ic:< ■C ^C «^^^ =:^ ^^^^^^^SS 'C*:^; ^s:? c <:r r< <^c fc'CX \' ' ^^. C<2 «CcvCs^ rrcc ^^ r cd ^ ' become, or will sooner or later become enlightened by the comprehension of the immortal wisdom contained in that document, and acts Tipon it by governing themselves, it adds the flowers of its soil, so that the mind may realize the harmony and beauty of the wreath, when in ages to come the same is finished, and the last barbarian, the most recluse savage of the antipodes, will have been converted, and is free in his home abroad. This wreath, so free from gaudiness, isso far now and wall be charming in the extreme ; beautiful butterflies and lovely humming birds hovering and fluttering everywhere above it, so as not to be deprived of their nourishment, nor alienated trom their floral abodes appointed by the all considering love of God. Wound it is, and carried from land to land by cherubs and by an- gels, lit upon by myriads of brilliant brightest stars of hope in the clear azure of the Heavens in sight of God and man. As the flora of the United States is as decidedly beaitiful as the indigenous flora of other isothermal countries of Europe and Asia, so is the flora and voluptuous expansion of the flowers in the valleys of tlie Amazon not more nor less attractive than ours and those of Mexico and other Central and South American Republics; but simply there indigenous and more prodigious under the vertical rays of a tropical sun in native soil, than science and transplantation could make them thrive here. The tiny mignonette of Northern Africa is well known to the entire civilized world, yet there it is planted by nature, its soil and climate adapted to its growth and the greater redo- lence of its exquisite perfume — not since 4004 years A. D.. but since time immemorial, especially as the Kulpas of the Hin- doos requires 4,450,448 cyphers following a unit to chronicle the myth of the commencement of the world. Science having divided terra firma into five divisions, all of which being con- nected either by land or narrow straits, which volcanic erup- tions created in separating the land, the dispersion over them of all that is living and animated in nature is sustained, chang- ing, from the time God created the world, the once original species of botany and zoology through unknown ages past and to come, into infinitesimal varieties of sizes and of colors, ac- cording to atmospheric influences on the respective soil of the lowlands, far away or close to oceans, densely forested, or plains, with or without large or small rivers, near or distant from the tablelands and the altitudes of mountains of the various isothermal meridians of both hemispheres from the arctic to the antarctic circle of this planet, which God's love blessed us to inhabit and find everywhere so beautiful. This love of the children of the earth to the Heavenly Father, to fill their hearts with ti'uest and purest that the soul be imbued with entire, and can fleet to its heavenly abode, while the un- derstanding abstains to fathom what reason admits is decreed to be unfathomable, is the doctrine of Christianity. TJie Bible, thererefore, is on board my little craft in vast quantities, ti-anslated into every tongue to be handed to, in order to be daily distributed by the missionaries of both Protestants and Roman Catholics, that they may continue their glorious labor as the blessed pioneers of the diffusion of the divine faith through three-fourths of mankind unchristian- ized this day. The Bible is at 3ast, and will indeed be more gratefully re- ceived by the intelligent Chinese as a polite set-off on our part to their persevering efforts to add to the civilization of the civilized world by the distribution among the latter of one hundred million pounds of tea per atmum, their surplus stock after nourishing three hundred and sixty million Chinese, two-fifths of all mankind, (and the Japanese their twenty-five millions); the more estimable on the part of the yellow race of that specially soiled and climated country as the opium pressed upon them by Europe is in return paid for by them to the world at large in blessings through this nutritious plant. The cargo in ioto and the ship, as conjoined property of the United States, go fully insured by the power, the wealth and the honor of the nation in safe keeping at home, by the har- monious efibrts of their honorable elect of republican and democratic representatives in Congress assembled, to make them hcippy and contented in their homes ; guarded abroad, because beloved and respected by the best all over the world, at the same time well known as a retributive power of invul- nerable strength to the war advocate, the destroyer of good, the assailant, able at any time, though from principles of high- minded peacefulness and humanity, always reluctant lo deci- mate at will. With the flag of the Union flying, destined never to change, nor ever to fall except to take up and embrace additional stars in its sacred folds, the world knows the graceful ship on all the oceans, and in all the harbors of the universe. THE VOYAGE. The intense interest felt by the American people in the manao-ement of their foreign relations entrusted to Mr. Secre- tary Seward as minister of State, having been naturally created through territorial acquisitions made abroad and planned by the sagacious foresight of so very able a statesman, it now becomes a topic of the most animated discussion throughout the United States, to fully comprehend in order to properly appreciate, if not the nation's state secrets, at least the doctrine of the astute policy which has brought into possession new tracts of land and strategical footholds outside of our present boundaries, without incurring the enmity of other nations, nor at anything like a prodigal expenditure from the treasury, in view and memory of our incurred indebtedness. The acquisitions of Alaska and of the Danish West India Islands, the pending negotiations for the cession of the Bay of Samana, and of a large province in Northern Borneo, the treaties of amity and commerce with the Columbian Govern- ment, with the Kinos of Madaa:ascar at Antananarivo and of the Fejeeans at Ban, the consummate ability manifested by the success of our diplomacy in Japan and China, which has opened Hiogo and Osaca in Japan, and may cede to us the Peninsula of Woo Sung, a very commanding and eligible foot- hold in China, near the most extensive tea districts, all these and similar events have to be viewed, not in a commercial point of view only,norin a naval point in case of war, but in their direct and indirect, present and future consequences combined. In- directly, foremost and momentously in relation to the hasty absorption, more than ever since the end of our war, of available lands abroad by the English and especially the French nation, to the obvious detriment of the United States. By being in advance of us they depiive us of the most desirable lands and harbors abroad, expecting to largely realize those commercial profits which are always derived from the raw material in a sale to us at their convenience upon our necessity. The most advan- tageous consequences emanating and dei'ived from our present foreign policy are therefore emphatically prospective. To direct universal attention to them is the actual purpose of these my humble endeavors, proving my own gratitude to this country, — the greatest honor attainable in civilization. To promulgate these ideas which imbue every reflecting mind, and while they kindle a proper cosmopolitan national spirit, a new emotion demanded by our greatness, by the times and our destiny, will make the arduous labors much easier to the Secretary of State than heretofore, when the necessary, withal trifling money, was begrudged to him for his great designs, un- fathomable outside of diplomacy, instead of the treasury of the nation held open to his free avail, whose genius is long con- ceded does not find its equal in the country, nor his love of the Union ever known to stagnate within the present boundaries. I have alluded to the steady inc. ease of pro^iperity vi'ithin the United States requiring proportionately increasing imports of raw materials from latitudes south of Key West, which we at present receive from other nations at a high cost instead of planting and obtaining the respective tropical produce and materials there ourselves for Vv^ant of requisite lands only. The allied English and French nations, constituting together with us the governing power of the world, have previous to the end of our war considered the American nation, with which their present governments can never fraternize, as living on a huge and isolated continent, never interfering abroad, but 8 quietly awaiting future centuries to see it properly populated, and to be at any time wealthy enough not to care about that trifle of money which the produce amounts to necessary to have that growth outside of latitude thirty, towards the Equator only, and in equal latitudes north of thirty in the southern hemisphere, but which they and other nations and colonies within the tropics export and sell to us, footing up however, hundreds of millions of dollars per annum, (inclusive always of the exports to us from China and Japan); a very convenient appanage to royal governments most certainly. Politically shut out from the Occident by the Monroe doc- trine, they knew well that our faith as republicans would never be lost towardsthe small republics of Central and South America, while their own philanthropic intentions in apolitical pursuit of a purpose on this continent did not come up to our standard of appreciation, as the French inroads into Mexico have but lately demonstrated. Therefore Asia, Oceanica, and Africa drew tlieir main atten- tion, accelerated their separate actions by our building the seven days railroad, thereby connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, and running steamers regularly under government subsidies in direct connection therewith to Japan and China, transporting the railway portable commerce of the United States at large, destined for competition with them in that great caldron of the world's goods, known for ages past to be Asia with its six hundred millions of people — from New York west via San Francisco, as far at present as the Tropics of China, until we shall unfrrl our flag on Borneo, the com- manding and dignifi;-d centre of our future vast commerce with the entire Orient, and not China and Japan only — in little over a month, at a gain of four months over five upon the present laborious route from New York east, via Cape of Good Hope, by sailing vessel. The twofold consequences, so destructive to their interests, becoming to them apparent — that we would speedily cease to be their customers for supplies of tropical raw materials, and furthermore would turn around upon them and enter the great market of China with our manufactures under advantages of geographical proximity from San Francisco, and constitute our- selves their most formidable rival in the Orient generally — their policy is exjilained; but which the genius and the indefat- igable energy of Mr. Secretary Seward have long ago fathomed, counteracted, and the dangerous consequences to us frustrated and averted, by as far as we have already negotiated for land, and sncceeded in forming treaties of amity and commerce with nations all over the world. Of all the acquisitions which we have formed up to date, the Island of Borneo is by far the most important. Its posi- tion commands the Pacific and Indian Ocean, like Singapore, in the interest of the English; isadjacentto China within three days steam, and to all the Islands of Malaysia, Polynesia, and Australasia, comprising Oceanica, as well as the great British Empire in India. Our vast commerce with the entire Orient can best radiate from there; the territory is large; the natives intelligent, inhabit the island by millions, and will serve us willingly, clearing the fertile valleys for tillage, anticipating the time when we shall rival with the Dutch in their adjacent colonies on our own plantations in the yield of costly spices. Ever since steam has monopolized sail, the time annihilator, tlie contractor of distances, demands of us the due appreciation of this, one of the greatest triumphs in civilization, that we are bound to make ourselves aufait abroad. A nation like ourselves, composed of the important elements of enterprising spirit, love of venture, and of intelligence in contradistinction to those who remain in Europe supposed to lack the aforesaid standard qualifications, not being unavoidably prevented, finding themselves this day within a month either ti'oni San Francisco west, or from New York east, at any given point on the globe, are called upon by the force of advance in civilization to interest themselves nationally by the good will of fellowship in the affairs of all the world. Peace having subdued war is another weighty reason for so doing, especially as Republicans are not seriously attacked by non-republicans in this age. Love of fellowship, like all love, a natural prompting to actions which make happy, secures happiness by advocating peace. Therefore through peace only is liberty appreciated ; the fondest desire of the heart of each individual of being unitedly hap[)y without hindrance, which, forming theUnion nationally, is in our nation from the strength of the unity of millions everlasting, as secur- ing freedom from hindrance from without or through malcon- tents from within, to be here and at all times unitedly happy; therefore, interwoven is the heart, which loves with the soul, which inspires the mind to intellectually appreciate the natural promptings of the heart and which no uncivilized coercion denominated war, external or internal, can ever out- root, stamping alike every enlightened monarch abroad, or learned sophist with us — the latter, who relinquishes his faith 10 in the divine ordinance of the Union not from want of inspir- ation of the truth, but from the predominancy of iiis weak- nesses over the natural nobility of his soul, lost entire by its severance from the heart because chilled throucrh neglect it ceased to love, — both as " bitter inconsistents" until the one voluntarily lays down the scepter and becomes a plain citizen of the nation of his birth, estimated by his worth of good, and the other reads the declaration of independence twice over until he comprehends that no individual wrong, no sacrifice of wealth and self interest, in fact no crucification of any sort terrestrial whatsoever, can ever alienate him from his faith in the eternal perpetuity of the union here and to mankind. As well might he cease to be a christian because there is no visible road to heaven laid down on the maps on earth, if he will consider terrestrial sacrifices of all sorts sufficient reason for abandoning his faith in the union an integral part of the christian religion, illustrated by the beautiful text, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." So much for those who are born, live prosperously, yet are not satisfied, and die in this country without having ever traveled abroad, viewing similar to the monarch tliei'e sur- rounded by flatterers unable to fathom the trutli of their assertions, the condition of this country, not knowing of the abject misery of the millions abroad, engendered by non- republican institutions, nor graduated personally in the school of adversity here necessary to go through entire, by their own individual labor, mental or physical, according to capacity and voluntary impulse they may select and prefer in this land of endless progress in order to reach the high road to truth, of the knowledge of the condition of their own and the necessities of others, whicli alone leads to the eternal appreciation of the union and a sacred hallowed love for freedom and independence forever. Exactly as each being is endowed with mind, but individ- ually no one knows the secret of the extent and brightness of its faculties, God's own allwise rule of nature, so are we here gathering together to assist each other in drawing out its force in justice to each other. We grasp the hand of fellow- ship with fervency and warmth that we may be indispens- able to each other in the pursuits of daily life, unitedly to form in harmony and sympathy a phalanx of moral and un- equaled strength, which is progress. Such is the condition of the great American people piti- fully incomprehensible to the cold-hearted individual enscon- 11 cing himself within bivalve shells to mood over in disgust with all the world the loss of his will and vigor to progress exhausted by this molluscan life of shallowest inertness. The solitary pearl within, so pure and silvery white, so trans- lucent and bright, when found in a cluster of these shells, may well grace the beauty of fashion of the refined and the warmheaited, the really good and liighminded among the rich, whom no ironclad etiquette of conventionality of ante-feudal origin prevents bestowing theii' personal affection and attach- ment at their convenience, and at any time wdien the heart feels and prompts the natural impulse, upon those whom they know to be equally good but not so rich. It is here the heart which courses so warmly. None be ever who check its flow- ing. It is the mother who firstly in infancy draws out its gentle streamlet, which winds itself through life, a majestic stream harboring every happiness. A slight to the refined is similar to beholding the ebullition of a temper lost, more pain- ful to the heart than both are hurtful in their consequences. To anticipate another's desire, a delightful moment to live in which the heart prepares for action which make happy and produce friends. To notice the good, and to not notice the bad as being not good, because the heart from its acute sensi- tiveness becoming cliilled is tremulously averted from what does not elate it, is the carpeted and macadamized road to happiness in private and in public life ; by it one lives in sun- shine of the smiles from all the world, and is happy at home. As the cut which answers to the slight, the more imperceptible its resentment the more well bred considered the person ; so are the cuts which war gives by millions to resent the national insult not any more heartless because they cut into flesh, prostrating the body, or kill, but demonstrate the painful fact of the existence of a want of national governing of the tem- per of the people en 7iuissc. The more generally civilization advances, the more good will eschew evil, through the gaining of the former of a preponderating and annihilatinginfluenceover the latter. So be viewed our war, such our position now to- wards Europe and all the world. Ahead are our strides in our progress of all the nations. The united advance of all to pro- duce, none to idle, to hold fast to each by noticing the good in him which will best destroy the bad, we honor the republic, those glorious institutions as founded upon love of fellowship, justice to each, and protection to all. Tlius are heralded the united virtues in life as victor over vice. My allegory becomes a reality, my state ship continuing her course under full steam, with all sails set. 12 THE NEWS FROM EUROPE. I have asserted that peace has subdued war because the Prussian needle gun, our Rodman 15-inch cannon, our monitors, the French Chassepot rifle, etc., would end any war ahnost immediately. For this reason the European nations do not war with each other ; for this reason all Europe does not war with us. No monarch nor non-republican government can but foresee their speedy downfall, if now a universal slaughter should take place, arousing the millions in Europe to terrible anger. Unfortunately not yet everywhere alike matured in the capacity of governing themselves, though far less zealously hindered to cultivate all knowledge by more enlightened governments at present, which the crowned heads well know must terminate in their own final overthrow, a great European war would but wage now as heretofore in horrible catas- trophes, and finish after all by substituting one sovereign for another. Therefore, the cooling beverage which the health- fully agitated millions are now lavishingly regaled by to best allay their excitement are the fetes at which peace is advocated, the useless sacrifice of lives gallantly prevented in order that no rule of horror may ensue and be mistaken for a republic, but which at the same time discovers the sly fact that the thrones vvith their dazzling splendor remain until an indefinite period longer, when tlie millions shall have advanced to know- ledge universally sufficient to be lastingly able, as we are, to govern themselves. The thrones would then surrender quietly, and war and coercion be a phantom. My little craft, having visited Japan, 'China, the French in Cochin China, inspected our own harbors in Borneo, delighted the Dutch and Spanisli in Malaysia by its beautiful symmetry and swiftness, passed India, now enters the Straits of Bab El Mandeb, and noticing at once the formidable prepa- rations by the British Empire for a war with the bagatelle king Theodorus, gave Admiral Farragut much to reflect upon ; how, for instance, the British Empire will be augmented by at least fifty millions of Africans tributary in their homet;, south of the Sahara dowm to Cape Colony, to the British nation, upon the reports of Livingstone, Bayard Taylor, Over- wez, du Chaillu, and others to the Geographical Society of London, that the entire interior of Africa is exceedingly fertile 13 and rich, and might as well be connected with the British Empire in India by a week's regular steam from Bombay. Commencing with Abyssinia, in a course due west, skirting the desert of Sahara, away from its burning Soioccos, the horrible kings of Dahomey and Ashantee would at last be reached in their dens of skulls and scalps, with whom the poisonous upas among mankind — slavery — is indigenous. There to outroot on the spot the deadly plant, that no roots and shoots remain which can ever sprout, will be the task of the English nation, assisted by our ai jacent colony of Liberia, and our now sending colored representatives to Monrovia to undertake tlie commencement, on a large scale, of educating the millions there. Another feature has struck Admiral Farragut as most momentous in the interest of the English, that the two con- tinents of Asia and Africa divided by the narrow straits of Bab El Mandeb, with forts on both sides at Aden in Arabia, and Massowah, Anesley Bay in Abyssinia, would forever com- mand the outlet from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean similar to Gibraltar commands the outlet from the Mediter- ranean into the Atlantic Ocean, so that in case of war with the French or Russians, should ever the former command the canal of Suez, or the latter have hurried the man so often sick at Constantinople, (but since the enfeebled Turk sends here for best medical advice, and drinks congress water, is hopeful of recovery), they would both be effectually entrapped within the Red Sea, as well as in the Mediteranean, unable to disturb the English in India from the sea. Connected with these observations stands the joyfid reflec- tion upon the steady advance of the great German nation, as extending under the distinguished leadership of Bismark abroad; lor instance, with the colonies of Holland in Malaysia, in possession as possible, and in prospective made probable by the great reform movement, now acted upon throughout Europe, at last in favor of freedom of the people in con- centrating their respective nationalities, of which the German is the most widely spread, including in this view Holland, (as indeed it does Belgium and provinces of France and Russia besides), under but comparatively few European Governments, against so many for ages past. The future Empress of Germany, being the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, will be most affectionately received by the British nation, wherever the manifest destiny of Ger- many should develop itself abroad, especially in Malaysia, 14 where, together with the rising colony of Australia, the ultimate destiny of which, from geographical position, is the development of the Pacific islands in the southern hemisphere, such colonies would constitute a very harmoniz- ing neighborhood to the British empire in India. The Fiench in the meantitne have settled in Cochin China, and have an eye of scrutiny everywhere among the islands of Polynesia, so that few hinds all over the world will soon be left unpartitioned off if we are not constnntly vigilant, and assist the Honorable Secretary of State by the voice of the nation. Our acquisition of Northern Borneo stands therefore again in high relief, especially since the Australians are settling in organized companies, and at first on the next best and largest island of Papua, or New Guinea. Australia may be called the twin sister of California — both on the Pacific — and dating their birth by their gold discoveries, almost at the same period, destined therefore to develop the Pacific simultaneously. In the meantime. Admiral Farragut has visited the King of the Cannibal Islands, as commander Fabius Stanley of the flagship Tuscarora had done previously, remonstrating with and deterring that equivocal gentleman at Ban and Lavuka, in the Fejees, from further permitting any of his ravenous subjects to eat our sailors when they get shipwrecked, are unarmed or sick, and demanded a guarantee for future non- diabolical behavior in the shape of three islands, one of which is said to have an excellent harbor, which we hold and badly need for our sperm whalers from Nantucket and New Bedford when in distress. The prosperity of California is most directly affected by a speedy territorial expansion among the islands of the Pacific, because of the facilities such lands would afford additionally to the equally indispensable future, southern branches of the great Central Pacific railroad to lay cotton down here at the lowest possible estimate of freight and time, as indeed from every known island in the Pacific, producing cotton, as well as from New Orleans, in order that our rising manufac- turers here may be enabled to compete with New York in the general 'proforma invoice of their goods, as are laid down in Asia via San Francisco, which goods from the east generally, will always and inevitably be burdened with the high expense of transport overland to San Francisco, at the rate of $90 per ton, more or less, from which very particular item we are 15 here of course exempt, having hut the ship freiglit to add to Asia, which they have likewise, with loss of time and for- warding commissions hei'e besides, on all their bills of lading passing through San Francisco en route for the Orient. Without such facilities New York would compete with San Francisco and California generally in Asia, in spite of the cost of transport overland, on account of its greater facili- ties to receive the cotton from the southern states, setting aside the questions of capital and labor in this particular calculation. The great labor question so intimately interwoven with the question of immigration into California, the question of all importance, dear to every Californian to dwell upon, to further and to advance, must, in my opinion, soon regulate itself, by the mechanic, and the laborer now in factories at the East, being furnished with a guarantee that we can sell, what they here may manufacture, and they will come en masse. The great reason of their not having as yet come by thousands was, that for the twenty years past we had but gold and silver to offer, which to obtain by hard labor and in spite of hard labor is not always certain ; while now with manu- factui'cs which we can sell in markets direct, like Japan, China and India, our wages are guaranteed to them higher than at the East, because we are, many things considered, comparatively richer, and then above all our employment can be, from the fact and consequence of having an unlimited jirofitable and constant demand from abroad, permanent to them, w^hich alone can induce a laborer, as father of a family, to leave home, persuade his family to leave with him, when at the expense of the last dollar in many instances. But once equal in facilities to New York to obtain cotton sufficiently and cheaply, we shall receive all the labor needed from the east, as our lovely climate is certainly an extra in- ducement to a family man who comes here with his mind firmly made up upon reasons as the above to stay here and settle permanently. Until we have overcome the obstacles of a regular receipt and of sufficient supplies of not only cotton, but other raw materials, at a cost of transportation at least similar to New York, we will have to content ourselves with being the subservient half-way station for the entire railway portable commerce of the Atlaniic States to and from Asia via San Francisco, and instead of thousands of looms and a population of millions, we shall have nothing but " bales of through bills of lading," and any amount of acres at a dollar and a quarter left for sale. 16 The farmer at the East, well knowing that we had up to now no legitimate foothold in Asia, either in China itself or in Malaysia, from which to systematically persevere in introduc- ing our flour to the rice eating Chinese, three hundred and sixty millions of people, but had to go back to the East and Liverpool in long and risky voyages, where they are much nearer to and go to quickly, knowing all about the risks and conditions of those fickle markets there, would naturally enough prefer staying where they are, not leaving a home in a hurry out of sheer love of adventure, without calculating. But now the farmers will come in large bodies, because our condition is altogether changed ; we shall sell immense quantities of flour and wheat in Cliina, the very latest news from there being exceedingly favorable to the tJnited States commerce with China, which always implies greater ad- vantages to San Francisco than to New York. The Chinese government having appointed an ambassador to all the treaty powers in the person of our former minister at Pekin, the Honorable Anson Burlingame, guarantee to us Californians through that very fact the certainty of a quick and immense increase of commerce direct with China to and from San Francisco. With such vast commercial prospects ahead, a sanguine hope consolidates itself into a positive reality that now the Eastern States will rise in a body and earnestly in their in- terests view their future there and ours here, and correctly compare the two. Intelligent and quick to a degree to con- ceive the foundation of the truth of our present multitudinous advantages giving us such a dec'ded preference over all the Atlantic States, they will now immigrate here in large num- bers with their families and regularly, because the permanent employment more even than higher wages is what shall strike and convince them as resting upon the certainty that the goods which they here shall manufacture can be sold in the everlast- ing market of Asia, at a profit over New York. From Ireland Germany, and Europe generally, we may expect a large im- misration direct instead of via New York. «3C«Cc card: c: —J ^t'-- jC'C^^C =^.' ■ ■<-- S-^_ ^.crv^-c. ''<:«^Cic: