a constitutional unity. But he
portrayed a commercial unity also, which he represented in attractive
forms. The British isles, and the British possessions in the Atlantic
and in America, were, according to him, "one grand marine dominion," and
ought, therefore, by policy, to be united into one empire, with one
centre. On this he dwells at length, and the picture is presented
repeatedly.[44] It was incident to the crisis produced in the world by
the predominance of the commercial spirit which already began to rule
the powers of Europe. It was the duty of England to place herself at the
head of this great movement.

"As the rising of this crisis forms precisely the _object_, on which
government should be employed, so the taking leading measures towards
the forming all those Atlantic and American possessions into one empire,
of which Great Britain should be the commercial and political centre, is
the _precise duty_ of government at this crisis."

This was his desire. But he saw clearly the resources as well as the
rights of the Colonies, and was satisfied that, if power were not
consolidated under the constitutional auspices of England, it would be
transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. Here his words are
prophetic:--

"The whole train of events, the whole course of business, must
perpetually bring forward into practice, and necessarily in the end into
establishment, _either an American or a British union_. There is no
other alternative."

The necessity for union is enforced in a manner which foreshadows our
national Union:--

"The Colonial Legislature does not answer all purposes; is incompetent
and inadequate to many purposes. Something more is necessary,--_either a
common union among themselves_, or a common union of subordination under
the one general legislature of the state."[45]

Then, again, in another place of the same work, after representing the
declarations of power over the Colonies as little better than mockery,
he prophesies again:--

"Such is the actual state of the really existing system of our
dominions, that _neither the power of government over these various
parts can long continue under the present mode of administration_, nor
the great interests of commerce extended throughout the whole long
subsist under the present system of the laws of trade."[46]

Recent events may give present interest to his views, in this same work,
on the nature and necessity of a paper curency, where he foll