text:  Passing swiftly over to the Western Continent gaze at our vast possessions _there_ also--in British North America--containing considerably upwards of four millions of square geographical miles of land; that is nearly a ninth part of the whole terrestrial surface of the globe![1]--besides nearly a million and a half miles of water--five hundred thousand of these square miles being capable and in rapid progress of profitable cultivation! at more than three thousand miles' distance from the mother country and in immediate juxtaposition to the territory of our distinguished but jealous descendants and rivals--a rising nation--the United States! Pausing here in the long catalogue of our foreign possessions let our fancied observer turn back his eye towards the little island that owns them; will he not be filled with wonder possibly with a conviction that Great Britain is destined by Almighty God to be the instrument of effecting His sublime but hidden purposes with reference to humanity? Assume however our observer to be actuated by a hostile and jealous spirit and to regard our foreign possessions and the national greatness derived from them as only nominal and apparent--to insinuate that we could not really hold them or vindicate our vaunted supremacy if powerfully challenged and resented