From this coppice to Whitchurch is not more than about four miles, and we soon reached it, because here you begin to descend into the _vale_, in which this little town lies, and through which there runs that _stream_ which turns the mill of 'Squire Portal, and which mill makes the Bank of England Note-Paper! Talk of the Thames and the Hudson with their forests of masts; talk of the Nile and the Delaware bearing the food of millions on their bosoms; talk of the Ganges and the Mississippi sending forth over the world their silks and their cottons; talk of the Rio de la Plata and the other rivers, their beds pebbled with silver and gold and diamonds. What, as to their effect on the condition of mankind, as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoyments and the sufferings of men; what are all these rivers put together compared with the _river of Whitchurch_, which a man of threescore may jump across dry-shod, which moistens a quarter of a mile wide of poor, rushy meadow, which washes the skirts of the park and game preserves of that bright patrician who wedded the daughter of Hanson, the attorney and late solicitor to the Stamp-Office, and which is, to look at it, of far less importance than any gutter in the Wen! Yet this river, by merely turning a wheel, which wheel sets some rag-tearers and grinders and washers and re-compressers in motion, has produced a greater effect on the condition of men than has been produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the seas, all the mines and all the continents in the world. The discovery of America, and the consequent discovery and use of vast quantities of silver and gold, did, indeed, produce great effects on the nations of Europe. They changed the value of money, and caused, as all such changes must, _a transfer of property_, raising up new families and pulling down old ones, a transfer very little favourable either to _morality_, or to real and _substantial liberty_. But this cause worked _slowly_; its consequences came on by slow _degrees_; it made a transfer of property, but it made that transfer in so small a degree, and it left the property quiet in the hands of the new possessor _for so long a time_, that the effect was not violent, and was not, at any rate, such as to uproot possessors by whole districts, as the hurricane uproots the forests.