Notwithstanding
these sinister soothsayers, the progress of the nation has, by a
beneficent Providence, been onward and onward, until it is scarcely
presumptuous to suppose that even England has abandoned the
expectation of classing this country again among her dependencies.
The fortunes of America, under God, depend only on herself. America
may destroy America; of that there is danger; but it is pretty
certain that Europe united could make no serious impression on her.
Favored by position, and filled with a population that we have ever
maintained was one of the most military in existence, a truth that
recent events are hourly proving to be true, it much exceeds the
power of all the enemies of her institutions to make any serious
impression on her. There is an enemy who may prove too much for her;
it exists in her bosom; and God alone can keep him in subjection,
and repress his desolation.
These were facts, however, of which Wa-wa-nosh, or Onoah, was as
ignorant as if he were an English or French minister of state, and
had got his notions of the country from English or French
travellers, who wished for what they predicted. He had heard of the
towns and population of the republic; but one gets a very imperfect
notion of any fact of this sort by report, unless previous
experience has prepared the mind to make the necessary comparisons,
and fitted it to receive the images intended to be conveyed.
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