Note 52 — JOURNAL. (continued 3)

In beholding this fine young giant of a world, with all its magnificent capabilities for greatness, I think every Englishman must feel unmingled regret at the unjust and unwise course of policy which alienated such a child from the parent government. But, at the same time, it is impossible to avoid seeing that some other course must, ere long, have led to the same result, even if England had pursued a more maternal course of conduct towards America. No one, beholding this enormous country, stretching from ocean to ocean, watered with ten thousand glorious rivers, combining every variety of climate and soil, therefore, every variety of produce and population; possessing within itself every resource that other nations are forced either to buy abroad, or to create substitutes for at home; no one, seeing the internal wealth of America, the abundant fertility of the earth's surface, the riches heaped below it, the unparalleled facilities for the intercourse of men, and the interchange of their possessions throughout its vast extent, can for an instant indulge the thought that such a country was ever destined to be an appendage to any other in the world, or that any chain of circumstances whatever could have long maintained in dependence a people furnished with every means of freedom and greatness. But far from regretting that America has thrown off her allegiance, and regarding her as a rebellious subject and irreverent child, England will surely, ere long, learn to look upon this country as the inheritor of her glory; the younger England, destined to perpetuate the language, the memory, the virtues, of the noble land from which she is descended. Loving and honouring my country as I do, I cannot look upon America with any feeling of hostility. I not only hear the voice of England in the language of this people, but I recognise in all their best qualities, their industry, their honesty, their sturdy independence of spirit, the very witnesses of their origin—they are English; no other people in the world would have licked us as they did; nor any other people in the world built up, upon the ground they won, so sound, and strong, and fair an edifice.

With regard to what I have said in the beginning of this note, of the many reasons which combined to render this country independent of all others, I think they in some measure tell against the probability of its long remaining at unity with itself. Such numerous and clashing interests; such strong and opposite individuality of character between the northern and southern states; above all, such enormous extent of country; seem rationally to present many points of insecurity, many probabilities of separations and breakings asunder; but all this lies far on, and I leave it to those who have good eyes for a distance.