At the commencement of summer, we began to feel, that the mischief which had taken place in distant countries was greater than we had at first suspected.  Quito was destroyed by an earthquake.  Mexico laid waste by the united effects of storm, pestilence and famine.  Crowds of emigrants inundated the west of Europe; and our island had become the refuge of thousands.  In the mean time Ryland had been chosen Protector.  He had sought this office with eagerness, under the idea of turning his whole forces to the suppression of the privileged orders of our community.  His measures were thwarted, and his schemes interrupted by this new state of things.  Many of the foreigners were utterly destitute; and their increasing numbers at length forbade a recourse to the usual modes of relief.  Trade was stopped by the failure of the interchange of cargoes usual between us, and America, India, Egypt and Greece.  A sudden break was made in the routine of our lives.  In vain our Protector and his partizans sought to conceal this truth; in vain, day after day, he appointed a period for the discussion of the new laws concerning hereditary rank and privilege; in vain he endeavoured to represent the evil as partial and temporary.  These disasters came home to so many bosoms, and, through the various channels of commerce, were carried so entirely into every class and division of the community, that of necessity they became the first question in the state, the chief subjects to which we must turn our attention.

Can it be true, each asked the other with wonder and dismay, that whole countries are laid waste, whole nations annihilated, by these disorders in nature?  The vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindostan, the crowded abodes of the Chinese, are menaced with utter ruin.  Where late the busy multitudes assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of wailing and misery is heard.  The air is empoisoned, and each human being inhales death, even while in youth and health, their hopes are in the flower.  We called to mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a third of mankind had been destroyed.  As yet western Europe was uninfected; would it always be so?

O, yes, it would—­Countrymen, fear not!  In the still uncultivated wilds of America, what wonder that among its other giant destroyers, Plague should be numbered!  It is of old a native of the East, sister of the tornado, the earthquake, and the simoon.  Child of the sun, and nursling of the tropics, it would expire in these climes.  It drinks the dark blood of the inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the pale-faced Celt.  If perchance some stricken Asiatic come among us, plague dies with him, uncommunicated and innoxious.  Let us weep for our brethren, though we can never experience their reverse.  Let us lament over and assist the children of the garden of the earth.  Late we envied their abodes, their spicy groves, fertile plains, and abundant loveliness.  But in this mortal life extremes