While America feels secure from the aggression of her neighbours, Great Britain is surrounded by powerful states, some of whom afford her daily proofs of their envy of her greatness and their hatred of her power; and only want the ability, not the will, to annihilate both.  Those states are, for the most part, ruled by absolute or despotic governments, who can call fleets and armies into action without losing a moment in debating the justice or injustice, policy or impolicy, of their movements.  With such neighbours as these, would the Messenger of Peace recommend the “Britishers” to adopt a form of government which would necessitate them to debate and consult while their enemies were acting; and to remit to the people to discuss the question of peace or war, when they should be enlisting and drilling them?

Columbia, happy land! the broad Atlantic intervenes between thee and the envy or hatred of Europe; thy wide domain, presenting millions of acres of untenanted land, stands open to the industry and enterprise of thy citizens.  How thankful, then, ought they to be for the blessings they enjoy, compared with the condition of their brethren “beyond the water,” confined as they are to the narrow limits of their sea-girt isle, whose soil is no longer sufficient for the support of its over-crowded inhabitants, and surrounded by hostile nations, who have long since pronounced the sentence, “Delenda est Britannia!”

“Boz” has already told his countrymen all that is worth telling about New York, and something more.  What the “Dickens” brought him to the “Five Points?” Did he never visit Wapping with the same views, whatever they might be?  If he did, did he observe nothing in that sink of filth and wickedness equal to the scenes that shocked him so much in the outskirts of New York?  One just arrived from England finds little in this city to excite wonder or admiration, unless it be the extraordinary width of some of the streets.  Were those streets kept clean, and the liberty of the pigs a little restrained, the citizens might well boast of their superiority to most of the streets of our British cities; and as their taste improves, everything unsightly will be removed.

Nature has done much for New York:  she possesses one of the finest harbours in the world; her climate is pleasant and salubrious; and one of the noblest rivers of America gives her the command of the commercial resources of a country which equals in extent nearly all Europe.  New York will undoubtedly become one of the first cities in the world; in commerce, in wealth, in population, she has advanced at a prodigious rate within the last fifty years, and her progress is not likely to be arrested.