ment, brought in by varieties of people, by fuc "ceffion of civilifing conquefts and civilifing fet "tlements in a series of feventeen hundred

years,

you fhall fee as much added to her by America "in the course of a single life!" If this ftate of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the fanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to fee it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to fee nothing that shall vary the profpect, and cloud the setting of his day!

Excufe me, Sir, if turning from fuch thoughts I resume this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one. I will point out to your attention a particular inftance of it in the fingle province of Penfylvania. In the year 1704 that province called for 11,459/. in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export to Penfylvania was 507,909/. nearly equal to the export to all the colonies together in the first period.

I choose, Sir, to enter into thefe minute and particular details; because generalities, which, in all other cafes are apt to heighten and raise the fubject, have here a tendency to fink it. When we fpeak of the commerce with our colonies, fic

tion lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I could fhew how many enjoyments they procure, which deceive the burthen of life; how many materials which invigorate the fprings of national induftry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domeftick commerce. This would be a curious fubject indeed — but I muft prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vaft and various.

I pass therefore to the colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have profecuted with fuch a fpirit, that, befides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has fome years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest, I am perfuaded, they will export much more. At the beginning of the century, fome of thefe colonies imported corn from the mother country. For fome time paft, the old world has been fed from the new. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a defolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breaft of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhaufted parent.

-As

As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the fea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You furely thought thofe acquifitions of value, for they feemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit, by which that enterprising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pafs by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fifhery. Whilft we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Streights, whilft we are looking for them beneath the arctick circle, we hear that they have pierced into the oppofite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen ferpent of the fouth. Falkland Inland, which feemed too remote and remantick an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a ftage and refting-place in the progress of their victorious induftry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more difcouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst fome of them draw the line and ftrike the harpoon on the coaft of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantick game along the coaft of Brazil. No fea but what is vexed 1

by

their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perfeverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm fagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are ftill, as it were, but in the griftle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the conftraints of watchful and fufpicious government, but that through a wife and falutary neglect, a generous nature has been fuffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I fee how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power fink, and all prefumption in the wifdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigour relents. I pardon fomething to the spirit of liberty.

I am fenfible, Sir, that all which I have afferted, in my detail, is admitted in the grofs; but that quite a different conclufion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen fay, is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this refpect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions and

their habits. Those who understand the military art, will of courfe have fome predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state, may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, poffibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favour of prudent management, than of force; confidering force not as an odious, but a feeble inftrument, for preserving a people fo numerous, fo active, fo growing, fo fpirited as this, in a profitable and fubordinate connection with us.

First, Sir, permit me to obferve, that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may fubdue for a moment; but it does not remove the neceffity of fubduing again and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty. Terrour is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not fuccced, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are fometimes bought by kindnefs; but they can never be begged as alms, by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavours to preferve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which

you