Though our own countrymen have no reason to boast of the justice and humanity of their proceedings in America, yet, in comparison with those of the Spaniards, our possessions there were innocently acquired. Some of them gained by conquest, or cession, from Spain and from other European powers; some by contract with the natives, or by settlements on uninhabited lands[32]. We are now possessed of a series of colonies, extending above two thousand miles along the whole Eastern coast of North-America, besides many islands of immense value. These countries, instead of being thinly peopled by a few hordes of ignorant savages, are now adorned with many great cities, and innumerable rich plantations, which have made ample returns to their mother-country, for the dangers and expenses which attended their first establishment. Blessed with more natural advantages than almost any country in the world, they are making a swift progress in wealth and grandeur, and seem likely, in some future period, to be as much the seat of empire and of science as Europe is at present. Whether their attainments in virtue and happiness will keep pace with their advancement in knowledge, wealth, and power, is much to be questioned; for you will observe in your historical view of the several great empires of the world, that as each grew up towards the highest pitch of greatness, the seeds of destruction grew up with it; luxury and vice, by debasing the minds, and enervating the bodies of the people, left them all, in their turns, an easy prey to poorer and more valiant nations. In the East, the Europeans introduced themselves in a milder way; admitted first as traders--and, for the more commodious carrying on their commerce, indulged by the powers of the country in establishing a few small factories--they, by gentle degrees, extended and strengthened their settlements there, till their force became considerable enough to be thought an useful auxiliary to contending princes; and, as it has often happened to those who have called in foreign powers to interfere in their domestic contentions, by availing themselves of the disturbances of a dismembered monarchy, they at length raised a power almost independent of their employers. Soon, the several European nations, who had thus got footing in the Indies, jealous of each other's growing greatness, made the feuds of the native princes subservient to their mutual contests; till within a few years, the English, by a happy concurrence of circumstances, obtained the mastery, and expelled their rivals from all their considerable settlements.