nations, it is the great cause both of their independence and of their recovering freedom, after having been enslaved. That portion of the human race who exercise sovereign power in every country (whether chosen by the people themselves, or permitted to rule by their tacit consent), must govern nearly in accordance with the spirit and feeling of the nation over whom they are placed. But in an empire containing several distinct nations under its sway, the government cannot pay sufficient deference to their several opinions and prejudices. Hence arises a constant struggle on the part of subject nations, until they acquire liberty.

This accounts for the short duration of what are termed Universal Empires. Trampling on the common right of mankind, they are by common consent overthrown. Hear you that shout! 'tis when some tyrant falls, whose armed battalions have destroyed the independence of several distinct nations, or some Congress is dissolved, which held distant and dissimilar States beneath one common thrall.

As when snow falls in a country, and conceals the ancient landmark-field, valley, and upland, are hidden from the sight-the farmer is unable to distinguish his own possessions; but when

spring returns, the snow melts, and each views again his own sacred land. Thus nations are seldom able to effect any permanent change in natural boundaries! They believe their conquests to be eternal-the voice of history proclaims them to be merely temporary.

To form a permanent empire, there must be some common feeling to unite the people under its sway; as all governments are founded, more or less remotely, on the opinions of the people where they are established.

It may be asserted that among nations where the people travel a great deal, it may change their feelings so much, as to operate on many of the reasons assigned.

Let us consider the following circumstances :-The number of people who leave their parent State is comparatively few. The farmers, who constitute the great mass of every nation, do not travel far from their homes. The manufacturers are nearly equally stationary. A few professional men, merchants, and legislators, and some rich men of all classes, occasionally wander from their home in search of transitory happiness, but this seldom produces a permanent change of opinion.

When an individual passes to another State to reside there, his opinions gradually change, and he acquires insensibly those of the country where he is situated. It is not possible to breathe the air of a village, town, or city, without at the same time imbibing some of the local opinions, which form a species of atmosphere for each particular place. It is well this is the case, for an individual cannot be happy unless he partakes the feelings of those by whom he is surrounded. If they mourn, he should mourn—if they rejoice, he should rejoice.

Ancient conquerors, perceiving the force of this local attachment, and that it was unfavorable to their views, frequently removed all the people of a country to a distant region, and replaced them by their own native subjects.

Mithridates performed this on a very extensive scale. The Cappadocian was removed to the bank of Euphrates, and the Grecian of Ionia was forced to the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Peter the Great removed thousands of Lithuanians to an interior province of Russia, and their place was supplied by a horde of bearded Muscovites. The same policy has been pursued in the recent conquest of Poland.

Charlemagne removed whole colonies of the Saxons from their native home on the Elbe and the Saale, and planted them in Belgium, while their place was supplied by his native French subjects.

When Edward the Third conquered Calais, he dismissed from the town the whole of the French inhabitants, and replaced them by an English colony, on whom were conferred the houses of the unfortunate Frenchmen.

In all these instances, no political effect was produced equal to the misery endured by the unfortunate exiles.

The empire of Rome may be cited as an instance against this theory, but, on examination, it will be found to give it support. It required all the ferocity of the Romans, aided by their naval power, and their permanent national council, to subdue the nations around; on the decline of their high fortune, their empire was broken into its original parts.

CHAPTER XI.

ON IMAGINARY, UNCERTAIN, AND FORTIFIED BOUNDARIES.

THERE is a superior order of beings upon earth possessed of great power, for they paint the most common occurrences of life with the magic pencil of fancy, and instruct the sober judgment of man by appealing to his imagination. These poets say that in some former time the world was peopled by a happy, peaceful race, to whom war was unknown, and for whom conquest had no charm. Should such a period of time again return, and that race of people revisit the earth, from which they have been a very long time absent, we might then advise a different rule for the boundary of empires. Nothing more would be necessary than to divide the surface of the world into squares of nearly equal size, and then place a nation in each. Or if they were fond of mathematical studies, which is not very probable, a variety of geometrical figures might be made, and a choice allowed to the several communities. One nation might prefer to live in a square, another in