d upon the absolute free-trade principle, in the spontaneous
creation, the progress unrivalled, the prosperity Pactolean, of
ingenious manufactures. The El-Dorado region has yet to be discovered;
will Cobden, like another Columbus in search of new worlds, adventure
upon the desperate enterprise, and furnish the writer of romance with
apt materials for the frights and freaks of another "phantom ship" on
the wide ocean? If so inclined, indeed, we may commend him to an
undertaking now, at this present writing, in actual progress, as we
learn from assured sources and high quarters, in Paris. A goodly ship of
substantial proportions is now preparing in a French port, richly
freighted for an interesting voyage with the products of French
industry, with destination for the great sea-river of the Amazons, for
navigating its thousands of miles of unploughed course, and exploring
those realms untold of, those interminable wastes recorded, and those
numberless nations as yet unknown, if existing, which coast the vast
expanse of its waters to the utmost limits of Brazil, and the very
confines of Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. The King of the French is
himself the patron and promoter of this great enterprise. Hasten, then,
friend Cobden, erratic and chivalrous as Quixote of old, to "swell the
breezes and partake the gale" of an expedition so glorious; for know,
that on the banks of the noble Amazons itself, the magnificent
queen-river, most worthy in the world of such distinction, have poets,
romancers, and chroniclers, undoubting, from all time, sung of and
planted the resplendent empire of the El-Dorado itself.

Our design being to demonstrate, by the force of example and contrast,
the sophistical absurdity of absolute theories, that, however naturally
and harmoniously their parts may be made to correspond in thesis and
system as a whole, according to which the same consequences, upon a
given principle, should inevitably flow from certain causes, yet that,
practically, it is found the same causes do not produce the same
effects, even when circumstances are most analogous; that, for instance,
the protective, or restrictive system of industry, under the rule of
which Spain languishes, notwithstanding the abundant possession of the
first materials for the promotion of manufacturing, and the prosperity
of agricultural interests, proves, at the other extremity of Europe, the
spring of successful progress and industrial accumulation, and r