were received with kindness and hospitality, and your request was
granted, by which you obtained a footing on the soil. Now you are lords
of countless acres, masters of millions, who live or perish as you will;
receivers of enormous tribute.--Why, how is this?

Honestly, again you say; by treaty, by surrender, by taking from those
who would have destroyed us, the means of doing injury. Honestly! say
it again, that heaven may register, and hell may chuckle at your
barefaced, impudent assertion.

No! by every breach of faith which could disgrace an infidel; by every
act of cruelty which could disgrace our nature; by extortion, by rapine,
by injustice, by mockery of all laws or human or divine. The thirst for
gold, and a golden country, led you on; and in these scorching regions
you have raised the devil on his throne, and worshipped him in his proud
pre-eminence as Mammon.

Let us think. Is not the thirst for gold a temptation to which our
natures are doomed to be subjected--part of the ordeal which we have to
pass? or why is it that there never is sufficient?

It appears to be ordained by Providence that this metal, obtained from
the earth to feed the avarice of man, should again return to it. If all
the precious ore which for a series of ages has been raised from the
dark mine were now in tangible existence, how trifling would be its
value! how inadequate as a medium of exchange for the other productions
of nature, or of art! If all the diamonds and other precious stones
which have been collected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they
once were, like all sublunary matter, they too yield to Time), why, if
all were remaining on the earth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep
would shake about those gems, which now are to be found in profusion
only where rank and beauty pay homage to the thrones of kings.--Arts and
manufactures consume a large proportion of the treasures of the mine,
and as the objects fall into decay, so does the metal return to the
earth again. But it is in eastern climes, where it is collected, that
it soonest disappears. Where the despot reigns, and the knowledge of an
individual's wealth is sufficient warranty to seal his doom, it is to
the care of the silent earth alone that the possessor will commit his
treasures; he trusts not to relation or to friend, for gold is too
powerful for human ties. It is but on his death-bed that he imparts the
secret of his deposit to those he leave