made against them; for upon no better foundation than this have they been supposed the authors of a war, carried on for their advantage only.

It is a great mistake to imagine, that the American country in question between Great Britain and France is claimed as the property of any individual or public body in America; or that the possession of it by Great Britain is likely, in any lucrative view, to redound at all to the advantage of any person there. On the other hand, the bulk of the inhabitants of North America are land-owners, whose lands are inferior in value to those of Britain, only by the want of an equal number of people. It is true, the accession of the large territory claimed before the war began (especially if that be secured by the possession of Canada) will tend to the increase of the British subjects, faster than if they had been confined within the mountains; yet the increase within the mountains only would evidently make the comparative population equal to that of Great Britain much sooner than it can be expected, when our people are spread over a country six times as large. I think this is the only point of light in which this account is to be viewed, and is the only one in which any of the colonies are concerned.

No colony, no possessor of lands in any colony, therefore, wishes for conquests, or can be benefited by them, otherwise than as they may be a means of securing peace on their borders. No considerable advantage has resulted to the colonies by the conquests of this war, or can result from confirming them by the peace, but what they must enjoy in common with the rest of the British people; with this evident drawback from their share of these advantages, that they will necessarily lessen, or at least prevent the increase of the value of what makes the principal part of their

private property, their land. A people, spread through the whole tract of country, on this side the Mississippi, and secured by Canada in our hands, would probably for some centuries find employment in agriculture, and thereby free us at home effectually from our fears of American manufactures. Unprejudiced men well know, that all the penal and prohibitory laws that were ever thought on will not be sufficient to prevent manufactures in a country, whose inhabitants surpass the number that can subsist by the husbandry of it. That this will be the case in America soon, if our people remain confined within the mountains, and almost as soon should it be unsafe for them to live beyond, though the country be ceded to us, no man acquainted with political and commercial history can doubt. Manufactures are founded in poverty. It is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expense of its own exportation.

But no man, who can have a piece of land of his \ own, sufficient by his labor to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer, and work for a master. Hence, while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufactures to any amount or value. It is a striking observation of a very able pen, that the natural livelihood of the thin inhabitants of a forest country is hunting; that of a greater number, pasturage; that of a middling population, agriculture; and that of the greatest, manufactures; which last must subsist the bulk of the people in a full country, or they must be subsisted by charity, or perish. The extended population, therefore, that is most advantageous to Great Britain, will be best

effected, because only effectually secured, by the possession of Canada.

So far as the being of our present colonies in North America is concerned, I think indeed with the Remarker, that the French there are not "an enemy to be apprehended;" but the expression is too vague to be applicable to the present, or indeed to any other case. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, unequal as they are to this nation in power and numbers of people, are enemies to be still apprehended; and the Highlanders of Scotland have been so for many ages, by the greatest princes of Scotland and Britain. The wild Irish were able to give a great deal of disturbance even to Queen Elizabeth, and cost her more blood and treasure than her war with Spain. Canada, in the hands of France, has always stinted the growth of our colonies, in the course of this war, and indeed before it; has disturbed and vexed even the best and strongest of them; has found means to murder thousands of their people, and unsettle a great part of their country. Much more able will it be to starve the growth of an infant settlement. Canada has also found means to make this nation spend two or three millions a year in America; and a people, how small soever, that in their present situation can do this as often as we have a war with them, is, methinks, "an enemy to be apprehended."

Our North American colonies are to be considered as the frontier of the British empire on that side. The frontier of any dominion being attacked, it becomes not merely "the cause" of the people immediately attacked, the inhabitants of that frontier, but properly "the cause" of the whole body. Where the frontier people owe and pay obedience, there they have a right to look for protection. No political proposition is

Remarks, p. 27.

better established than this. It is therefore invidious to represent the "blood and treasure," spent in this war, as spent in "the cause of the colonies" only; and that they are "absurd and ungrateful," if they think we have done nothing, unless we "make conquests for them," and reduce Canada to gratify their "vain ambition," &c. It will not be a conquest for them, nor gratify any vain ambition of theirs. It will be a conquest for the whole; and all our people will, in the increase of trade, and the ease of taxes, find the advantage of it.

Should we be obliged, at any time, to make a war for the protection of our commerce, and to secure the exportation of our manufactures, would it be fair to represent such a war, merely as blood and treasure spent in the cause of the weavers of Yorkshire, Norwich, or the West; the cutlers of Sheffield, or the button-makers of Birmingham? I hope it will appear, before I end these sheets, that if ever there was a national war, this is truly such a one; a war in which the interest of the whole nation is directly and fundamentally concerned. Those, who would be thought deeply skilled in human nature, affect to discover self-interested views everywhere, at the bottom of the fairest, the most generous conduct. Suspicions and charges of this kind meet with ready reception and belief in the minds even of the multitude, and therefore less acuteness and address than the Remarker is possessed of would be sufficient to persuade the nation generally, that all the zeal and spirit manifested and exerted by the colonies in this war, was only in "their own cause," to "make conquest for themselves," to engage us to make more for them, to gratify their own "vain ambition."

But, should they now humbly address the mother country, in the terms and the sentiments of the

Remarker; return her their grateful acknowledgments for the blood and treasure she had spent in “their cause"; confess that enough had not been done "for them"; allow that "English forts, raised in proper passes, will, with the wisdom and vigor of her administration," be a sufficient future protection; express their desires, that their people may be confined within the mountains, lest, if they be suffered to spread and extend themselves in the fertile and pleasant country on the other side, they should "increase infinitely from all causes," "live wholly on their own labor" and become independent; beg, therefore, that the French may be suffered to remain in possession of Canada, as their neighbourhood may be useful to prevent our increase, and the removing them may "in its consequences be even dangerous";* I say, should such an address from the colonies make its appearance here (though, according to the Remarker, it would be a most just and reasonable one) would it not, might it not, with more justice be answered; "We understand you, Gentlemen, perfectly well; you have only your interest in view; you want to have the people confined within your present limits, that in a few years the lands you are possessed of may increase tenfold in value. You want to reduce the price of labor, by increasing numbers on the same territory, that you may be able to set up manufactures and vie with your mother country. You would have your people kept in a body, that you may be more able to dispute the commands of the crown, and obtain an independency. You would have the French left in Canada, to exercise your military virtue, and make you a warlike people, that you may have more confidence to embark in schemes of disobedience, and greater ability to support them.

Remarks, pp. 50, 51.

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