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England had any thing at all to do with them, and distinctly asserted that there was not the shadow of pretext for her interference in American affairs. The same spirit, in the American Revolution, inspired the courageous hearts of the citizens of all the colonies; and the result was -the triumph of freedom in the New World. The sacrifices suffered, and the blood spilt by the HEROES OF THE FOUNDERS OF LIBERTY had, at the appointed time, produced their fruits.

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THE BOUNDARIES OF COUNTRIES-HOW ESTABLISHED.

"Westward the Star of Empire takes it way,
The four first acts already past,-

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last."
BISHOP BERKELEY.

own.

NATURE fixes her limits to all things. Her laws are too deeply engraven on the world, to be transcended by any power less than her Man may be impelled by ambition to compass certain ends, but these impulsive sallies are harmoniously governed by the requirements of Nature; and what at the first promised only antagonism and consequent confusion, is found in the end to be tranquilly obedient to the most comprehensive and beautiful laws.

To one who will sit down reflectingly, with the world's map before him, it will be apparent that Nature has from the beginning fixed boundaries to every country; and furthermore, that these boundaries. are unalterable. It is useless attempting to set aside her suggestions; they are immutable. Whatever hint she has thrown out, carries with it all the authority of a law. Her finger points to no great fact in the formation of the world, that is not of itself, sufficient to give shape to all human histories, and color to the events of a long procession of centuries.

The countries of Asia lie separated, either by long chains of towering mountains, stretching away from point to point, until one is completely walled in, and the rest walled out; or by vast deserts, uninhabitable by man, trackless, bare of vegetation, destitute of animal life, and altogether desolate. Across these wastes, invading forces in any great number would hardly come. Surrounded by them, a nation may

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repose in all the security of massive walls and armed forts. They are as fixed boundaries for a country, as if the population had caused them to be placed there. Large inland seas offer a like security, as, for instance, the Persian Gulf, lying between Arabia and Persia; the Red Sea, between Arabia and Africa; the Caspian, between Circassia and Tartary; or the Japan Sea, dividing the peoples of two monstrously overgrown empires.

Asia, however, is thoroughly cut up into principalities and dominions by her lines of mountains-the Great and Little Altai, separating the colossal power of Russia from the vast Chinese Empire; the Himalaya, keeping the Chinese Empire in turn distinct from India; the Beloor mountains, lifting their shoulders between the same empire and Tartary the Independent; and the Hindoo Koosh, drawing the line between Tartary and Afghanistan. The whole face of that quarter of the world has been thus accurately parcelled out to those who dwell upon it.

In Africa the truth is no less plain. The Barbary States can extend no further south than to the great Desert of Sahara; Soudan, beginning with the southernmost limit of the desert, stops at the barrier interposed by the Mountains of the Moon; the countries along the western coast reach into the dim confines of Ethiopia, where all is unknown in that land of the Sun.

Europe, peopled by a great variety of races, obeys minutely these physical laws. Her nations are so many, that smaller boundaries are necessary, and become objects of grave political consideration. As civilization advances from the East, it seems to grow correspondingly jealous of its rights and privileges; rivers, lakes, channels, and mountains are impressed into her service. Behold the Alps, lofty and grand, walling in the independent little region called Switzerland, a name that invariably summons the word Liberty to the tongue. There are the Pyrenees, eternal bounds for both France and Spain; the Scandinavian chain, parting Norway and Sweden as naturally as if that were the single purpose of their erection. There stretch along the Carpathians, hemming in Austria from Prussia and Russia.

We need but to glance at the course of the immortal Rhine, to believe, with the great Napoleon, that nature intended it for the eastern limit to France. The Danube, with its numerous mouths, forms a natural boundary to Turkey and her Principalities against Russia and Austria. The Rhine again performs its part in dividing one petty German kingdom from another; and the Tornea completes the work for Sweden, against Russia, which the Gulf of Bothnia seems to have left unfinished. A narrow channel alone separates England from France-two nations whose boast it is that they combinedly stand in the front of the world. Denmark is hemmed in by a couple of channels, from both Norway and Sweden. Sweden, in turn, rests secure against Russia, with the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia interposed between them.

In all these national divisions, the hand of Nature is but too apparent. Her suggestions must everywhere be obeyed. Whoever deliberately opposes them, thinking by the force of his own will to change these natural limits, is surely throwing himself upon a stone that will in the end grind him to powder.

Poor Poland! she has no boundaries at all! became the prey of nations stronger than herself.

An open plain, she

She has no moun

tains to keep imperial Russia back; none to hold in check the rulers of Prussia; none to shut out the cruel forces of the more cruel House of Hapsburg. She encamped on a broad plain; and there was she stealthily surrounded and set upon by three robbers with crowns upon their brows, and her nationality, bleeding and dying, torn limb from limb. Yet let us hope that Poland has a future, and that the morning of her resurrection is approaching.

"Plains are the proper territories of tyranny. There the arms of a usurper may extend themselves with ease, leaving no corner unoccupied in which patriotism might shelter or treason hide. But mountains, glens, morasses, and lakes set bounds to conquest; and amidst these is the impregnable seat of Liberty." This is lamentably true in the case of Poland. On the other hand, the freedom that has lived through the storms of so many years, amidst the mountain-heights of

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