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six years of peace preceding it.-The conquest of the Havannah had, indeed, stopped the remittance of specie from Mexico to Spain; but it had not enabled England to seize it on the contrary, our merchants suffered by the detention of the galleons, as their correspondents in Spain were disabled from paying them for their goods sent to America. The loss of the trade to old Spain was a farther bar to an influx of specie; and the attempt upon Portugal had not only deprived us of an import of bullion from thence, but the payment of our troops employed in its defence was a fresh drain opened for the diminution of our circulating specie. The high premiums given for new loans had sunk the price of the old stock near a third of its original value, so that the purchasers had an obligation from the state to re-pay them with an addition of 33 per cent. to their capital. Every new loan required new taxes to be imposed; new taxes must add to the price of our manufactures and lessen their consumption among foreigners. The decay of our trade must necessarily occasion a decrease of the publick revenue; and a deficiency of our funds must either be made up by fresh taxes, which would only add to the calamity, or our national credit must be destroyed, by shewing the publick creditors the inability of the nation to re-pay them their principal money.-Bounties had already been given for recruits which exceeded the year's wages of the ploughman and reaper; and as these were exhausted, and husbandry stood still for want of hands, the manufacturers were next to be tempted to quit the anvil and loom by higher offers.-France, bankrupt France, had no such calamities impending over her; her distresses were great, but they were immediate and temporary; her want of credit preserved her from a great increase of debt, and the loss of her ultra-marine dominions lessened her expenses. Her colonies had, indeed, put themselves into the hands of the English; but the property of her subjects had been preserved by capitulations, and a way opened for making her those remittances, which the war had before suspended, with as much security as in the time of peace.—Her armies in Germany had been hitherto prevented from seiz

ing upon Hanover; but they continued to encamp on the same ground on which the first battle was fought; and, as it must ever happen from the policy of that government, the last troops she sent into the field were always found to be the best, and her frequent losses only served to fill her regiments with better soldiers. The conquest of Hanover became therefore every campaign more probable. It is not to be noted, that the French troops received subsistence only, for the last three years of the war; and that, although large arrears were due to them at its conclusion, the charge was the less during its continuance."*

If any one be willing to see to how much greater lengths the author carries these ideas, he will recur to the book. This is sufficient for a specimen of his manner of thinking. I believe one reflection uniformly obtrudes itself upon every reader of these paragraphs. For what purpose in any cause shall we hereafter contend with France? can we ever flatter ourselves that we shall wage a more successful war? If, on our part, in a war the most prosperous we ever carried on, by sea and by land, and in every part of the globe, attended with the unparalleled circumstance of an immense increase of trade and augmentation of revenue; if a continued series of disappointments, disgraces, and defeats, followed by publick bankruptcy, on the part of France; if all these still leave her a gainer on the whole balance, will it not be downright phrenzy in us ever to look her in the face again, or to contend with her any, even the most essential points, since victory and defeat, though by different ways, equally conduct us to our ruin? Subjection to France without a struggle will indeed be less for our honour, but on every principle of our author it must be more for our advantage. According to his representation of things, the question is only concerning the most easy fall. France had not discovered, our statesman tells us, at the end of that war, the triumphs of defeat, and the resources which are derived from bankruptcy. For my poor part, I do not wonder at their blindness. But the English ministers saw further. Our author has at length let foreigners also into the secret, and made them altogether as

*P. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

wise as ourselves. It is their own fault if (vulgato imperii arcano) they are imposed upon any longer. They now are apprised of the sentiments which the great candidate for the government of this great empire entertains; and they will aet accordingly. They are taught our weakness and their own advantages.

He tells the world,* that if France carries on the war against us in Germany, every loss she sustains contributes to the achievement of her conquest. If her armies are three years unpaid, she is the less exhausted by expense. If her credit is destroyed, she is the less oppressed with debt. If her troops are cut to pieces, they will by her policy (and a wonderful policy it is) be improved, and will be supplied with much better men. If the war is carried on in the colonies, he tells them that the loss of her ultramarine dominions lessens her expenses,† and ensures her remittances:

Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso

Ducit opes animumque ferro.

If so, what is it we can do to hurt her?—it will be all an imposition, all fallacious. Why the result must be-Occidit, occidit spes omnis et fortuna nostri nominis.

The only way which the author's principles leave for our escape, is to reverse our condition into that of France, and to take her losing cards into our hands. But though his principles drive him to it, his politicks will not suffer him to walk on this ground. Talking at our ease and of other countries, we may bear to be diverted with such speculations ; but in England we shall never be taught to look upon the annihilation of our trade, the ruin of our credit, the defeat of our armies, and the loss of our ultramarine dominions (whatever the author may think of them), to be the high road to prosperity and greatness.

The reader does not, I hope, imagine that I mean seriously to set about the refutation of these uningenious paradoxes and reveries without imagination. I state them only that we may discern a little in the questions of war and peace, the most weighty of all questions, what is the wisdom of

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those men who are held out to us as the only hope of an expiring nation. The present ministry is indeed of a strange character at once indolent and distracted. But if a ministerial system should be formed, actuated by such maxims as are avowed in this piece, the vices of the present ministry would become their virtues; their indolence would be the greatest of all publick benefits, and a distraction that entirely defeated every one of their schemes would be our only security from destruction.

To have stated these reasonings is enough, I presume, to do their business. But they are accompanied with facts and records, which may seem of a little more weight. I trust however that the facts of this author will be as far from bearing the touchstone, as his arguments. On a little enquiry, they will be found as great an imposition as the successes they are meant to depreciate; for they are all either false or fallaciously applied; or not in the least to the purpose for which they are produced.

First, the author, in order to support his favourite paradox, that our possession of the French colonies was of no detriment to France, has thought proper to inform us,* that "they put themselves into the hands of the English." uses the same assertion, in nearly the same words, in another place; "her colonies had put themselves into our hands." Now, in justice not only to fact and common sense, but to the incomparable valour and perseverance of our military and naval forces thus unhandsomely traduced, I must tell this author, that the French colonies did not " put themselves into the hands of the English." They were compelled to submit; they were subdued by dint of English valour. Will the five years war carried on in Canada, in which fell one of the principal hopes of this nation, and all the battles lost and gained during that anxious period, convince this author of his mistake? Let him inquire of Sir Jeffery Amherst, under whose conduct that war was carried on; of Sir Charles Saunders, whose steadiness and presence of mind saved our fleet, and were so eminently serviceable in the

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whole course of the siege of Quebec; of general Monckton, who was shot through the body there, whether France "put her colonies into the hands of the English."

Though he has made no exception, yet I would be liberal to him; perhaps he means to confine himself to her colonies in the West Indies. But surely it will fare as ill with him there as in North America, whilst we remember that in our first attempt at Martinico we were actually defeated; that it was three months before we reduced Guadaloupe; and that the conquest of the Havannah was achieved by the highest conduct, aided by circumstances of the greatest good fortune. He knows the expense both of men and treasure at which we bought that place. However, if it had so pleased the peacemakers, it was no dear purchase; for it was decisive of the fortune of the war and the terms of the treaty: the duke of Nivernois thought so; France, England, Europe, considered it in that light; all the world, except the then friends of the then ministry, who wept for our victories, and were in haste to get rid of the burthen of our conquests. This author knows that France did not put those colonies into the hands of England; but he well knows who did put the most valuable of them into the hands of France.

In the next place, our author* is pleased to consider the conquest of those colonies in no other light than as a convenience for the remittances to France, which he asserts that the war had before suspended, but for which a way was opened (by our conquest) as secure as in time of peace. I charitably hope he knows nothing of the subject. I referred him lately to our commanders, for the resistance of the French colonies; I now wish he would apply to our custom-house entries, and our merchants, for the advantages which we derived from them.

In 1761, there was no entry of goods from any of the conquered places but Guadaloupe; in that year it stood thus: value, £482,179

Imports from Guadaloupe,

*P. 9.

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