moft cultivated, where are the mod ex- cellent models for art, and fcafFoldings for the attainment of fcience, as France and England for inftance, we calculate thus:
The United States contain three millions of inhabitants; France twenty milHons;
and the Britifii iflands ten. We produce a Wafhington, a Franklin, a Rittenhoufe.
France then fhould have half a dozen in each of thefe lines, and Great Britain half that number, equally eminent. It may be true, that France has: we are but jufl becoming acquainted with her, and our acquaintance fo far gives us high ideas of the genius of her inhabitants. It would be injuring too many of them to name particularly a Voltaire, a BufFon, the con- ftellation of Encyclopedifts, the Abbe Raynal himfelf, &c. &c. We therefore have reafon to believe fhe can produce her full quota of genius. The prefent war having fo long cut of all communication with Great Britain, we are not able to make a fair eftimate of the ftate of fcience in that country. The fpirit in which fhe wages war, is the only fample before our eyes, and that does not feem the legiti- mate offspring either of fcience or of civilization. The fun of her glory is faft defcending to the horizon. Her philofo- phy has crofled the channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herfelf feems paffing to that awful diflblution, whofe iflue is not given human forefight to fcan*.
Having given a Jketch of our minerals, vegetables, and quadrupeds, and being led by a proud theory to make a compa- rifon of the latter with thofe of Europe, * In a later edition of the Abbe Raynal's work, he has withdrawn his ceniure from that part of the new world inhabited by the Federo-Amcricans;