erted through these engines of power, have raised her to her present proud elevation. Her navy embraces six hundred vessels. Besides these she has fleets and steamships and packets so constructed as to be easily converted into war ships. In the short space of two months she could send 150 more steam frigates well equipped to sea, making in all 750 war vessels; so that she could stretch a line of battle ships from Liverpool to New-York, each separated only four miles from the other. Twenty-seven millions of people in the three kingdoms sit down in the shadow of her throne. In the East 150,000,000 more come under her sway, beside the vast number, civilized and uncivilized, that inhabit her provinces in every quarter of the globe. The Liverpool Times, in announcing the birth of the Prince of Wales, thus sums up the vast extent of the empire :"Salutes in honour of his birth will be fired in America, on the shores of Hudson Bay, along the whole line of the Canadian Lakes, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, in the Bermudas, at a hundred points in the West Indies, in the forests of Guinea, and in the distant Falkland Islands, near Cape Horn.-In Europe, in the British Islands, from the Rock of Gibraltar, from the impregnable fortifications of Malta, and in the Ionian Islands. In Africa, on the Guinea Coast, and St. Helena and Ascension from the Cape to the Orange River, and at the Mauritius.In Asia, from the fortress of Aden in Arabia, at Karrack, in the Persian Gulf, by the British arms in Affghanistan, along the Himalaya Mountains, the banks of the Indus and the Ganges, to the Southern point of India, in the Island of Ceylon, beyond the Ganges in Assam and Arracaan, at Prince of Wales' Island, and Singapore, on the shores of China, at Hong Kong and Chusan, and in Australia, at the settlements formed on every side of the Australian continent and Islands, and in the Strait which separates these Islands of the New Zealanders. No Prince has ever been born in this or any other country, in ancient or modern times, whose birth would be hailed with rejoicings at so many different and distant points in every quarter of the world."* * While the Queen of England was giving birth in the palace to her princely boy, some hundreds of English mothers, "made of as good stuff" as she, were undergoing the pains of accouchement in damp, cold cellars-without attendants or physicians, many of them, and some without food enough to keep them and their new-born children alive. Merciful Heaven! 'These mothers (fifteen hundred and sixty) sent a petition to the Queen for help, praying that while she was passing through the pains of child-birth she would remember the thousands of her humble sisters who would during the cold winter approaching be called to the same trial-thousands too who through the cruel oppressions of the government are reduced to starving poverty. The Queen, it is believed, is kind-hearted: but what can she do? She is only an Imperial Pauper herself, although pretty well provided for. Her Ministers told these poor mothers to go home, for they could not help them. God help them! If the Queen's baby has $150,000 a year, the operative's baby must starve, for money is not plentiful enough to provide for babies at this rate. After glancing o'er this catalogue of countries he might well inquire, where is there a spot where English cannon do not speak English power? Of her rejoicings at home we have nothing to say. Let her hail the birth of a monarch, who may be, with acclaims, bell-ringings, and the firing of cannon, till "the fast anchored isle" rock to the Jubilate the world may listen or not, as it pleases. But the echo of her guns north of Boston and New-York-beyond the Rocky Mountains-south of Florida-and east of Charleston, has something startling and ominous in it. Along the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, Erie, and Michigan, one long booming shot rolls down over these free States, saying, "England is here and her cannon too." The wandering tribes of the western prairies and Guianian forests hear it and cower back to their fastnesses, for England is there. It sends terror through millions of hearts as it thunders from the harbors and fortresses of the East Indies. The vessels entering the Mediterranean turn an anxious eye to the rocks of Gibraltar, as the smoke slowly curls up their sides; and the report of a thousand cannon say in most significant language, that England is there. To the reflecting man there is meaning in that shot which goes round the earth. England sends her messengers abroad to every nation, and the insignia of her power are scattered among all the tribes of the great family of man; while she sits amid the sea, as if her power was the centre of tides, whose pulsations are felt on every shore, and up every continent-piercing river. To England we accord greatness; there is something in her name which awes mankind. The pressure of her hand is felt on every government, and her voice is heard at the council boards of every nation. To one who looks only on the territory of England proper, the extent of her dominion seems incredible. That a small island should rule half continents is indeed strange. No other nation since Rome has so expanded herself, reached out such long arms, and with them grasped so much, and so strongly. How so small a body can extend and wield such immense limbs surprises those who calculate power from physical strength. It is the moral power of England that has carried her so high. Mind and skill multiply physical power a hundred-fold. It is as true of nations as of individuals. Every able-bodied man has two arms, and five fingers at their extremities, yet who estimates the power of the body so much as the power of the will that controls it? An ox can draw more than fifty men, it may be, but a single man can set in motion machinery which wields a power greater than that of the fabled Cyclops. China with her vast territory and exhaustless population, can be brought to her knees by a few English ships and a few English cannon, guided and pointed by English mind. The few on one side are governed by mind; the many on the other by ignorance. It is this which has ena : bled England so long to stand at the head of Europe, and send her mandates over the world. No throne since the world stood has had such intellects gathered round it as the British throne. The clear heads that encircled it have ever been her firmest bulwarks. The intellect of Pitt oι Canning can do for England in diplomacy what Malta and Gibraltar cannot. English monarchs have in most instances been mere puppets-the wires that moved them were in the hands of such men. It was this moral power alone that made America her successful antagonist. Hitherto she had met physical force with moral power, but when she made her onset here, then "Greek met Greek." In the conflicts of ignorant nations it is only a trial of muscles and bones, like the strifes of brutes, but in those of enlightened nations it is the struggle of the souls. England's soul, not her arms, has impressed itself on the world. It is the intelligence with which she speaks that swells her voice so far, and makes it remembered so long. It is the intelligence that guides her fleets and armies that renders them so formidable. Besides there is a humanity about her when not crushed out by pride and love of power. The Commons of England have often shown a steadfast resistance to tyrants that has blessed the cause of human freedom the world over. They have cut off one king's head, and can another's when necessary. The yeomanry of England are superior to those of any other nation in Europe. Bold, |