This outdoes the tales of even Irish fecundity; and if it is so, California ought not long to want the citizens, of whose non-existence our author so much complains, as a very small stock should afford an abundant population in a comparatively brief period. But it might be fair to ask why have not the Spaniards and Indians generally propagated in that region at something like this rate, or if they have, what has become of them all? How is it, that the Yankee invaders found only a sparse population of only about 12,000, of all races, complexions, kinds, and degrees?

But Mr. Werth insists that his picture is not exaggerated, and he appeals to the testimony of thousands, who will confirm every word he has uttered. He declares there is no other place with such a climate, a soil so generous— nature so bountiful--institutions so free, so reliable, so imperishable; and has no apprehensions that her valleys will remain long unpopulated and untilled, when the truth is fairly placed before the world.

The last chapter, the ninth, is on the Commerce of California, which is treated in a brief space, as having better means of introduction to the public attention than the other matters considered. But while the subject is before us, we deem it necessary to the completeness of the picture to give some view of its growth and prospects, from such data as have come within our notice.

Prior to the possession of California by the United States, and the start of San Francisco as a commercial city, the Republic of Chili-the only one of the nations of Spanish descent on the continent that has preserved anything like a proper appreciation of order and systematic industry-engrossed nearly the whole trade of the western coast of the American continent. Her capital, Valparaiso, was the great entrepôt of this Commerce, the supplies of the manufactures of Europe, and the luxuries of Asia, being thence distributed to the Pacific coast and islands. This commercial importance had been secured by a wise policy, encouraging foreign merchants to settle or establish branches of their business there, a system of bonding and warehousing foreign goods to facilitate the completion of assorted cargoes, and other measures, which have overcome some natural disabilities, that of a somewhat exposed harbor being among them.

The imports and exports of Chili during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, were as follows:

Countries.

California...

15,884,972

12,146,391

The following statement shows with what countries this Commerce was carried on, and the importance of the trade with each country, in 1849:

Imports.
Exports.
$20,523 $1,835,460

The Commerce with European countries was as follows:

England..

....

$4,431,075

$4,295,359

The latter sum constitutes above three-fourths of the whole export. Of the exports of agricultural products, the amount shipped to California in several years was, in 1848 $250,193; 1849 $1,835,460; 1850 $2,448,868. Showing who feeds California and draws away her wealth, while she is neglecting her own luxurious valleys to wash over the glittering sands of the flats. In all the markets of this Chilian trade, California has equal access, and has far greater resources, when developed, to found a Commerce upon. What she has already done, in comparison with Chili, will be seen in the statements following.

The point in this connection to which we wish to call especial attention, is the trade with China. In this important and highly interesting branch of her traffic, California has made remarkable strides, and is destined to achieve in it no insignificant part of all her future commercial greatness, however magnificent may be that result. The import of last year from China is stated at about eight hundred thousand dollars, having reached an extent nearly four times as large as that of Chili with the same empire. California is fast becoming the factor of the Pacific South American nations in this Chinese trade, an office which Chili has heretofore held exclusively to herself. The amount of dutiable goods imported into San Francisco from China, and re-exported, without paying duty, during the several quarters of the year commencing October 1, 1850, and ending September 30, 1851,

was as follows:—

For the quarter from 1st October to 31st December, 1850..
For the quarter from 1st January to 31st March, 1851....
For the quarter from 1st April to 30th June, 1851...
For the quarter from 1st July to 30th September, 1851...

$2,992

2.950

19,579

31,000

Total for the year..

$56,521

The extent to which this Commerce with China may be pushed is indefinite. The whole Western America is within the grasp of California, and will soon be made subsidiary to its development. On the Pacific she has no rival-Chili is already long distanced. When the great Pacific Railway is opened, San Francisco will become the entrepôt of that trade for the whole United States, and will be the medium of at least a portion of European incourse with the Celestials. But it is not with China only, but other portions of Asia-with the Indies, with all the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, and, when the penetrating spirit of the age shall undermine her thick walls of timid exclusiveness, with Japan-that our Pacific empire is to sustain its commercial relations. The importance of this trade is hardly to be over-estimated. It has been coveted by every nation that ever aspired to commercial greatness, and has an historic fame, as the nursery of empire that runs back into the very streams of unexplored tradition, and gleams in the tales of Oriental genius. Tyre, the first emporium of this trade, was made by it the richest and proudest city of the world. Nebuchadnezzar razed her to her foundations, and it at once restored her to her former pre-eminence. Balbec, Palmyra, Alexandria, Constantinople, Genoa, Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam, have each successively risen to the pinnacle of commercial grandeur, and almost exclusively upon the wealth derived from the East. A great part of the supremacy of London has been drawn from the same source. We come in last to enjoy this life-inspiring traffic, and are doubtless to reap a richer harvest than them all, in the deluge of spices and aromatics, silks and fine cottons, precious stones, porcelains, and teas. We shall have what no nation has had before, at least to make available, what has been the principal agency of carrying it on, and is the best medium for the purpose--abundance of gold and silver. Of these metals, Jacobs estimates India and China have received from Europe since the 15th century $2,100,000,000. The "beginning of the end" is already seen in the first results of our late visitations to those regions. The British trade has declined in that quarter, while ours has rapidly advanced. Our fast clippers, built since the commencement of the California era, have entered into successful competition with the English ships for the English carrying trade from Borneo and other Archipelagean islands, and the effect is already seen in the diminution of the number of English ships loaded, and the regular substitution of American ships in their place.

The Commerce of the United States, not including California, in the Pacific Ocean, for the year ending 30th June, 1850, is stated for the different countries and islands as follows:

The books containing the value of the imports from the different ports of the Pacific into San Francisco, in 1850, were destroyed in the fire of May,

1851, but the value of exports from Chili to California, during the last six months of that year, was $1,542,366, about equal to the imports of all the rest of the United States from Chili, for the full year, and the Picayune estimates the imports from Chili into San Francisco, for the year, were above half the amount of all the imports of the rest of the United States from the Pacific, excluding tea. The whole importation into San Francisco, for the year, of dutiable goods for consumption, is estimated at $8,500,000, and the total importation at about $10,000,000, showing the Commerce of San Francisco, at that time, equal to that of all the rest of the United States with countries on the Pacific, and nearly double in other articles than tea.

The following statement presents a view of the total Commerce of California for fifteen month, from January 1, 1851, to March 14, 1852;—

The value of the 84 vessels cleared from New York in this period is estimated at

The number of steamers engaged in the carrying trade via the Isthmus of Panama and Nicaragua is 32, the value of which is estimated at.

Value of tonnage engaged directly between New York and San Francisco.....

$3,000,000

9,400,000

Estimated vale of shipping from foreign and other Atlantic ports....

$12,400,000 5,737,820

Total value.....

$18,187,820

The estimated value of the exports from the Atlantic ports of the United States, as computed by an intelligent New York merchant, will reach, for the year 1851, about...

$31,000,000

The cost of merchandise from foreign ports during that period, it is presumed would reach, or even exceed..

80,009,000

Total value of merchandise from all parts......

$61,000,000

Below is a statement of the Commerce of all the Atlantic States whose exports or imports exceed a million of dollars, for the financial year ending June 30, 1851:—

As to the exports of California, we will only restate what has been before affirmed in this Magazine, that those of San Francisco exceed in value the exports of the port of New York, and to California must therefore be conceded the rank of the first exporting State-and in regard to imports, it will be seen, that she is second only to New York.

The amount of duties collected at the principal ports of the United States, in the year ending June 30, 1851, was as here stated. San Francisco, it will be noticed, stands in the fifth place of the list :

Of course, the large imports of breadstuffs, which have formed the basis of so large a part of the Commerce of California with the Pacific countries, will be cut off with the development of her own vast agricultural resources. But this event is not to be deprecated, for that country must be forever poor which is unable or fails to produce the main part of the food upon which its people subsist. It is not desirable that a trade, founded upon such a necessity, should continue. But with the cessation or reduction of this branch of her Commerce, it is not to be feared that either the maintenance or the extension of the present commercial importance of California will be interrupted. The growth of the other branches of her trade, and the development of new ones, will supply all the deficiency, and the result will be only to change her Pacific Commerce to a new and a firmer basis. With the progressive diversification of her labor, and multiplication of interests, California will gain more and more ability to buy, and will send forth a constantly enlarging demand for articles which she is unable to produce. When she raises her own wheat, barley, hay, potatoes, beef, and pork, she will find enough of the products of her mines remaining in her own hands to purchase iron for her railroads, to import locomotives-to secure all the improved implements, and avail herself of all the improved systems for working her mines and her farms-and to buy a thousand articles of necessity and luxury, now almost unknown, in her houses, her shops, and her public places, or only to be obtained at enormous expense.

In the political view attaching to the future of California, there is a greatness entirely commensurate with the aspect of every other feature in her remarkable destiny. Without computing the degree of her meridian influence, as a member of a Union so glorious already before her admission to the galaxy, or stopping to estimate the effect of her growth, her peculiar State elements and form, and the policies adopted for herself and those advocated for the nation, upon the other States-she has an outward part to perform, in a field most important, but hitherto almost unapproached. It has always been a prevalent belief among our people, that it is within the destiny of this country to introduce in the Spanish American nations that change of political ideas and social habits, which are so necessary to release them from the miserable condition in which they have been fast bound since their independence of Spain was effected,-and to enable them to attain that eminence of national prosperity and power, the elements of which are so lavishly bestowed upon the regions they inhabit. But how this was to be effected, was getting constantly more and more a mystery. Every effort to approach them on our part, with almost whatever intent, seemed unfor tunate. It appeared at last, to the belief of many, that there was a natural antipathy between the race, or mixture of races, on our soil, and the Amer