selves, and assuredly no obligation of any kind to any party in the United States.

The imputation has indeed been thrown out in advance, that if we consider any interests of our own in the subject, we shall prove that cotton is really king over us. Those who have expressed opinions differing from the present views of the North, are said to be ready to sacrifice any principle from sordid motives. This view is so generally adopted that it raises the doubt, whether there are not many who are incapable of conceiving that opinions may be formed, on other than mercenary grounds. Had there been some great principle at stake, we should probably have sacrificed cotton now as cheerfully as we sacrificed sugar before. No such principle originated the war, and it cannot be permitted to enlist it now, convenience, to suit the exigencies of the day. It is possible we may be a sordid people without any consciousness of it, having no power to see ourselves; but there are certain historical facts of which it may be permissible to remind those who cast this imputation.

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When Spain depended for years on our will and power for her national existence, she could not have refused the island of Cuba or the fairest of her colonies, in small requital of such a debt. When Portugal was still more helplessly dependent-how easy to have accepted the enchanting island of Madeira! Sicily, the ancient granary of Rome, was for a long period in our possession;

no one will suppose that the King of Naples had strength to retake it. When we drove the French out of Egypt, who could have prevented our retaining, for ourselves, that stepping-stone to India? Java was ours, the wealthiest island of the East, there was no might in Holland that could have commanded us to leave it. When we held the mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris, what power could have wrested from our hold the command of those classic streams? When India lay trembling for her mutiny, our revenge was not to denude of provinces, but to present to her princes the right of regal adoption. Nankin was ours, commanding that great central plain which contains sixfold the population of the United States, no power could have ejected us against our will. For how long have we sailed fleets and lavished gold and given precious lives in hope to save from bondage fellow-men so poor they cannot even thank us! These are not words or sneers, but facts-facts that are as footsteps of the race in every quarter of the globe;-not those of men who were crawling in a sordid spirit.

Since, then, it is clear, that we can find in this contest neither principle to be respected nor obligation to be remembered, it remains justly open to consider what may be the interest of this country in the case. We have, as we have been told, a “natural ally," but the selection made was not a happy one. The Northern section of the Union is the natural competitor and self-appointed anta

gonist of this country; the Southern portion its natural ally.

No part of the world can be found more admirably placed for exchanging with this country the products of industry to mutual advantage than the Southern States of the Union. Producing in abundance the material we chiefly require, their climate and the habits of the people indispose them to manufactures, and leave to be purchased precisely the commodities we have to sell. They have neither the means nor the desire to enter into rivalry with us. Commercially they offer more than the capabilities of another India, within a fortnight's distance from our shores. The capacity of a Southern trade, when freed from restrictions, may be estimated most correctly by comparison. The condition of those States resembles that of Australia, both non-manufacturing countries, with the command of ample productions to offer in exchange for the imports they require. As a means of payment, cotton is equal to wool, or to gold.

Our exports to the Australian colonies amounted in each of the years 1858 and 1859 to twelve millions. Estimating their population at 1,200,000 this would give precisely £10 per head of population. The numbers in the slave States by the last Census are rather more than twelve millions, and assuming that the four millions of negroes would require nothing imported from this country, there would remain eight millions of consumers.

Our exports to the Union have averaged of late

years twenty millions; the trade is a stationary one in amount, with a constant tendency to alter, to our disadvantage, in the character of the articles composing it. This amount gives but 13s. per head of the population of the Union, a contrast with that of some other countries by no means unintelligible. The North controls the commerce of the country, and its policy is to exclude our manufactures as far as possible, in order to promote its own and monopolize the Southern trade. The people of the North, whether manufacturers or shipowners, regard us as rivals and competitors, to be held back and cramped by all possible means. They possess the same elements as ourselves, coal, metals, ships, an aptitude for machinery, energy, and industry, whilst the early obstacles of deficient capital and scanty labour are rapidly disappearing. For many years they have competed with us in some manufactures in foreign markets, and their peculiar skill in the contrivance of labour-saving machinery, daily increases the number of articles they produce cheaper than ourselves.

Thus to one part of the world our exports are at the rate of £10 per head, whilst those to the Union amount but to 13s. per head. Between these extremes what would be the natural position of the Southern trade, if unfettered by restrictions? It is clear, that if the slave States were to import from us at only half the Australian rate, they would then require double the amount of our

existing exports to the entire Union. Have they the capabilities for a trade of this magnitnde?

The exports of the Southern States to foreign countries were, in 1860, 220 millions of dollars, that of cotton exported to the North, 38 millions; and estimating those of other products, sugar, tobacco, rice, hemp, lead, &c., also exported to the North at 40 millions, this would give a total export of above 60 millions sterling. The value of agricultural products imported from the North, is greatly over-estimated by those who take their impressions from the traffic on the Mississippi, forgetting how large is the proportion from the border slave States. Still there is a large import of farm products from the free States. Flour passes both ways: in so vast a country the cost of transport governs local interests and leads to a reciprocating movement in some commodities. Assuming the imports of farm products from the North and of foreign manufactures and products other than our own, to reach together 20 millions, which is beyond our own calculations, there would remain 40 millions sterling to expend in manufactures such as we produce.

Of the articles we export to the United States, about a third is composed of raw materials for Northern manufactures, such as coal, soda, ash, &c., or of others such as metals, to pass through a further stage of manufacture. Dividing the remainder in the ratio of population, we have five millions only as the amount at present taken by