tasted, too, the sweets of TWO OR THREE MILLIONS sterling per annum spent among you by our fleets and forces, and you are unwilling to be without a pretence for kindling up another war, and thereby occasioning a repetition of the same delightful doses. But, Gentlemen, allow us to understand our interest a little likewise; we shall remove the French from Canada, that you may live in peace, and we be no more drained by your quarrels. You shall have land enough to cultivate, that you may have neither necessity nor inclination to go into manufactures, and we will manufacture for you, and govern you."

A reader of the Remarks may be apt to say, "If this writer would have us restore Canada, on principles of moderation, how can we, consistent with those principles, retain Guadaloupe, which he represents of so much greater value?" I will endeavour to explain this; because, by doing it, I shall have an opportunity of showing the truth and good sense of the answer to the interested application I have just supposed. The author, then, is only apparently and not really inconsistent with himself. If we can obtain the credit of moderation by restoring Canada, it is well; but we should, however, restore it at all events; because it would not only be of no use to us; but "the possession of it (in his opinion) may in its consequences be dangerous." * As how? Why, plainly, (at length it comes out) if the French are not left there to check the growth of our colonies, "they will extend themselves almost without bounds into the inland parts, and increase infinitely from all causes; becoming a numerous, hardy, independent people; possessed of a strong country, communicating little or not at all with England, living wholly on their

* Remarks, pp. 50, 51.

own labor, and in process of time knowing little and inquiring little about the mother country."

In short, according to this writer, our present colonies are large enough and numerous enough; and the French ought to be left in North America to prevent their increase, lest they become not only useless, but dangerous to Britain. I agree with the gentleman, that, with Canada in our possession, our people in America will increase amazingly. I know, that their common rate of increase, where they are not molested by the enemy, is doubling their numbers every twenty-five years, by natural generation only; exclusive of the accession of foreigners.* I think this increase continuing would probably, in a century more, make the number of British subjects on that side the water more numer ́ous than they now are on this; but,

4. Not necessary that the American Colonies should cease being useful to the Mother Country. Their Preference over the West India Colonies stated.†

I am far from entertaining, on that account, any fears of their becoming either useless or dangerous to us; and I look on those fears to be merely imaginary, and without any probable foundation. The Remarker is

* The reason of this greater increase in America than in Europe is, that, in old settled countries, all trades, farms, offices, and employments are full; and many people refrain from marriage till they see an opening, in which they can settle themselves, with a reasonable prospect of maintaining a family; but in America, it being easy to obtain land, which, with moderate labor will afford subsistence and something to spare, people marry more readily and earlier in life, whence arises a numerous offspring and the swift population of those countries. It is a common error, that we cannot fill our provinces, or increase the number of them, without draining this nation of its people. The increase alone of our present colonies is sufficient for both those purposes.

It is observable, that the heads of divisions are somewhat awkwardly inserted. They were not contained in the author's original edition, but were subsequently added by another hand, and have since been retained. - EDITOR.

reserved in giving his reasons; as, in his opinion, this "is not a fit subject for discussion." I shall give mine, because I conceive it a subject necessary to be discussed; and the rather, as those fears, now groundless and chimerical soever, may, by possessing the multitude, possibly induce the ablest ministry to conform to them against their own judgment; and thereby prevent the assuring to the British name and nation a stability and permanency, that no man acquainted with history durst have hoped for, till our American possessions opened the pleasing prospect.

The Remarker thinks, that our people in America, "finding no check from Canada, would extend themselves almost without bounds into the inland parts, and increase infinitely from all causes." The very reason he assigns for their so extending, and which is indeed the true one, (their being "invited to it by the pleasantness, fertility, and plenty of the country,") may satisfy us, that this extension will continue to proceed as long as there remains any pleasant, fertile country within their reach. And if we even suppose them confined by the waters of the Mississippi westward, and by those of St. Lawrence and the Lakes to the northward, yet still we shall leave them room enough to increase, even in the manner of settling now practised there, till they amount to perhaps a hundred millions of souls. This must take some centuries to fulfil; and in the mean time this nation must necessarily supply them with the manufactures they consume; because the new settlers will be employed in agriculture; and the new settlements will so continually draw off the spare hands from the old, that our present colonies will not, during the period we have mentioned, find themselves in a condition to manufacture, even for their own inhabit

ants, to any considerable degree, much less for those who are settling behind them.

Thus our trade must, till that country becomes as fully peopled as England, (that is, for centuries to come,) be continually increasing, and with it our naval power; because the ocean is between us and them, and our ships and seamen must increase as that trade increases.

The human body and the political differ in this; that the first is limited by nature to a certain stature, which, when attained, it cannot ordinarily exceed; the other, by better government and more prudent policy, as well as by the change of manners and other circumstances, often takes fresh starts of growth, after being long at a stand; and may add tenfold to the dimensions it had for ages been confined to. The mother, being of full stature, is in a few years equalled by a growing daughter; but in the case of a mother-country and her colonies, it is quite different. The growth of the children tends to increase the growth of the mother, and so the difference and superiority is longer preserved. Were the inhabitants of this island limited to their present number by any thing in nature, or by unchangeable circumstances, the equality of population between the two countries might indeed sooner come to pass; but sure experience, in those parts of the island where manufactures have been introduced, teaches us, that people increase and multiply in proportion as the means and facility of gaining a livelihood increase; and that this island, if they could be employed, is capable of supporting ten times its present number of people.

In proportion, therefore, as the demand increases for the manufactures of Britain, by the increase of people in her colonies, the number of her people at home will increase; and with them, the strength as well as the

wealth of the nation. For satisfaction in this point, let the reader compare in his mind the number and force of our present fleets with our fleet in Queen Elizabeth's time, before we had colonies. Let him compare the ancient, with the present state of our towns on or near our western coast (Manchester, Liverpool, Kendal, Lancaster, Glasgow, and the countries round them) that trade with any manufactures for our colonies, (not to mention Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, and Birmingham,) and consider what a difference there is in the numbers of people, buildings, rents, and the value of land and of the produce of land; even if he goes back no farther than is within man's memory. him compare those countries with others on the same island, where manufactures have not yet extended themselves; observe the present difference, and reflect how much greater our strength may be, if numbers give strength, when our manufactures shall occupy every part of the island where they can possibly be subsisted.

Let

But, say the objectors, "there is a certain distance from the sea, in America, beyond which the expense of carriage will put a stop to the sale and consumption of your manufactures; and this, with the difficulty of making returns for them, will oblige the inhabitants to manufacture for themselves; of course, if you suffer your people to extend their settlements beyond that distance, your people become useless to you;" and this distance is limited by some to two hundred miles, by others to the Appalachian mountains.

Not to insist on a plain truth, that no part of a dominion, from whence a government may on occasion draw supplies and aids both of men and money, (though

* Namely, forty sail, none of more than forty guns.