Honestly, again you say; by treaty, by surrender, by taking from those who would have destroyed us the means of doing injury.  Honestly! say it again, that Heaven may register, and hell may chuckle at your barefaced, impudent assertion.

No! by every breach of faith which could disgrace an infidel; by every act of cruelty which could disgrace our nature; by extortion, by rapine, by injustice, by mockery of all laws, or human or divine.  The thirst for gold, and a golden country, led you on; and in these scorching regions you have raised the devil on his throne, and worshipped him in his proud pre-eminence as Mammon.

Let us think.  Is not the thirst for gold a temptation to which our natures are doomed to be subjected—­part of the ordeal which we have to pass? or why is it that there never is sufficient?

It appears to be ordained by Providence that this metal, obtained from the earth to feed the avarice of man, should again return to it.  If all the precious ore which for a series of ages has been raised from the dark mine were now in tangible existence, how trifling would be its value! how inadequate as a medium of exchange for the other productions of nature, or of art!  If all the diamonds and other precious stones which have been collected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they once were, like all sublunary matter, they too yield to time) why, if all were remaining on the earth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep would shake about those gems, which now are to be found in profusion only where rank and beauty pay homage to the thrones of kings.  Arts and manufactures consume a large proportion of the treasures of the mine, and as the objects fall into decay, so does the metal return to the earth again.  But it is in Eastern climes, where it is collected, that it soonest disappears.  Where the despot reigns, and the knowledge of an individual’s wealth is sufficient warranty to seal his doom, it is to the care of the silent earth alone that the possessor will commit his treasures; he trusts not to relation or to friend, for gold is too powerful for human ties.  It is but on his death-bed that he imparts the secret of his deposit to those he leaves behind him; often called away before he has time to make it known, reserving the fond secret till too late; still clinging to life, and all that makes life dear to him.  Often does the communication, made from the couch of death, in half-articulated words, prove so imperfect, that the knowledge of its existence is of no avail unto his intended heirs; and thus it is that millions return again to the earth from which they have been gathered with such toil.  What avarice has dug up avarice buries again; perhaps in future ages to be regained by labour, when, from the chemical powers of eternal and mysterious Nature, they have again been filtered through the indurated earth, and reassumed the form and the appearance of the metal which has lain in darkness since the creation of the world.