More than this,—how many shillings may
be, not only saved, but brought to the labouring
man, if a large importation of American
meal should take place! The more food we
take from America, the more of our manufactures
will the Americans, or somebody else,
take in payment for it. We all know how
serious have been the alarm and the mischief
of the varying and the enhanced price of
cotton within the last three years, and how
earnestly some capitalists are now setting to
work to grow flax in England and Ireland, in
order to render us somewhat less dependent
on the United States for the staple of our
largest manufacture. What a vast amount of
risk may be saved if we divide with that
country the production of that staple and of
food! By such a method, there may be a vast
and most moral and politic reduction of the
gambling character of our manufacture and
commerce, and of that worst of gambling
which involves the state of human virtue and
human life. Instead of our having all cotton
from America, and all food (as regards America)
grown at home, let us have some cotton and
some food from America, and some flax and
some food at home (with cotton from India
by and by), and our operatives may find their
lives equalised, somewhat in the same way
that foreign commerce is deprived of much of
its gambling character by marine insurance;
the illustration, however, being a comparison
of small things with great.

There is another view of the matter,—not
so generally interesting as it should be, but
profoundly so to those who understand and
appreciate the case. Cotton is grown by
slave-labour: Indian corn is grown by the
labour of freemen. A great struggle,—one
of the most serious in principle, and in its certain
consequences, whenever they occur, that
the human race has ever been engaged in,—
is now going on, between the slave-power in
the Southern States of America, which grow
the cotton, and Abolition principles, in the
free States in the North, which grow the
food. Every increased demand for cotton on
our part rivets the chains of the slave. Every
increased demand for corn on our part
strengthens the hands of those who would
free the slave. Among the best—the most
effectual—friends of the slave, are those who
promote the growth of cotton in India, and of
flax at home, and who encourage the demand
of agricultural produce from the American
States north of the Ohio. It is but to few,
perhaps, that this plea will be interesting;
but to those few, the interest will be supreme;
for it is they who are aware that, of all the great
political questions now stirring in the world,
no one involves so many principles important
to the welfare of the whole human race, as
that of the abolition of slavery in the United
States. Every moralist,—even every politician,—
knows that the abolition is certain. It is
the time alone that is uncertain: and that
time will be hastened,—whether little or
much,—by the extensive use of this humble
article,—this cheap Indian-corn flour,—in our
islands.

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER IV.

CANUTE left three sons, by name SWEYN,
HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but his Queen,
Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the
mother of only Hardicanute. Canute had wished
his dominions to be divided between the three,
and had wished Harold to have England;
but the Saxon people in the South of England
headed by a nobleman with great possessions,
called the powerful EARL GODWIN, (who is
said to have been originally a poor cow-boy,)
opposed this, and desired to have, instead,
either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled
Princes who were over in Normandy. It
seemed so certain that there would be more
bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many
people left their homes, and took refuge in
the woods and swamps. Happily, however,
it was agreed to refer the whole question to a
great meeting at Oxford, which decided that
Harold should have all the country north of
the Thames, with London for his capital city,
and that Hardicanute should have all the
south. The quarrel was so arranged; and, as
Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself
very little about anything but eating and
getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin
governed the south for him.

They had hardly begun to do so, and the
trembling people who had hid themselves
were scarcely at home again, when Edward,
the elder of the two exiled Princes, came over
from Normandy with a few followers, to claim
the English Crown. His mother Emma, however,
who only cared for her last son Hardicanute,
instead of assisting him, as he expected,
opposed him so strongly with all her
influence that he was very soon glad to get
safely back. His brother Alfred was not so
fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter,
written some time afterwards to him and his
brother, in his mother's name, (but whether
really with or without his mother's knowledge
is now unknown,) he allowed himself to be
tempted over to England, with a good force
of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast,
and being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin,
proceeded into Surrey, as far as the town of
Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in
the evening to rest, having still the Earl in
their company, who had ordered lodgings and
good cheer for them. But, in the dead of
night, when they were off their guard, being
divided into small parties sleeping soundly
after a long march and a plentiful supper in
different houses, they were set upon by the
King's troops, and taken prisoners. Next
morning they were drawn out in a line, to
the number of six hundred men, and were
barbarously tortured and killed, with the
exception of every tenth man, who was sold