e can
believe that the trade of the islands which gem the Carribbean Sea and
the Gulf of Mexico, or the great Spanish Main, or the Guianas, or the
Orinoco and Amazon, or the extended coast of Brazil, the Platan
Republics, or Mexico, and the Central American States lying just at
our door, belongs naturally to Europe, or that their productions
should be transported in European ships, or that their supplies come
naturally five thousand miles across the ocean, rather than go a few
hundred miles from our own shores, in our own ships, and for the
benefit of our own merchants and producers. Yet, such is the
impression which our apathy of effort in those regions would produce.
We have acted as if our people had no right of information concerning
the West-Indies and South-America, until it had gone to Europe and
been emasculated of all its virtues.

The same thing is true of the Pacific South-American, the Chinese, and
the East-Indian trade. That of the Pacific coast is not half so far
from us, as it is from Europe; that of China, and the East-Indies, and
Australia, is by many thousand miles nearer to us; and yet the greater
portion of the commerce of all three of those great fields is
triumphantly borne off by Great Britain alone. And why is all this?
Why is her foreign trade sixteen hundred millions of dollars per year,
while ours is only seven hundred millions? Causes can not fail to
produce their effects; and prime causes, however little understood in
their half obscure workings, are yet made manifest as the sun at
noon-day by effects so brilliant and important as these. Here, as
ever, the tree is known by its fruits. The tree of knowledge, of
British wisdom, "whose mortal taste brought death into our world," our
Western world of commerce, "with loss of Eden," and many a fair
paradise of enterprise and effort, has filled the bleak little islands
of Britain with the golden fruits of every clime, and scattered
broadcast among its people the rich ambrosia of foreign commerce. When
it was necessary to command the trade of the West-Indies, Central
America, and Mexico, lying at our southern door, she established the
Royal Steam Packet service with thirteen lines and twenty steamers,
and paid it for the first ten years L240,000, and for the present
twelve years L270,000 per annum. In addition to this she pays L25,000
per annum for continuing the same lines down the west coast of
South-America to Valparaiso, and contracts to pay th