PREFACE. xi

the points marked in the general Chart, would not only connect both countries much more intimately 3:

than at present, but the resources of each would be 5

greatly augmented in value, and the importance of the British colonies would also be much better ap- preciated. I may observe, that the province of Nova

Scotia alone, if possessed by the United States, would ‘

render that Republic independent of all Europe; and, in the event of another war, when steam-ships will become terrible to all others, the Americans would be enabled, by possessing the exhaustless coal and iron mines of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, to defy the united naval force of all Europe on the shores of the western world.9K

At present the Americans have no coal within themselves that we know of, except the remarkably slow kindling anthracite, which is useless for the im- mediate fire required in the furnaces of steam-engines, while Great Britain now possesses the most valuable

treasures of the most useful of all minerals, coal and

iron, in the parts most convenient for immediate use,’

both in her home and colonial dominions.

The British North American colonies are, compa- ratively speaking, still in their infancy. To be con- vinced of this, we have only to compare what the 01d

* See the first chapter of the last Book of this volume.

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