Let us however, before we defcend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national profperity has happened within the short period of the life of man, It has happened within fixty-eight years. There are thofe alive whofe memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progrefs. He was in 1704 of an age, at least to be made to comprehend fuch things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et quæ fit poterit cognofcere virtus-Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this aufpicious youth, forefeeing the many virtues, which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in vifion, that, when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the houfe of Brunfwick had fat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy iffue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great Britain, he should fee his fon, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raife him to an higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one—If amidst these bright and happy scenes of domeftic honour and profperity, that angel fhould have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilft he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius fhould point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mafs of the national intereft, a small feminal principle, rather than a formed body, and fhould tell him-"Young man, there is America-which at this day "ferves for little more than to amufe you with ftories of

favage men, and uncouth manners; yet fhall, before you "taste of death, fhew itself equal to the whole of that com"merce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progreffive inVOL. II.

66

F

"crease

"crease of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, "by fucceffion of civilizing conquests and civilizing fettle«ments in a series of feventeen hundred years, you fhall "fee as much added to her by America in the course of a "fingle 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 prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!

Excuse me, Sir, if turning from fuch thoughts I refume this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a large fcale; look at it on a small one. I will point out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single 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 these minute and particular details; because generalities, which in all other cafes are apt to heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency to fink it. When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction 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 springs of national industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domeftic commerce. This would be a curious

3

fubject

fubject indeed-but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter fo vaft and various.

I pass therefore to the colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have profecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harveft, I am perfuaded, they will export much At the beginning of the century, fome of these colonies imported corn from the mother country. For fome time past, the old world has been fed from the new. 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 breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted pa

more.

rent.

The

As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea 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 enterprizing 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? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilft we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen receffes of Hudfon's Bay, and Davis's Streights, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic 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 Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition,

F 2

ambition, is but a stage 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 whilft fome of them draw the line and ftrike the harpoon on the coaft of Africa, others run the longitude, and purfue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No fea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witnefs to their toils. Neither the perfeverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm fagacity of English enterprize, ever carried this moft perilous mode of hardy 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 gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate thefe things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not fqueezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and fufpicious government, but that through a wife and falutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered 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 wisdom 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 course have

fome

fome predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state, may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confefs, 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 preferving 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. Terror is not always, the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not fucceed, you are without refource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are fometimes bought by kindness; 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 preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, funk, wafted, and confumed in the conteft. Nothing. lefs will content me, than whole America. I do not choose to confume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength that I confume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; and ftill lefs in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no infurance against fuch an event. Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit, because it is the fpirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no fort of experience in favour of force

as