arison the crusades may have the superiority in many
points, yet so little have ideal, romantic, and sentimental
considerations to do with the current of human affairs, that while the
crusades remain a monument of abortive and objectless folly, fatal to
those who embarked in them, and leaving as their chief result a tinge of
Asiatic ferocity on European barbarism, the exodus of San Francisco,
notwithstanding the material end it has in view, is sure to work out the
progress of happiness and civilisation, and add another to the many
conquests over nature, which the present age has witnessed.

In a year more than ordinarily productive of remarkable events, one of
the most noteworthy, and that which is likely to leave a lasting
impression on the world, is this discovery of gold on the coasts of the
Pacific. The importance of the new region as a centre for new
ramifications of English relations with the rest of the world cannot
well be exaggerated either in a political or a commercial point of view.
It will be the first really important point we shall have ever
commanded on that side of the Pacific Ocean, and it cannot but be of
inestimable value in developing our relations with America, China,
Japan, and Eastern Russia.

This new discovery must also tend to make the western shore of the
American continent increasingly attractive, from Fraser's River down to
Peru the rivers all bear down treasures of a wealth perfectly
inestimable. Emigration must necessarily continue to flow and increase.
Gold digging is soon learned, and there will be an immense demand for
every kind of labour at almost fabulous prices.

It is further valuable as tending to open up a direct communication from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Europe across the continent of
America to India and China. This is a grand idea, and the colonial
minister who carries it out will accomplish a greater thing than any of
his predecessors, for he will open up the means of carrying English
civilisation to the whole of that vast continent and to the eastern
world.

The pioneers in this movement will conquer the territory not with arms
in their hands, but with the gold-rocker, the plough, the loom, and the
anvil, the steam-boat, the railway, and the telegraph. Commerce and
agriculture, disenthralled by the influences of free institutions, will
cause the new empire to spring into life, full armed, like Minerva from
the brain of Jupiter. Its Pacific ports will