, and our friend, had turned on us a brow of
menace. She shewed us plainly, that, though she permitted us to assign her
laws and subdue her apparent powers, yet, if she put forth but a finger, we
must quake. She could take our globe, fringed with mountains, girded by the
atmosphere, containing the condition of our being, and all that man's mind
could invent or his force achieve; she could take the ball in her hand, and
cast it into space, where life would be drunk up, and man and all his
efforts for ever annihilated.

These speculations were rife among us; yet not the less we proceeded in our
daily occupations, and our plans, whose accomplishment demanded the lapse
of many years. No voice was heard telling us to hold! When foreign
distresses came to be felt by us through the channels of commerce, we set
ourselves to apply remedies. Subscriptions were made for the emigrants, and
merchants bankrupt by the failure of trade. The English spirit awoke to its
full activity, and, as it had ever done, set itself to resist the evil, and
to stand in the breach which diseased nature had suffered chaos and death
to make in the bounds and banks which had hitherto kept them out.

At the commencement of summer, we began to feel, that the mischief which
had taken place in distant countries was greater than we had at first
suspected. Quito was destroyed by an earthquake. Mexico laid waste by the
united effects of storm, pestilence and famine. Crowds of emigrants
inundated the west of Europe; and our island had become the refuge of
thousands. In the mean time Ryland had been chosen Protector. He had sought
this office with eagerness, under the idea of turning his whole forces to
the suppression of the privileged orders of our community. His measures
were thwarted, and his schemes interrupted by this new state of things.
Many of the foreigners were utterly destitute; and their increasing numbers
at length forbade a recourse to the usual modes of relief. Trade was
stopped by the failure of the interchange of cargoes usual between us, and
America, India, Egypt and Greece. A sudden break was made in the routine of
our lives. In vain our Protector and his partizans sought to conceal this
truth; in vain, day after day, he appointed a period for the discussion of
the new laws concerning hereditary rank and privilege; in vain he
endeavoured to represent the evil as partial and temporary. These disasters
came home to so many bosoms, and, through th