Hydrographically speaking, either Liverpool or Bristol surpasses London in its claims to be the British metropolis. But as England's chief commerce flows from the eastward, to accommodate it she must select for her metropolis the shores of the most accessible, capacious, and sheltered water on that side of the island. The result is London,--a city backed by an almost imperceptible fraction of the vast interior which pays tribute to New York,--having a harbor of far less capacity than New York, and without any of its far-reaching ramifications,--provided with a totally inadequate drainage-system, operating by a river which New-Yorkers would shudder to accept for the purposes of a single ward,--and supporting a population of three million souls upon her brokerage in managing the world's commerce. New York has every physical advantage over her in site, together with an agricultural constituency of which she can never dream, and every opportunity for eventually surpassing her as a depot of domestic manufactures. London can never add arable acres to her suite, while only the destruction of the American people can prevent us from building ten up-country mills to every one which manufactures for her market. She has merely the start of us in time; she has advanced rapidly during the last fifty years, but New York has even more rapidly diminished the gap. No wonder that British capitalists will sacrifice much to see us perish,--for it is pleasanter to receive than to pay balance of exchange, even in the persons of one's prospective great-grandchildren.