e various channels of commerce,
were carried so entirely into every class and division of the community,
that of necessity they became the first question in the state, the chief
subjects to which we must turn our attention.

Can it be true, each asked the other with wonder and dismay, that whole
countries are laid waste, whole nations annihilated, by these disorders in
nature? The vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindostan, the
crowded abodes of the Chinese, are menaced with utter ruin. Where late the
busy multitudes assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of
wailing and misery is heard. The air is empoisoned, and each human being
inhales death, even while in youth and health, their hopes are in the
flower. We called to mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a
third of mankind had been destroyed. As yet western Europe was uninfected;
would it always be so?

O, yes, it would--Countrymen, fear not! In the still uncultivated wilds
of America, what wonder that among its other giant destroyers, Plague
should be numbered! It is of old a native of the East, sister of the
tornado, the earthquake, and the simoon. Child of the sun, and nursling of
the tropics, it would expire in these climes. It drinks the dark blood of
the inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the pale-faced Celt. If
perchance some stricken Asiatic come among us, plague dies with him,
uncommunicated and innoxious. Let us weep for our brethren, though we can
never experience their reverse. Let us lament over and assist the children
of the garden of the earth. Late we envied their abodes, their spicy
groves, fertile plains, and abundant loveliness. But in this mortal life
extremes are always matched; the thorn grows with the rose, the poison tree
and the cinnamon mingle their boughs. Persia, with its cloth of gold,
marble halls, and infinite wealth, is now a tomb. The tent of the Arab is
fallen in the sands, and his horse spurns the ground unbridled and
unsaddled. The voice of lamentation fills the valley of Cashmere; its dells
and woods, its cool fountains, and gardens of roses, are polluted by the
dead; in Circassia and Georgia the spirit of beauty weeps over the ruin of
its favourite temple--the form of woman.

Our own distresses, though they were occasioned by the fictitious
reciprocity of commerce, encreased in due proportion. Bankers, merchants,
and manufacturers, whose trade depended on exports and intercha