New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
"The foregoing thirteen states (the whole inhabited territory of which, with the exception of a few small settlements, was confined to the region extending between the Alleghany Mountains and the Atlantic) were those which existed at the period when they became an acknowledged separate and independent federal sovereign power. The thirteen stripes of the standard or flag of the United States continue to represent the original number. The stars have multiplied to twenty-six,[1] according as the number of states have increased.
"The territory of the thirteen original states of the Union, including Maine and Vermont, comprehended a superficies of 371,124 English square miles; that of the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 120,354; that of France, including Corsica, 214,910; that of the Austrian empire, including Hungary and all the Imperial states, 257,540 English square miles.
"The present superficies of the twenty-six constitutional states of the Anglo-American Union, and the District of Columbia, and territories of Florida, include 1,029,025 square miles; to which if we add the Northwest, or Wisconsin Territory, east of the Mississippi, and bound by Lake Superior on the north, and Michigan on the east, and occupying at least 100,000 square miles, and then add the great western region, not yet well defined territories, but at the most limited calculation comprehending 700,000 square miles, the whole unbroken in its vast length and breadth by foreign nations, comprehends a portion of the earth's surface equal to 1,729,025 English, or 1,296,770 geographical square miles."
We may add that the population of the states when they declared their independence was about two millions and a half; it is now twenty-three millions.
I have quoted Macgregor, not only on account of the clear and full view which he gives of the progress of America to the date when he wrote, but because his description may be contrasted with what the United States have become even since his book appeared. Only three years after the time when Macgregor thus wrote, the American president truly stated:
- ↑ Fresh stars have dawned since this was written.
