ee Life, by Paul Hamilton Hayne.

WORKS.

Essays, Addresses, &c.
Journal at Brussels.
Memoir and Writings, (edited by his sister, Mrs. Bullen).

COMMERCE AND WEALTH VS. WAR.

(_From a speech in the House, 1837._)

A people well clad and well housed will be sure to provide themselves
with all the other comforts of life; and it is the diffusion of these
comforts, and the growing taste for them, among all classes of society
in Europe, it is the desire of riches, as it is commonly called, that
is gradually putting an end to the destructive and bloody game of war,
and reserving all the resources hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises
of industry and commerce, prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once
vented itself in scenes of peril and carnage.

But, sir, the result of all this is that very inequality of wealth,
that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against which
we have heard so much said lately, as if it were something
inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral and
intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes are acquired by
a few years of prosperous commerce--mechanics and manufacturers rival
and surpass the princes of the earth in opulence and splendor. The
face of Europe is changed by this active industry, working with such
mighty instruments, on so great a scale.

I have travelled in parts of the continent which the spirit of gain,
with its usual concomitants, industry and improvement, has invaded
since the peace, at an interval of fifteen years, and been struck with
the revolution that is going on. There is a singularly beautiful,
though rather barren tract of country between Liege and Spa, where, in
1819, my attention had been principally attracted by the striking
features of a mountainous region, with here and there a ruin of the
feudal past, and here and there a hovel of some poor hind,--the very
haunt of the "Wild Boar of Ardennes" in the good old times of the
House of Burgundy.

I returned to it in 1835, and saw it covered with mills and factories,
begrimed with the smoke and soot of steam-engines; its romantic beauty
deformed, its sylvan solitudes disturbed and desecrated by the sounds
of active industry, and the busy hum of men. I asked what had brought
about so great a change, and found that the author of it,--a man
having a more numerous band of retainers and dependents than any
baron bold of the fourteenth century, and in every respe