n into a mother of nations as
her settlers built up in the waters of the Pacific Colonies as great as
those which she had lost on the coast of America. But if the Bourbons
overrated their triumph in one way, they immensely underrated it in
another. Whatever might be the importance of American independence in
the history of England, it was of unequalled moment in the history of
the world. If it crippled for a while the supremacy of the English
nation, it founded the supremacy of the English race. From the hour of
American Independence the life of the English People has flowed not in
one current, but in two; and while the older has shown little signs of
lessening, the younger has fast risen to a greatness which has changed
the face of the world. In 1783 America was a nation of three millions of
inhabitants, scattered thinly along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It
is now a nation of forty millions, stretching over the whole continent
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In wealth and material energy, as in
numbers, it far surpasses the mother country from which it sprang. It is
already the main branch of the English People; and in the days that are
at hand the main current of that people's history must run along the
channel not of the Thames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson and the
Mississippi. But distinct as these currents are, every year proves more
clearly that in spirit the English People is one. The distance that
parted England from America lessens every day. The ties that unite them
grow every day stronger. The social and political differences that
threatened a hundred years ago to form an impassable barrier between
them grow every day less. Against this silent and inevitable drift of
things the spirit of narrow isolation on either side the Atlantic
struggles in vain. It is possible that the two branches of the English
People will remain for ever separate political existences. It is likely
enough that the older of them may again break in twain, and that the
English People in the Pacific may assert as distinct a national life as
the two English Peoples on either side the Atlantic. But the spirit,
the influence, of all these branches will remain one. And in thus
remaining one, before half-a-century is over it will change the face of
the world. As two hundred millions of Englishmen fill the valley of the
Mississippi, as fifty millions of Englishmen assert their lordship over
Australasia, this vast power will tell through