New York | Page 4

with a contribution from the American pioneer in letters. In
discussing the growth of New York and speculating on her future
destiny, the patriotic and sagacious author seems to have anticipated
the terrible crisis through which the nation is now passing; there is a
prescience in the views he expresses, which is all the more impressive
inasmuch as they are uttered by a voice now silenced for ever. They
have a solemn interest, and were inspired by a genuine sympathy in the
progress and prosperity of the nation. It should be remembered that,
when these observations were written, the public mind had been and
was still highly excited by the "Compromise Measures"--the last vain
expedient to propitiate the traitors who have since filled the land with
the horrors of civil war.}

NEW YORK
THE increase of the towns of Manhattan, as, for the sake of
convenience, we shall term New York and her adjuncts, in all that
contributes to the importance of a great commercial mart, renders them
one of the most remarkable places of the present age. Within the
distinct recollections of living men, they have grown from a city of the
fifth or sixth class to be near the head of all the purely trading places of
the known world. That there are sufficient causes for this unparalleled
prosperity, will appear in the analysis of the natural advantages of the
port, in its position, security, accessories, and scale.
The State of New York had been steadily advancing in population,
resources, and power, ever since the peace of 1785. At that time it bore
but a secondary rank among what were then considered the great States
of the Confederacy. Massachusetts, proper and singly, then
outnumbered us, while New England, collectively, must have had some
six or seven times our people. A very few years of peace, however,
brought material changes. In 1790, the year in which the first census
under the law of Congress was taken, the State already contained
340,120 souls, while New England had a few more than a million. It is
worthy of remark that, sixty years since, the entire State had but little
more than half of the population of the Manhattanese towns at the
present moment! Each succeeding census diminished these proportions,
until that of l830, when the return for the State of New York gave
1,372,812, and for New England 1,954,709. At this time, and for a
considerable period preceding and succeeding it, it was found that the
proportion between the people of the State of New York and the people
of the city, was about as ten to one. Between 1830 and 1840, the former
had so far increased in numbers as to possess as many people as ALL
New England. In the next decade, this proportion was exceeded; and
the late returns show that New York, singly, has passed ahead of all her
enterprising neighbors in that section of the Union. At the same time,
the old proportion between the State and the town--or, to be more
accurate, the TOWNS on the Bay of New York and its waters--has
been entirely lost, five to one being near the truth at the present

moment. It is easy to foresee that the time is not very distant when two
to one will be maintained with difficulty, as between the State and its
commercial capital.
Bold as the foregoing prediction may seem, the facts of the last half
century will, we think, justify it. If the Manhattan towns, or Manhattan,
as we shall not scruple to term the several places that compose the
prosperous sisterhood at the mouth of the Hudson--a name that is more
ancient and better adapted to the history, associations, and convenience
of the place than any other--continue to prosper as they have done, ere
the close of the present century they will take their station among the
capitals of the first rank. It may require a longer period to collect the
accessories of a first-class place, for these are the products of time and
cultivation; though the facilities of intercourse, the spirit of the age, and
the equalizing sentiment that marks the civilization of the epoch, will
greatly hasten everything in the shape of improvement.
New York will probably never possess any churches of an architecture
to attract attention for their magnitude and magnificence. The policy of
the country, which separates religion from the state, precludes this, by
confining all the expenditures of this nature to the several parishes, few
of which are rich enough to do more than erect edifices of moderate
dimensions and cost. The Romish Church, so much addicted to
addressing the senses, manifests some desire to construct its cathedrals,
but they are necessarily confined to the limits and ornaments suited to
the resources of a branch of the