Text: N. P. Willis (?), Notice of Hunt's Merchants's Magazine, Weekly Mirror (New York), January 18, 1845, vol. 1, no. 15, p. 230, col. 2

“There is but little doubt that the United States are destined ultimately to command all the trade in the Indian and China seas. The supply of cotton in the United States, including Texas, is far beyond what the wants of Europe require. The wants of China are, however, such as will absorb almost a limitless quantity. The cotton goods manufactured in the United States already supersede those of all other countries in those markets, and American lead has entirely supplanted the English. The English government hope, by commanding the exclusive route to China over Egypt, by way of the Nile and the Isthmus of Suez, (to effect which, a negotiation is now pending between that power and the Pacha,) to obtain news several weeks earlier than it can be had in the United States; an advantage which will give her merchants control of the markets. The diplo. macy may succeed temporarily in this, but the march of events will ultimately give the United States the mastery. Her population is pushing, with a vigorous, rapid, and unceasing march, along a line 1,200 miles in extent, westward, towards the shores of the Pacific. The occupation of the vast territory known as the Oregon, is already going forward; and twenty years will not have elapsed, before a powerful state will have sprung up on the shores of the Pacific. The great tract of the Oregon is drained by the Columbia river and the San Francisco, which debouch upon the ocean at a point six days, by steam, distant from the Sandwich islands — a group the independence of which is guaranteed; whose population is 100,000, mostly American; the surface, 8,000 square miles; of a soil the most fruitful, and a climate unsurpassed in salubrity. These islands are situated in the middle of the Pacific, on the great highway from Oregon to China. The great whale fishery of these regions is conducted mostly by Americans, numbering 200 vessels, whose annual product is about $5,000,000. This fleet, in the summer months, cruise between the islands and the coast of Japan, for sperm whale, and carry on a large trade in furs, &c., which are now sold in China, and the proceeds, in tea, sent home to the United States. The whole of this vast trade, and that of China, via the Sandwich islands, will be commanded by the State of Oregon. Those persons are now living who will see a railroad connecting New York with the Pacific, and a steam communication from Oregon to China. For the last three centuries, the civilized world has been rolling westward; and Americans of the present age will complete the circle, and open a western steam route with the east.”