As yet, the influence of California upon this country [England] is not so much felt by direct communication as through the medium of the States. A very large proportion of the English goods consumed in the country find their way there through the New York market, and in many cases in such a shape, as in articles manufactured in the States from English materials, that the actual value of the trade cannot be accurately estimated. The tide of emigration from this country to California follows very much the same course. The English are there, very numerous, but those direct from England bear but an exceedingly small proportion to those from the United States, from New South Wales, and other countries; and the latter, no doubt, possessed a great advantage, for, without undervaluing the merit of English mechanics and workmen in their own particular trade, it must be allowed that the same class of Americans are less confined to one speciality, and have more general knowledge of other trades, which makes them better men to be turned adrift in a new country, where they may have to employ themselves in a hundred different ways before they find an opportunity of following the trade to which they have been brought up. An English mechanic, after a few years’ experience of a younger country, without losing any of the superiority he may possess in his own trade, becomes more fitted to compete with the rest of the world when placed in a position where that speciality is unavailable. California has afforded the Americans their first opportunity of showing their capacity as colonists. The other States which have of late years been added to the Union, are not a fair criterion, for they have been created merely by the expansion of the outer circumference of civilization, by the restlessness of the backwoodsman unaided by any other class; but the attractions offered by California were such as to draw to it a complete ready-made population of active and capable men, of every trade and profession. The majority of men went there with the idea of digging gold, or without any definite idea of how they would employ themselves; but as the wants of a large community began to be felt, the men were already at hand capable of supplying them; and the result was, that in many professions, and in all the various branches of mechanical industry, the same degree of excellence was exhibited as is known in any part of the world.