the suspension of this commerce, caused by the revolutionary war, it was on both sides resumed with more ardour than ever, notwithstanding all the arts that France and her partisans employed to prevent it. it. In vain did poor Louis issue edicts to encourage his people to supplant their rivals, in vain did he take off his duties and offer premiums; in vain did friend Brissot coax the Quakers, and citizen Madison speechify the Congress: in spite of all their fine promises, cajoling, and wheedling; in spite of the mortification of Britain, and the more powerful prejudice of America, no sooner was the obstacle removed by the return of peace; than without a treaty of friendship or commerce, without any other stimulus than mutual interest, confidence and inclination, the two countries rushed together like congenial waters that had been separated by an artificial dyke.

It is this natural connection with Britain, the British capital, which a confidence in the stability of the government invites hither, together with the credit that the merchants of that country give to those of this, a credit which British merchants alone are either willing or able to give, that forms the great source of American wealth. Mr. Smith from Maryland, the polite Mr. Smith, who called the British "sea-robbers and monsters," incautiously acknowledged, in the same breath, that these monsters" gave a stationary credit to this country amounting to twenty millions of dollars. Grate'ful gentleman!-A very great part of this credit is given for a twelvemonth at least; so that the simple interest on it amounts to one million two hundred thousand dollars annually; an advantage to this country that might have merited in return something more palatable" than " sea-robbers and mon

66

"sters."

If America could obtain what she stands in need of (which she cannot) from any other country than Britain, from what country on earth could she obtain them on terms like these? The capacity of France, in the brightest days of her commercial prosperity, was fairly tried. Correspondences were opened with her merchants; bur what was the result? The total ruin of them and of all those who were concerned with them. They are no more; they are forgotten. Their trade could be equalled in shortness of duration by nothing but the wear of their merchandise.

To say, as some of the French faction have done, that America does not want the manufactures of Britain, is an insult on the national discernment little short of the Blunderbuss of my old friend Citizen Adet. Let any man take a view of his dress (when he is dressed like a man), from head to foot, from the garments that he wears to sea, to plough, to market, or to church, down to those with which he steps into bed; let him look round his shop, and round the shops of his neighbours; let him. examine his library, his bed-chamber, his parlour and his kitchen, and then let him say how great a part of all he sees, of all that is indispensable, useful or convenient: let him say how great a part of all this comes from Great Britain, and how small a one from France or any other country; and then if he be fool enough, let him say with the Gallican faction, that we stand in no need of the manufactures of Britain.

The commercial connection between this country and Great Britain is full as necessary as that between the baker and miller, while the connection between America and France may be compared to one between the baker and the milliner or toyman. France may furnish us with looking-glasses; but without the aid of Britain we shall be ashmed to

see

see ourselves in them, unless the sans-culottes can persuade us that thread-bare beggary is a beauty. France may deck the heads of our wives and daughters (but by the bye, she shan't those of mine) with ribbons, gauze, and powder, their ears with bobs, their cheeks with paint, and their heels with gaudy party-coloured silk, as rotten as the hearts of the manufacturers; but Great Britain must cover their and our bodies. When the rain pours down and washes the rose from the cheek; when the bleak north-wester blows through the gauze, then it is that we know our friends. Great Britain must wrap us up warm, and keep us all decent, snug and comfortable, from the child in swaddling cloths to its tottering grandsire. France may send us cockades, as she does (or has done) in abundance; but Great Britain must send us hats to stick them in. France may furnish the ruffle, but Great Britain must send us the shirt; and the commerce of the latter nation is just as much more necessary to this country than that of the former, as a good decent shirt is more necessary than a paltry dishclout of a ruffle.

As, then, the importance of a trade, with any nation, must be the standard whereby to measure the embarrassment and distress that its suspension would produce, it is evident that a war with Great Britain would, in this respect, have been productive of infinite calamities to America, while a war with France would hardly be felt. The dangers, therefore to be apprehended from military operations only, remain

to be considered.

By going back to the epoch when the hostile tone was assumed towards Great Britain, I could represent her as in possession of the Western Posts, and consequently as in a situation to arm and support the Indians, to harrass that frontier, and by those means find employment for an army of the United States,

and that a very expensive one too. But, I shall decline this advantage, shall consider things in their present state; I shall even suppose all inroads from Canada impossible, shall turn my eyes to the sea only, and there take a view of what might be reasonably feared from a war with Great Britain, and what from a war with France.

The mighty difference in the maritime power, skill, and courage of the two nations, is so universally known, and has undergone so many and such convincing proofs during the present war, that any comparison in this respect would be superfluous. The hirelings of France, do, however, pretend that she could eat us up alive, crack us as a squirrel does a nut, while we could boldly bid defiance to her rival. I shall not suppose it possible for Great Britain to bombard our towns and burn our shipping, I shall look upon all our harbours as completely defended; I shall even suppose it impossible for her to make a landing on any part of our coast, to carry off a single sack of flour or head of cattle; and only insist, that, with thirty detached frigates, and a squadron of twenty ships of the line, she could completely block up every principal port in the United States, in defiance of the French and their new allies Holland and Spain. If I am told to look back to what she was able to do, in this way, last war, I reply, that the commerce, the foreign relationships of this country, are not now what they were then, nor would the species of war, carried on by Britain, be the same. Then she had armies on the land, on which the operations of her fleet were dependant. It had garrisons to supply, convoys to escort, and transports to conduct from one state to another. Those who look to France and her allies for relief, forget that during this war France has lost thirty-nine ships of the line, with a propor

tionate

tionate number of frigates; that the remnant of her shattered fleet is now blocked up in her own ports, and that her petty armaments skulk about from harbour to harbour, as if their only object was to keep out of sight. They forget that the Dutch dare not peep out of the Texel, and that the Spaniards, after mustering their all together, are stationed before a place of refuge in the Mediterranean. In this situation of things nothing could prevent Great Britain from totally cutting off the commerce of America, exports as well as imports, trebling the price of every article of foreign manufacture, and rendering the produce of the land a drug; destroying the revenue of the country at the very moment that a tenfold augmentation of it would be necessary.

From the French and their allies, on the contrary, America has little, nay nothing to fear. When we are told about their demolishing our towns and invading our country, it seems to be forgotten that they must cross the sea to come to us. Fear seems to have deranged the trembling wretches who hold this language. They talk and think about the prowess of the barbarian armies, till they imagine us divided from them by a river only, or that it is as easy for a hundred thousand of them to be shipped off and landed in America, as for them to cross the Rhine; they imagine that a fleet of three hundred transports and fifty ships of the line are as easily erected as a bridge of boats. And, during this terrific reverie, it never once strikes them that Great Britain is at war with the French, or that her fleets would blow them to atoms, before they could approach our coast. Mr. Giles, and all those who talk about the danger of incurring the displeasure of the French, delight in representing her as ready to make an attack on us in conjunction with the Spaniards. This is true, and we are informed that

they