they are in power, they domineer over and insult the colony and the colonist; if they are not of the favoured few to whom power is confided, they truckle, and fawn, and cringe, in the hope of some day obtaining the means of tyrannizing in their turn.

Such are the different results from precisely the same elements. From the same materials one architect has raised a plain bold, broad, foundation, magnificent in conception, and in its execution simple and secure. The other has built, only that what he rears up to-day may fall to pieces to-morrow-he has worked without a plan -building a little here one day-a small piece a mile away the next; nothing advances, money is spent, good materials are spoiled, time is irrevocably lost; disgust and discontent attend his blundering, his blustering, boasting, and ignorance. This is the accurate but painful description of the two systems. These are the results of the English and the American systems of colonization.

But what is the American system? Have they a colonial officer? have they a secretary of state for the colonies! have they colonial governors, colonial judges, colonial secretaries, and attorneys-general and collectors? Indeed, they have none of these things, but they have that which is worth them all-they have a system of procedure well adapted for the end in view; and they have a government responsible to those who are the persons really interested in the proper performance of the duties which the government is required to fulfil.

If the reader will take in his hand any common map of North America, he will see there laid down, Lake Ontario, with the Niagara river, and Lake Erie; then he

will see a river joining Lake Erie to Lake Huron, and also he will see Lake Huron itself. The tract of land which lies to the north of these waters belongs to England, and forms a portion of what was formerly Upper, but is now called West Canada. The tract itself is in all respects equal to the corresponding tract which lies on the American side of the waters I have named, and is in fact among the most beautiful portions of territory upon the whole continent. The reader will perceive that the most southern part of the whole tract of water to which his attention has been solicited, forms the northern boundary of the state of Ohio. This state did not exist in the year 1783. It is now the third state of the union. Its population amounted at the last census to 1,519,467, and it now sends nineteen* members to congress as members of the House of Representatives. No traveller in the United States fails to express his astonishment at the rapid progress of this state-and the beautiful towns and villages which now exist, and are daily rising in every part of it. But let us remember that in nothing is Ohio naturally more favoured than the tract of Canadian territory which lies north of Erie and opposite to Ohio. In order hereafter to come to some specific results, I will now describe the steps by which Ohio gradually but rapidly passed from its state of wilderness to its present condition, which thus excites the wonder and admiration of every beholder. This contrast between the two districts is remarkable,

* This number, however, was regulated by the census of 1830, which gave as the population at that time 937,903. The number of the representatives may, therefore, be now greater.

because their natural condition was so wonderfully similar. I simply take the state of Ohio, in order to be able to point out the steps of the American procedure. Here is no pretence of making an accurate statistical statement, or of writing a history of Ohio. An instance and a name were wanted for illustrationand a name saves circumlocution.

"Although the claims of Virginia to the country north-west of the Ohio were thus gaining strength (this was in 1779) from the rights of conquest, in addition to those derived from her original charter, they were not suffered to pass undisputed by some of the other States, who insisted that all the lands, the title of which had originally been in the crown, and had never been alienated, were the common property of the confederation, by the right of conquest, inasmuch as the revolution had transferred the supreme power from the British sovereign to the United Republic. This ground was supported with great earnestness and ingenuity on their part, and was warmly resisted by Virginia in a spirited remonstrance to Congress in the October session of 1779. But this delicate question was happily settled by a voluntary cession from Virginia to the United States of the country in dispute, on certain conditions; and the territory thus ceded comprehends the three flourishing states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which already contain more than thrice as many white inhabitants as are in the state which ceded them."*

* Life of Jefferson, by Tucker. vol. i. p. 142. This statement in the text was made in 1836. The startling effects produced by political institutions are instructively illustrated by a comparison

Certain adventurous persons, "the pioneers" of civilization, wishing to make new settlements beyond the boundaries of Virginia, and Pennsylvania, upon wild lands belonging to the United States, made formal application to the government of the United States of Washington, who, being bound to afford all possible facility, thereupon take steps to have the lands surveyed and properly laid out into counties, townships, parishes. The roads are also indicated, and at once the law exists: and security, guaranteed by the authority of the United States, immediately follows, both for person and property; and all the machinery known to the common law, and needed for the maintenance of this security, and the enforcement of the law's decrees, is at once adopted. A municipal authority comes into existence; a court house a jail-a school room-arise in the wilderness; and although these buildings be humble, and the men who exercise authority in them may appear in some degree rude, yet is the law there in all its useful majesty. To it a reverent obedience is rendered; and the plain magistrate who, in a hunter's frock, may, in the name of the United States, pronounce the law's decree, commands an obedience as complete and sincere as that which is paid to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at Wash

of Ohio and Upper Canada on the one hand, and Ohio and Kentucky on the other. Kentucky is the older state of the two: her lands are quite as fertile, and climate the same as Ohio, yet slavery being in Kentucky, the effect appears by the population, which is as compared below:

ington, or to the ermined judge who presides in the courts of our Lady the Queen, in Westminster Hall.

The people are accustomed to self-government, and the orderly arrangements of society are adopted by them as mere matters of course. If a township is marked out on the map, and inhabitants, having purchased the lands, go and live therein, an organization by mere operation of law exists in the township. Magistrates and officers have to be chosen-and are chosen, and society starts at once, like a well made watch the moment it is put together and wound up. The fact of the inhabitants, and that of the township, being given, all the rest follows of course, without any aid or direction of any body but the people themselves.

The wild lands of the United States were increased by various means, and from various causes, immediately upon the States becoming a nation: and congress, under the Constitution, having power to deal with these lands, proceeded so to do. The fourth clause of the fourth article of the Constitution declares, that "new states may be admitted by the congress into this Union. But no new state shall be formed or created within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as well as of the congress.' "Under this clause, besides Vermont, three new states formed within the boundaries of the old States-viz., Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maine— and nine others—viz., Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Michigan, formed within the territories ceded to the