people themselves, who by other authentic accounts appear to double their numbers (the strangers who settle there included) in about sixteen years, cannot in the twenty-eight years have increased in a greater proportion than as four to one. The additional demand, then, and consumption of goods from England, of thirteen parts in seventeen, more than the additional number would require, must be owing to this; that the people, having by their industry mended their circumstances, are enabled to indulge themselves in finer clothes, better furniture, and a more general use of all our manufactures than heretofore.

In fact, the occasion for English goods in North America, and the inclination to have and use them, is, and must be for ages to come, much greater than the ability of the people to pay for them; they must therefore, as they now do, deny themselves many things they would otherwise choose to have, or increase their industry to obtain them. And thus, if they should at any time manufacture some coarse article, which, on account of its bulk or some other circumstance, cannot so well be brought to them from Britain; it only enables them the better to pay for finer goods, that otherwise they could not indulge themselves in; so that the exports thither are not diminished by such manufacture, but rather increased. The single article of manufacture in these colonies, mentioned by the Remarker, is hats made in New England. It is true, there have been, ever since the first settlement of that country, a few hatters there; drawn thither probably at first by the facility of getting beaver, while the woods were but little cleared, and there was plenty of those animals. The case is greatly altered now. The beaver skins are not now to be had in New England, but from very remote places and at great prices. The trade is

accordingly declining there; so that, far from being able to make hats in any quantity for exportation, they cannot supply their home demand; and it is well known, that some thousand dozens are sent thither yearly from London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and sold cheaper than the inhabitants can make them of equal goodness.

In fact, the colonies are so little suited for establishing of manufacture, that they are continually losing the few branches they accidentally gain. The working braziers, cutlers, and pewterers, as well as hatters, who have happened to go over from time to time and settle in the colonies, gradually drop the working part of their business, and import their respective goods from England, whence they can have them cheaper and better than they can make them. They continue their shops indeed, in the same way of dealing; but become sellers of braziery, cutlery, pewter, hats, &c. brought from England, instead of being makers of those goods.

5. The American Colonies not dangerous in their Nature to Great Britain.

Thus much as to the apprehension of our colonies becoming useless to us. I shall next consider the other supposition, that their growth may render them dangerous. Of this, I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already fourteen separate governments on the maritime coast of the continent; and, if we extend our settlements, shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side. Those we now have are not only under different governors, but have different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and some of them different religious persuasions, and different manners.

Their jealousy of each other is so great, that, how

ever necessary a union of the colonies has long been, for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity; yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them. Nothing but the immediate command of the crown has been able to produce even the imperfect union, but lately seen there, of the forces of some colonies. If they could not agree to unite for their defence against the French and Indians, who were perpetually harassing their settlements, burning their villages, and murdering their people; can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connexions and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another?

In short, there are so many causes that must operate to prevent it, that I will venture to say, a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must be madness; as those colonies, that did not join the rebellion, would join the mother country in suppressing it. When I say such a union is impossible, I mean, without the most grievous tyranny and oppression. People, who have property in a country which they may lose, and privileges which they may endanger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even to bear much, rather than hazard all. While the government is mild and just, while important civil and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient. The waves do not rise but when the winds blow.

What such an administration, as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands, might produce, I know not; but this I think I have a right to deem impossible. And yet there were two very manifest differences between that case and ours; and both are in our favor. The first, that Spain had already united the seventeen provinces under one visible government, though the States continued independent; the second, that the inhabitants of those provinces were of a nation, not only different from, but utterly unlike the Spaniards. Had the Netherlands been peopled from Spain, the worst of oppression had probably not provoked them to wish a separation of government. It might, and probably would, have ruined the country; but would never have produced an independent sovereignty. In fact, neither the very worst of governments, the worst of politics in the last century, nor the total abolition of their remaining liberty, in the provinces of Spain itself, in the present, have produced any independency in Spain, that could be supported. The same may be observed of France.

And let it not be said, that the neighbourhood of these to the seat of government has prevented a separation. While our strength at sea continues, the banks of the Ohio, in point of easy and expeditious conveyance of troops, are nearer to London, than the remote parts of France and Spain to their respective capitals; and much nearer than Connaught and Ulster were in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Nobody foretells the dissolution of the Russian monarchy from its extent; yet I will venture to say, the eastern parts of it are already much more inaccessible from Petersburg, than the country on the Mississippi is from London; I mean, more men, in less time, might be conveyed to the latter than the former distance. The rivers Oby, Jenessa,

and Lena do not facilitate the communication half so well by their course, nor are they half so practicable as the American rivers. To this I shall only add the observation of Machiavel, in his "Prince"; that a government seldom long preserves its dominion over those who are foreigners to it; who, on the other hand, fall with great ease, and continue inseparably annexed to the government of their own nation; which he proves by the fate of the English conquests in France. Yet with all these disadvantages, so difficult is it to overturn an established government, that it was not without the assistance of France and England, that the United Provinces supported themselves; which teaches us, that, 6. The French remaining in Canada, an Encouragement to Disaffections in the British Colonies. If they prove a Check, that Check of the most barbarous Nature.

If the visionary danger of independence in our colonies is to be feared, nothing is more likely to render it substantial, than the neighbourhood of foreigners at enmity with the sovereign governments, capable of giving either aid,* or an asylum, as the event shall require.

*The aid Dr. Franklin alludes to must probably have consisted in early and full supplies of arms, officers, intelligence, and trade of export and of import, through the River St. Lawrence, on risks both public and private; in the encouragement of splendid promises and a great ally; in the passage from Canada to the back settlements being shut to the British forces; in the quiet of the great body of Indians; in the support of emissaries and discontented citizens; in loans and subsidies to Congress, in ways profitable to France; in a refuge to be granted them in case of defeat, in vacant lands, as settlers; in the probability of war commencing earlier between England and France, at the Gulf of St. Lawrence (when the shipping taken were rightfully addressed to Frenchmen) than in the present case. All this might have happened, as soon as America's distaste of England had exceeded the fear of the foreign nation; a circumstance frequently seen possible in history, and which the British ministers took care should not be wanting.

This explanation would have been superfluous, had not the opinion