Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
The rapidity of communication from point to point has introduced such
vast effects in the march of improvement among distant lands as only
eye-witnesses can believe. The merchant in London who lays on a vessel
for a certain port regards the affair as a mere mercantile speculation,
but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest
ramifications he would stand astonished at the changes he produces. With
the wizard wand of commerce he touches a lone and trackless forest, and
at his bidding cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect, away
are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion.
The strongholds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel
is preached amongst ignorant and savage men. The ruder languages
disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around.
Such are the ultimate effects of the daily occupations of many men in the
City of London, who, seated in a dark and dingy counting-house in pursuit
of gain, form and execute schemes the eventual tenor and bearing of which
are not to enrich themselves but the human race. No doubt amongst the
mass are noble minds who have a perception of the true object of their
calling, who feel a just and laudable pride that they are the employers
and benefactors of mankind; whose names, even amongst distant hordes of
untaught men, pass current, as a security for probity and honour; who
write a few lines in London and move the antipodes; who within the last
fifty years have either actually erected or laid the stable foundation of
six great empires, offsets of that strong nation who, together with her
progeny, is overspreading the earth, not by the sword but by the gentle
arts of peace and beneficence.
GENERAL RESULTS OF GREAT MERCANTILE OPERATIONS.
In the earlier Colonies, founded by the great maritime powers of the
world, national hatred prevailed to a great degree, although war existed
not between the parent states: still, at distant points removed from the
immediate control of the law, the hatred of races found vent, cruelties
were committed, reprisals took place, and Europeans warred one upon
another. But England and America, as they progress in these regions,
spread a common language and a common faith, and no national antipathies
can be strictly said to exist between them.
TRADE OF THE AMERICANS WITH OUT-STATIONS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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