The prophecy of John Adams is already accomplished. Of all the European languages, English is most extensively spoken. Through England and the United States it has become the language of commerce, which sooner or later must embrace the globe. The German philologist, Grimm, has followed our American prophet in saying that it “seems chosen, like its people, to rule in future times in a still greater degree in all the corners of the earth.”[372] * * * * * 7. Another field was opened by a European correspondent, John Luzac, who writes from Leyden, under date of 14th September, 1780, that, in pleading the cause of American Independence, he has twenty times encountered, from sensible and educated people, an objection which he sets forth as follows:-- “Yes, but if America becomes free, she will some day give the law to Europe. She will take our islands, and our colonies at Guiana; she will seize all the Antilles; she will absorb Mexico, even Peru, Chili, and Brazil; she will carry off our freighting commerce; she will pay her benefactors with ingratitude.”[373] To this Mr. Adams replied, in a letter from Amsterdam, 15th September, 1780:-- “I have met often in Europe with the same species of reasoners that you describe; but I find they are not numerous. Among men of reflection the sentiment is generally different, and that no power in Europe has anything to fear from America. The principal interest of America for many centuries to come will be landed, and her chief occupation agriculture. Manufactures and commerce will be but secondary objects, and always subservient to the other. America will be the country to produce raw materials for manufactures, but Europe will be the country of manufactures; and the commerce of America can never increase but in a certain proportion to the growth of its agriculture, until its whole territory of land is filled up with inhabitants, which will not be in some hundreds of years.” After referring to tar, iron, and timber as American articles, he says:-- “In fact, the Atlantic is so long and difficult a navigation, that the Americans will never be able to afford to carry to the European market great quantities of these articles.” If the prophet fails here, he is none the less wise in the suggestion with which he closes:-- “If Europe cannot prevent, or rather if any particular nations of Europe cannot prevent, the independence of America, then the sooner her independence is acknowledged, the better,--the less likely she will be to become warlike, enterprising, and ambitious. The truth is, however, that America can never unite in any war but a defensive one.”[374]