“This is an extreme case.… Why, then, should we put cases that we know can never happen? However, I can inform you that the case was often put before this war broke out; and I have heard the common farmers in America reasoning upon these cases seven years ago. I have heard them say, if Great Britain could build a wall of brass a thousand feet high all along the sea-coast, at low-water mark, we can live and be happy. _America is most undoubtedly capable of being the most independent country upon earth._ It produces everything for the necessity, comfort, and conveniency of life, and many of the luxuries too. So that, if there were an eternal separation between Europe and America, the inhabitants of America would not only live, but multiply, and, for what I know, be wiser, better, and happier than they will be as it is.”[368] Here is an assertion of conditions essential to independence of “the most independent country upon earth,” with a promise that the inhabitants will multiply. * * * * * 6. In an official letter to the President of Congress, dated at Amsterdam, 5th September, 1780, the same writer, while proposing an American Academy “for refining, correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English language,” predicts the extension of this language:-- “_English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age._ The reason of this is obvious,--because the increasing population in America, and their universal connection and correspondence with all nations, will, aided by the influence of England in the world, whether great or small, force their language into general use, in spite of all the obstacles that may be thrown in their way, if any such there should be.”[369] In another letter, of unofficial character, dated at Amsterdam, 23d September, 1780, he thus repeats his prophecy:-- “You must know _I have undertaken to prophesy that English will be the most respectable language in the world; and the most universally read and spoken, in the next century, if not before the close of this_. American population will in the next age produce a greater number of persons who will speak English than any other language, and these persons will have more general acquaintance and conversation with all other nations than any other people.”[370] David Hume, in a letter to Gibbon, 24th October, 1767, had already written:-- “Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we need less dread the inundation of Barbarians, _promise a superior stability and duration to the English language_.”[371] But these more moderate words, which did credit to the discernment of the philosopher-historian, were then unpublished.