CHAPTER XIII.
VICTORY OF THE AMERICANS OVER BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, A.D. 1777.
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day,
Time's noblest offspring is its last.
Bishop Berkeley.
Of the four great powers that now principally rule the political destinies of the world, France and England are the only two whose influence can be dated back beyond the last century and a half. The third great power, Russia, was a feeble mass of barbarism before the epoch of Peter the Great; and the very existence of the fourth great power, as an independent nation, commenced within the memory of living men. By the fourth great power of the world I mean the mighty commonwealth of the western continent, which now commands the admiration of mankind. That homage is sometimes reluctantly given, and is sometimes accompanied with suspicion and ill-will. But none can
