in all other parts instruction is directed on a plan better calculated to fortify the mind, and procure useful knowledge. Physics, the mathematics, natural science, and the living languages, are there the objects of a just preference. They teach neither Latin nor Greek in military schools. In those countries where they endeavour to suppress a wise liberty, the seeds of revolutions ferment, and sedition and revolt find way into their schools and academies. Nothing of the kind has existed in North America, for the revolution was accomplished there without tumult and massacre. Here even cultivators comprehend the philosophy of politics, better than many monarchs. Poetry, music, and painting, may languish even in Italy, but philosophy and the arts and sciences shall reign in the United States: it is from them that the rulers of the old world can learn what a population is worth who have received, at the public expense, and among ranks of all orders, an instruction always directed towards what is useful,

OCTAVIUS.