The power of France in the interior of America, which had extended from Canada to Louisiana, and which formed a line of posts for its boundary along this immense internal frontier, kept the British Colonies in a state of constant alarm; and, by consequence, in a state of continual dependence on England. But the English possession of Canada, in 1763, and the cession of Louisiana to Spain at the same period, as they lessened the alarms, loosened the allegiance of the British colonies. The next steps were more obvious. The war of the United States, in which France was an auxiliary, inflamed the French population with the hope of breaking down the strength of England and the aristocracy of France. But the expense of equipping the French allied force fell heavy on an exchequer already burthened by the showy extravagance of the Regent Orleans, and by the gross profligacies of Louis XV. To relieve the exchequer, the States General were summoned; and from that moment began the Revolution. The European war was the result of a republican government, and the conquest of the Continent the result of placing Napoleon on the throne of the empire. What further results may be still preparing are beyond our knowledge; but it can scarcely be conceived that the chain is yet finally broken.

But before we take leave of California, we must do it the justice to speak of San Barbara, which, as the author rather emphatically expresses it, is to Monterey "what the parlour is to the kitchen."

The bay is an unfavourable one, being exposed to the "worst winds of the worst season." But the town having been selected as the favourite retreat of the more respectable functionaries of the province, Santa Barbara exhibits the charms of aristocratic manners. The houses, externally, are superior to any others on the coast, and, internally, exhibit taste in their furniture and ornament. The ladies excite the author's pen into absolute rapture; their sparkling eyes and glossy hair, are, in themselves, sufficient to negative the idea of tameness or insipidity, while their sylph-like figures exhibit fresh graces at every step. This is supported by the more important qualities, of "being by far the more industrious half of the community, and performing their household duties with cheerfulness and pride."

The men are a handsome race, and the greatest dandies imaginable, completely modelled on the Andalusian Majo, and displaying the finest linen, the most embroidered pantaloons, and the most glittering jackets in the western world. Of course, it cannot be expected of any Spaniards that they should do much, and beaux so fine cannot be expected to do any thing. Accordingly, his day is spent in riding from house to house, on a horse as fine as himself, a living machine of trappings, and the nights in dancing, billiard-playing, and flirting.

In all countries where serious things are habitually turned into trifles, trifles become serious things. "The balls, in fact, seem more like a matter of business than any thing else that is done in California. For whole days beforehand, sweetmeats are laboriously prepared in the greatest variety, and from beginning to end of the festivities, which have been known to last several successive nights, so as to make the performers, after wearing out their pumps, trip it in sea-boots, both men and women displaying as much gravity as if attending the funeral of their friends."

A still more humanising portion of their tastes is their passion for music. The guitar is heard in every house. Father, mother, and child are all playing and singing; and, to the praise of their taste be it spoken, playing nothing but the fandangoes, seguidillas, and ballads of Spain; the truest, purest, and most touching of all music; well worth all the hammered harmonies of the German school, and all the long-winded and laborious bravuras of the Italian. The Spanish music is the most refined, and yet the most natural, in the world.

We are glad to see this experienced judge of men and things speaking of the Californians as "a happy people possessing the means of physical pleasure to the full," even though he qualifies the opinion by their "knowing no higher kind of enjoyment."

It is true, that the Englishman, who knows what intellectual enjoyment is, will not abandon that highest, though most toilsome, of all gratifications, for inferior indulgences; but it would be a fortunate hour for the Englishman when he could get rid of some portion of the toil that wears away his life, in exchange for the lighthearted pleasures and simple occupations of foreign existence. Nor is there any man who less prefers the dogged round of his cheerless exertions, or who is more genuinely susceptible of essential enjoyment. We even think that the cultivated Englishman has a finer relish for enjoyment than the man of any other country. The caperings of the Frenchman, or the grimaces of the Italian, have but little connexion with the mind. All foreigners seem wretched when they have no physical excitement. There is not a more miserable object on earth, than a Frenchman wandering through the streets of London on a Sunday, when he can neither see the print shops in the day, nor go to the play at night. The German is heart-broken for the same reason, and shrouds himself and his sorrow in double clouds of smoke. The Italian would worship Diana of Ephesus, or the Great African Snake, if its pageantry, or puppet-show, would enable him to get through the day of closed shops and no opera! Yet, contemptible as this restless hunting after nothings is, it would be fortunate for us if we could qualify the severity and constancy of our national toil by some mixture of the lighter pursuits of the Continent.

The fertility of California is boundless; it produces every thing that human appetite can desire. In the Mission-garden of San Gabriel were produced grapes, oranges, lemons, olives, figs, bananas, plums, peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, &c. &c., while in the adjoining Mission were found in addition, tobacco, the plantain, the cocoa-nut, the indigo plant, and the sugar cane.

But Nature is nothing, in this country, without a miracle; and the history of every village probably furnishes its legend. The Missions, however, may be presumed to be the peculiar favourites of Heaven.

"When Padre Pedro Cambon, and Padre Somera, were selecting a site for the Mission, escorted by ten soldiers, a multitude of Indians, armed, presented themselves, and setting up horrid yells, seemed determined to oppose its establishment. The fathers, fearing that war would ensue, took out a piece of cloth with the image of our Lady upon it, and held it up in view of the barbarians. This was no sooner done, than the whole were quiet, being subdued by the sight of this most precious image; and throwing on the ground their bows and arrows, their two captains came running to lay the beads, which they had round their necks, at the feet of the Sovereign Queen, in proof of their tender regard." We recommend the trial of this holy Cloth on General Taylor.

But there is no limit to the richness of this region. The valley of the Zulares, in the neighbourhood, would support millions of people. Its lakes and rivers all abound in fish, its forests have all kinds of trees, some of them growing to a size which, but for the force of testimony, would be incredible. One of these is stated by Humboldt as of one hundred and eighteen feet in girth. "But this is a walking-stick compared with another at Bodega, as described to Sir George by Governor Etholine, of Sitka." It is thirty-six Russian fathoms (seven feet each) in span, and seventy-five in height; so that, if tapered into a perfect cone, it would contain nearly twenty-two thousand tons of bark and timber. In addition, the valley contains immense herds of wild horses, in troops of several thousands each. What a country will this be, when it shall fall into the hands of an intelligent people!

The last of the five posts, San Diego, is, next to San Francisco, the best harbour in the province. Thus, Upper California contains, at its opposite extremities, two of the best harbours on the Pacific Ocean; each of them being enhanced in value by the distance of any others worthy of the name, San Francisco being nearly one thousand miles from Port Discovery in the north, and San Diego six hundred miles from the Bay of Magdalena in the south.

That in the hands of any vigorous possessors this country would form a most powerful kingdom, is beyond all question; and Sir George Simpson evidently thinks that it might easily be acquired, and with a legitimate claim too, by England. But the still higher question is the policy of a perpetual increase of territory. England already has in America a larger extent of territory than she can people for five hundred years to come. But the possession of California, and perhaps of the whole extent of the Mexican provinces, is on the eve of decision; the American invasion has found no resistance that can deserve the name. The Mexicans fly in every quarter, and a few discharges of cannon put them to flight by thousands. At this moment the whole Mexican Republic, equal in size to half a dozen European States, appears to be crumbling into fragments. The rambling expeditions of the Americans are ravaging it in all directions with impunity, and armies which might have been long since annihilated by a mere guerilla war, have been suffered to march from city to city, with scarcely more resistance than a cattle-stealing skirmish. By the last intelligence, San Juan d' Ulloa has fallen, and Vera Cruz has capitulated after a siege of only three days and a half. The castle is the strongest fortification in the Western World—and, as Napoleon said of Malta, "It is lucky that it had somebody inside to open the gates for us:" the garrison of this fortress seems to have been placed there merely for the purpose of surrendering it. But, whatever may be the fate of men who had such a fortress to defend, and yet whose defence actually cost the assailants but seventeen killed! there can be but one feeling of commiseration for the unhappy inhabitants of Vera Cruz, on whom was rained, day and night, a shower of shot and shell amounting to more than seven thousand of those tremendous missiles. It is computed that the slaughter, and that slaughter chiefly of women and children, amounts to thousands. These are terrible things, even where they may be supposed the necessities of war. But here we can discover no necessity—Vera Cruz was no fortification, it was nearly an open town. We recollect no similar instance of a bombardment. In Europe, it has long been a rule of military morals, that no open city shall ever be bombarded. We believe it to be the boast of the first living soldier in the world—and we could have no more honourable one—that he never suffered a city to be bombarded; from the obvious fact, that the chief victims were the helpless inhabitants, while the soldiery are sheltered by the casemates and bomb-proofs.

At all events, we must regard the contest as decided. The Government has exhibited nothing more than a sullen resolution; and the people little more than the apathy of their own cattle; the troops have exhibited no evidence of discipline, and the only resource of the Finance has been in the wild projects of an empty Exchequer. Whether the United States will be the more prosperous for this conquest, is a question of time alone. Whether the facility of the conquest may not make the multitude frantic for general aggression,—whether the military men of the States may not obtain a popularity and assume a power which has been hitherto confined to civil life,—whether the attractions of military career may not turn the rising generation from the pursuits of trade and tillage, to the idle, or the ferocious life of the American campaigner,—and whether the pressure of public debt, the necessity for maintaining their half-savage conquests by an army, and the passion for territorial aggrandisement, may not urge them to a colonial war with England,—are only parts of the great problem which the next five-and-twenty years will compel the American Republic to solve.

At the same time, we cannot avoid looking upon the invasion of Mexico as a portion of that extraordinary and mysterious agency which is now shaking all the great stagnant districts of the world; which has already awaked Turkey in Europe and in Asia Minor; which has brought Egypt into civilised action; which has broken down the barbarism of the Algerines, and planted the French standard in place of the furies and profligacies of African Mahometanism. Deeply deprecating the guilt of those aggressions, and condemning the crimes by which they have been sustained, we cannot but regard changes so unexpected, so powerful, and so simultaneous, as the operation of a higher power than man's, with objects altogether superior to the shortsightedness of man, and amply bearing the character of working good out of evil, which belongs to the history of Divine Providence in all the ages of the world.

There is one peculiarity in these volumes which we cannot sufficiently applaud, and that is, the thoroughly English spirit in which they are written. Without weak partiality, for the reasons are every where assigned; without narrow prejudice, for the facts are in all instances stated; and without derogating from the merits of other nations, the work is calculated to give a just conception of the value of England to the world.

On his return from the Sandwich Isles—an interesting portion of his travels, to which we have not now time to advert in detail—and preparing to start from the Russian post of New Archangel by a five months' journey through the Russian empire, he gives a glance at what he has done.

"I have," says he, "threaded my way round nearly half the globe, traversing about 220 degrees of longitude, and upwards of 100 of latitude, barely one fourth of this by the ocean. Notwithstanding all this, I have uniformly felt more at home, with the exception of my first sojourn at Sitka, than I should have felt in Calais. I have every where seen our race, under a great variety of circumstances, either actually or virtually invested with the attributes of sovereignty."

After a few words on the vigour of the English blood, as exhibited in the commerce, intelligence, and activity of the United States, he returns to the immediate possessions and prowess of England. "I have seen the English posts which stud the wilderness from the Canadian lakes to the Pacific Ocean. I have seen English adventurers with that innate power which makes every individual, whether Briton or American, a real representative of his country, monopolising the trade, and influencing the destinies of California. And lastly, I have seen the English merchants of a barbarian Archipelago, which promises, under their guidance, to become the centre of the traffic of the east and the west, of the new world and the old. In saying all this, I have seen less than half the grandeur of the English race. How insignificant in comparison are all the other nations of the earth, one nation alone excepted. Russia and Great Britain literally gird the globe where either continent has the greatest breadth, a fact which, taken in connexion with their early annals, can scarcely fail to be regarded as the work of a special Providence. After the fall of the Roman empire, a scanty and obscure people suddenly burst on the west and east, as the dominant race of the times; one swarm of the Normans making its way to England, while another was establishing its supremacy over the Sclavonians of the Borysthenes, the two being to meet in opposite directions at the end of a thousand years."

He regards the gigantic power of Russia as in an unconscious co-partnership with England in the grand cause of commerce and civilisation. He also makes the curious and true remark that, notwithstanding the astonishing successes of the Normans in Europe, they were never numerous enough to establish their language in any of the conquered countries. Their unparalleled successes, therefore, seem to express the idea that those feeble bands of warriors were strengthened every where to accomplish the purposes of Providence.