Let us, however, before we descend from this noble
eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened
within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight
years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For
instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was
in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old
enough acta parentum jam legere, et quae sit potuit cognoscere virtus.
[Footnote: 17] Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing
the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the
most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision that when in the
fourth generation the third Prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve
years on the throne of that nation which, by the happy issue of moderate and
healing counsels, was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord
Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its
fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the
family with a new one--if, amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic
honor and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded
the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing with admiration on
the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a
little speck, scarcely visible in the mass of the national interest, a small
seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him: "Young man,
there is America--which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you
with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of
death, [Footnote: 18] show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now
attracts the envy of the world.
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