Not only is the new power to take an independent place, but it is “to change the system of Europe.” For all this its people are amply prepared. “Standing on that high ground of improvement up to which the most enlightened parts of Europe have advanced, like eaglets they commence the first efforts of their pinions from a towering advantage.”[535] This same conviction appears in another form:-- “North America has advanced and is every day advancing to growth of state with a steady and continually accelerating motion, of which there has never yet been any example in Europe.”[536] “It is a vitality, liable indeed to many disorders, many dangerous diseases; but it is young and strong, and will struggle, by the vigor of internal healing principles of life, against those evils, and surmount them.… Its strength will grow with its years.”[537] He then dwells in detail on “the progressive population” of the country; on its advantage in lying “on another side of the globe, where it has no enemy”; on the products of the soil, among which is “bread-corn to a degree that has wrought it to a staple export for the supply of the Old World”; on the fisheries, which he calls “mines producing more solid riches to those who work them than all the silver of Potosi”; on the inventive spirit of the people; and on their commercial activity.[538] Of such a people it is easy to predict great things; and our prophet announces,-- 1. That the new state will be “a great naval power,” exercising a peculiar influence on commerce, and, through commerce, on the political system of the Old World,--becoming the arbitress of commerce, and perhaps the mediatrix of peace.[539] 2. That ship-building and the science and art of navigation have made such progress in America that her people will be able to build and navigate cheaper than any country in Europe, even Holland, with all her economy.[540] 3. That the peculiar articles to be had from America only, and so much sought in Europe, must give Americans a preference in those markets.[541] 4. That a people “whose empire stands singly predominant in a great continent” can hardly “suffer in their borders the establishment of such a monopoly as the European Hudson’s Bay Company”; that it cannot be stopped by Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope; that before long “they will be found trading in the South Sea and in China”; and that “the Dutch will hear of them in Spice Islands.”[542] 5. That by constant intercommunion of business and correspondence, and by increased knowledge with regard to the ocean, “America will seem every day to approach nearer and nearer to Europe”; that “a thousand attractive motives will … become the irresistible cause of _an almost general emigration to that New World_”; and that “many of the most useful, enterprising spirits, and much of the active property, will go there also.”[543]