“They are now but little short of half our number. To this number they have grown, from a small body of original settlers, by a very rapid increase. The probability is that they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be _double our number, and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of States, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human life_.”[506] Nothing less than “a vast continent” seems to him the sphere of this remarkable development, and he revolts at the idea of this being held “at the discretion of a handful of people on the other side of the Atlantic.”[507] In the measures which brought on the war he saw “the hand of Providence _working to bring about some great ends_.”[508] And the vast continent was to be dedicated to Liberty. The excellent man saw even the end of Slavery. Speaking of “the negroes of the Southern Colonies,” he said that they “probably will now either soon become extinct or _have their condition changed into that of freemen_.”[509] Years and battle intervened before this precious result. This production was followed in 1777 by “Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America,”--to which was added “Observations on Public Loans, the National Debt, and the Debts and Resources of France.” In all this variety of topics, his concern for America breaks forth in the inquiry, “Must not humanity shudder at such a war?”[510] And he sees untold loss to England, which, with the Colonies, “might be the greatest and happiest nation that ever existed”; but without them “we are no more a people; … our existence depends on keeping them.”[511] This patriotic gloom is checked by another vision:-- “These measures have, in all probability, hastened that disruption of the New from the Old World, _which will begin a new era in the annals of mankind_, and produce a revolution more important, perhaps, than any that has happened in human affairs.”[512] Thus was American Independence heralded, and its influence foretold. Constantly sympathizing with America, and impressed by the magnitude of the issue, his soul found another utterance, in 1778, in what he called “The General Introduction and Supplement to the Two Tracts on Civil Liberty, the War with America, and the Finances of the Kingdom.” Here again he sees a vision:-- “A great people, likely to be formed, in spite of all our efforts, into free communities, under governments which have no religious tests and establishments. A new era in future annals, and a new opening in human affairs, beginning, among the descendants of Englishmen, in a new world. _A rising empire, extended over an immense continent, without bishops, without nobles, and without kings._”[513]