At this very moment, then, there are millions in the United States who personally, or whose immediate parents, have at one time been citizens of this country. They found a home in the Far West; they subdued the wilderness; they met with plenty there, which was not afforded them in their native country; and they have become a great people. There may be persons in England who are jealous of those States. There may be men who dislike democracy, and who hate a republic; there may be even those whose sympathies warm towards the slave oligarchy of the South. But of this I am certain, that only misrepresentation the most gross or calumny the most wicked can sever the tie which unites the great mass of the people of this country with their friends and brethren beyond the Atlantic. Now, whether the Union will be restored or not, or the South achieve an unhonoured independence or not, I know not, and I predict not. But this I think I know--that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions, or even fifty millions--a population equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. When that time comes, I pray that it may not be said amongst them, that, in the darkest hour of their country's trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness and saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. As for me, I have but this to say: I am but one in this audience, and but one in the citizenship of this country; but if all other tongues are silent mine shall speak for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South, and which tends to generous thoughts, and generous words, and generous deeds, between the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their origin are alike entitled to the English name. * * * * * AMERICA. II. THE WAR AND THE SUPPLY OF COTTON. BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 18, 1862. I am afraid there was a little excitement during a part of my honourable Colleague's speech, which was hardly favourable to that impartial consideration to which he appealed. He began by referring to a question-- or, I might say, to two questions, for it was one great question in two parts,--which at this moment occupies the mind, and, I think, must afflict the heart of every thoughtful man in this country--the calamity which has fallen upon the county from which I come, and the strife which is astonishing the world on the other side of the Atlantic.