the intermediate stages, or scanning the evidence in the progress, she takes the shortest way to a decision, and substitutes habitual presumptions in the room of proof and conviction. This is safe and convenient in reasoning upon permanent ideas and the immutabilities of nature; but things that are constantly fluctuating demand a different procedure. The relation between different communities is incessantly variating, touching their numbers, power, and riches. One may be labouring under the weight of her own greatness, while the other is but beginning to exist; the latter in many respects may, from natural causes, equal the former in her progress, and even surpass, unconscious of her own strength. There is, perhaps, no instance where these principles have more fallaciously operated, than in comparing the combined strength of the United Colonies with that which Britain is capable of exerting against them. She is called, by a figure of speech, the Parent State. This family term has innocently betrayed many into that groundless opinion, that she possessed parental authority, and could with as much ease chastise and force submissions from the Colonies, as the parent of a family corrects and governs his feeble offspring. Hence it is that expressions borrowed from the domestick economy have been so often prostituted to a political purpose.

We can all recollect, and I am sure discernment and sensibility must blush for them, persons unmeaningly and ridiculously arguing themselves into a belief of falsehood, from the mere force of names. Say they: “Can a child oppose the power of the parent? Has not she a right to govern at pleasure, and by her corrections cure it of its frowardness, and reduce it to a sense of duty and filial obedience? Shall a child complain of a smart inflicted for its good ? or is it possible for the parent not to have the interest of its own likeness near at heart?” The truth is, the expression only marks our reciprocal relations in point of time and circumstances, not right of authority and superiority of strength. The present aggregate collection of British inhabitants did not give being to the Americans, or afford them any degree of support. The blood that circulates through our veins flowed from the same fountain with theirs, only with greater purity. They claimed the rights of primogeniture; these they enjoyed. They possessed the splendid inheritance of our common ancestors, while, like younger sons, we became adventurers abroad in a distant country. In. our infantile indigency and impotent minority, we looked with admiration on the comparative greatness and strength of our elder brothers. At this period were those habits generated, and language formed, that are handed down to the present day. So great is the force of custom, that it is scarcely possible now, at first blush, to feel ourselves in any degree equal to those which were once so much our superiors; as a son or a pupil seldom loses, even in manhood, those impressions of inferiority which he received under the culture of his parent, or instruction of his master. This is all fallacy, and leads to delusion. But if any one still insists that America is the child, she is certainly a sturdy, large-boned one, well-proportioned in all its parts, in the bloom of vigour and health, who has lost its natural mother, and has both right and ability to renounce an old, stern, encroaching step-dame, not, indeed, worn out by age, but greatly impaired with the refinements of luxury and the arts of debauchery; a dame who, for the sake of proging for her spurious Scottish connexions, chooses to quarrel with the genuine heirs. Refusing the indelicate milk, and weaned from the breast of parental luxuries, we shall soon ripen into manhood. Let us contemplate the sources of our sufficiency, hug to the bosom and explore the bowels of our own Country, learn our strength, and the arts of improving it.

It is necessary, in all examinations, to divest ourselves of all prejudices, to dismiss from our breast every prepossession, to attend to realities, scan the arguments, and determine upon the stubborn evidence of facts. The strength of a country, as remarked in my last, arises from the joint concurrence of numbers, of riches considered as the internal resources of war, of situation, and the temper and spirit of its inhabitants. America, considered in this four-fold point of view, swells to an amazing, an inconceivable pitch of greatness. No country under heaven can reach her height, or compare with her wide expansions. The planter, the farmer, the manufacturer, and the mechanick, with their dependencies, make up the principal part of those three million inhabitants of the British Colonies.

These are the sinews, the safety and ornament of a country in the day of invasion, being formed to fatigue, and having their nerves strung by hardy industry. It is said that a fifth part of the three millions, at a modest computation, is capable of joining the train-bands, and bearing arms in defence of the rights of their Country. This gives us a muster-roll of six hundred thousand fighting men, all from their childhood allowed the use and skilled in the exercise of the gun, the spade, and the pick-axe; many thousands of whom have been wont to traverse the seas, to crowd the sail, and ply the oar. Can the mother, as she is called, marshal so many belligerent sons attached to her cause ? Is it possible numbers should be wanting from this multitude to recruit our armies, and man our ships and lesser craft ? Can Britain, with her utmost force destinable to America, of twenty, or five and twenty thousand, cope with six, some say eight or twelve hundred thousand determined and well-regulated militia? Can she preserve her conquest against that increasing torrent of population, which, in the course of half a century, will give us double her numbers? Has not the skill and experience, acquired in the last war, given us Generals and commanders equal to any service, capable of any achievements ? Will not the present martial school, which has already advanced us centuries in the military art, which has made the soldier of the citizen, called the husbandman from his farm, conveyed the knowledge of war to the inhabitant of the village and the cottager of the mountain, which has made the children of the streets, with a semblance of a war, emulate in measuring their steps to the fife and the drum—I say, will not such amazing ardour and application leave to posterity the character of a General, that shall equal if not obscure the names of a Marlborough or a Wolfe?

Our numbers do not end here. A large catalogue of virtuous matrons, useful wives, industrious daughters, and active sons, follow in the train, and plead for a part in the merits of the day. These, by manufacturing, providing, supplying, and even cultivating, render essential services, and form a numerous band of useful auxiliaries. These will all, immediately or indirectly, contribute something to support the endangered goddess, to sustain the temple of liberty, to strengthen the great eagle’s nest, for the structure of which all animals are said to furnish some rough materials. Is there any deduction to be made? Will a small, doubting, discontented, and disaffected party lessen the account? Can their numbers ever deserve mentioning, unless it is to mark their insignificancy, and our own importance and unanimity? Will they balance, in the comparison, those zealous votaries and enterprising characters that, from foreign parts, will be constantly flocking to America, as an asylum from persecution and oppression, or repairing to our standard to assist in displaying the banners of justice, liberty, and truth? Has not the accession of a Lee already more than cancelled their whole importance?

The riches of a country, considered as the resources of war, do not necessarily or immediately consist in gold or in diamonds. These have neither intrinsick worth or direct utility. An army can neither be fed upon diamonds, clothed with gold, or fight with powder made of silver; they may be the medium of exchange, the means of procuring to a destitute country the implements for fighting and the necessaries for war. Where these abound, the country is rich, and a paper currency is equal to the mines of Peru; where they are wanting, all the treasures of the east would be but glittering poverty. An ample supply, and independent resources of food to eat, and raiment to put on, of lumber and cordage, of powder and ball, of guns and spears, with courage to wield them, is martial opulence. Mountains of gold can produce no more, and, where these abound, mountains of gold are mountains of dross. If America then yields such a produce, she has in herself, touching a war, the stamina of exhaustless wealth. On this question we are not left to wander in the dark regions of uncertain conjecture, or to traverse territories unexplored. The effects and produce of present improvements demonstrate its certainty. Taking past experience and known examples for our guide, let us examine it a little in detail. Standing on this ground, without divination, we may ex-tend our knowledge into futurities. It is presumed that the