the profits
of the years of healthy credit were added up, and the balance sheet
struck between that and the loss at the explosion, the advantage gained
by the credit system would still be found to be great. The advancement
of America depends wholly upon it. It is by credit alone that she has
made such rapid strides, and it is by credit alone that she can continue
to flourish, at the same time that she enriches those who trade with
her. In this latter crisis there was more blame to be attached to the
English houses, who _forced_ their credit upon the Americans, than to
the Americans, who, having such unlimited credit, thought that they
might advantageously speculate with the capital of others.

One of the most singular affections of the human mind is a proneness to
excessive speculation; and it may here be noticed that the disease for
(such it may be termed) is peculiarly English and American. Men, in
their race for gain, appear, like horses that have run away, to have
been blinded by the rapidity of their own motion. It almost amounts to
an epidemic, and is infectious--the wise and the foolish being equally
liable to the disease. We had ample evidence of this in the bubble
manias which took place in England in the years 1825 and 1826. A mania
of this kind had infected the people of America for two or three years
previous to the crash: it was that of speculating in land; and to show
the extent to which it had been carried on, we may take the following
examples:--

The city of New York, which is built upon a narrow island about ten
miles in length, at present covers about three miles of that distance,
and has a population of three hundred thousand inhabitants. Building
lots were marked out for the other seven miles; and, by calculation,
these lots when built upon, would contain an additional population of
one million and three-quarters. They were first purchased at from one
hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars each, but, as the epidemic
raged, they rose to upwards of two thousand dollars. At Brooklyn, on
Long Island, opposite to New York, and about half a mile distant from
it, lots were marked out to the extent of fourteen miles, which would
contain an extra population of one million, and these were as eagerly
speculated in.

At Staten Island, at the entrance into the Sound, an estate was
purchased by some speculators for ten thousand dollars, was divided into
lots, and planned as a town to be called New