the mightiest foundation that any has been laid from the
beginning of the world to this day--

Illam arctâ capiens Neptunus compede stringit,
Hanc autem glaucis captus amplectitur ulnis.

The sea gives the law to the growth of Venice, but the growth
of Oceana gives the law to the sea.'

In the two centuries and a half which have passed over us
since these words were written, the increase of Oceana has ex-
ceeded the wildest dream of the most extravagant enthusiast.
Harrington would have been himself incredulous had he been
told that within a period so brief in the life of nations, more
than fifty million Anglo-Saxons would be spread over the vast
continent of North America, carrying with them their relig-
ion, their laws, their language, and their manners; that the
globe would be circled with their fleets; that in the Southern
Hemisphere they would be in possession of territories larger
than Europe, and more fertile than the richest parts of it; that
wherever they went they would carry with them the genius of
English freedom. Yet the vision is but half accomplished.
The people have gone out, they have settled, they have culti-
vated the land, they have multiplied, and although the pop-
ulation of Great Britain and Ireland is now seven-fold greater
than it was in the Protectorate of Cromwell, the number of
our kindred in these new countries is already double that
which remains in the mother country; but Harrington con-
templated that Oceana would be a single commonwealth em-
braced in the arms of Neptune, and the spell which can unite
all these communities into one has not yet been discovered.
The element on which he calculated to ensure the combination
--the popular form of government--has been itself the cause
which has prevented it. One free people cannot govern an-
other free people. The inhabitants of a province retain the
instincts which they brought with them. They can ill bear

-2-