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¬earliest though not the first explorers of distant and unknown countries; but their humanity and wisdom secured the advantages which the vices and follies of the original discoverers had cast away, and the dominion over new worlds (if I may so express myself) became their own. Their national government could not but be soon affected by this illustrious career : a com- merce encircling our globe with riches in her train, advancing hand in hand with learning and science, which other causes were reviving, opposed by a silent and .progressive force more efficacious than the sudden shock of a revolution, the oppressive pretensions of her nobles, and the firmest prerogatives of her kings, — to describe this momentous change in a word — the Anna- tians became a People. ¬" It would be to you most uninteresting, and to me equally painful, to relate the conflicts of those antagonist powers for more than a hundred years, until the ancient monarchy and aristo- cracy, which for ages had supported each other, ¬fell ¬
