The rapidity of communication from point to point has introduced such vast effects in the march of improvement among distant lands as only eye-witnesses can believe.  The merchant in London who lays on a vessel for a certain port regards the affair as a mere mercantile speculation, but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest ramifications he would stand astonished at the changes he produces.  With the wizard wand of commerce he touches a lone and trackless forest, and at his bidding cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect, away are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion.  The strongholds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel is preached amongst ignorant and savage men.  The ruder languages disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around.

Such are the ultimate effects of the daily occupations of many men in the City of London, who, seated in a dark and dingy counting-house in pursuit of gain, form and execute schemes the eventual tenor and bearing of which are not to enrich themselves but the human race.  No doubt amongst the mass are noble minds who have a perception of the true object of their calling, who feel a just and laudable pride that they are the employers and benefactors of mankind; whose names, even amongst distant hordes of untaught men, pass current, as a security for probity and honour; who write a few lines in London and move the antipodes; who within the last fifty years have either actually erected or laid the stable foundation of six great empires, offsets of that strong nation who, together with her progeny, is overspreading the earth, not by the sword but by the gentle arts of peace and beneficence.

GENERAL RESULTS OF GREAT MERCANTILE OPERATIONS.

In the earlier Colonies, founded by the great maritime powers of the world, national hatred prevailed to a great degree, although war existed not between the parent states:  still, at distant points removed from the immediate control of the law, the hatred of races found vent, cruelties were committed, reprisals took place, and Europeans warred one upon another.  But England and America, as they progress in these regions, spread a common language and a common faith, and no national antipathies can be strictly said to exist between them.

TRADE OF THE AMERICANS WITH OUT-STATIONS.

The Americans, who are decidedly a more enterprising mercantile people than ourselves, have almost engrossed the profits of the seas surrounding the Indian Archipelago and the western and south-western portions of New Holland.  Their vessels in these parts are to ours in the ratio of at least ten to one.  They constantly frequent the out-stations of Western Australia; supply the wants of those retired portions of the world, and where, legitimately, the British manufacturer should command the market, little besides the produce of America is to be seen.  The settlers at these