The writer, on the consequences of American Independence says that “France has long struggled to rival us in our manufactures in vain; this (i.e. American Independence) will enable her to do it with effect.”1

If England would awake out of her dream, and make peace, acknowledge American Independence, and acknowledge the American treaties with France, and make a similar treaty of commerce with the United States, upon the most generous principles of equality and reciprocity, neither France nor any other nation of Europe would be able to rival England in those manufactures which we most wanted 554in America, those of wool and iron: The English manufactures, in these articles are at present so much better, and the Americans are so much more accustomed to them, that this trade would return to its old channel, and the American demand for them, and for many other articles of our manufactures would increase in proportion, as the population increases in America, and as their commerce with each other and with other nations increases, and the consequent means of paying England for what they purchase. This nation would find themselves so far from being materially hurt, by American Independence, that they would see a prosperity introduced here in consequence of it, that would excite the utmost astonishment at our own obstinacy, in contending so long, at the expence of so much blood and treasure, against it, provided we are wise enough to lay aside our groundless jealousies, and that hostile disposition towards America which is once more indulged with so much rancour; and provided we take care at the peace to settle all questions about boundaries, so as to prevent our own people from encroaching upon them; and provided we do not meanly aim at excluding them from any branches of commerce, fisheries or naval powers which God and nature have destined to them. If we will indulge the base passions of envy, jealousy and hatred against them, we may depend upon a reciprocation of these passions from them, and we may depend upon a dreadful enemy in them: but if we had magnanimity enough to comply with what appears to be the settled digested system of all the other maritime powers of Europe relative to America, to treat them with candour and friendship, we shall find as much real advantage from them, and more too, than we ever did. All will depend upon ourselves. Nothing is wanting but common sense.

But if we pursue this war, destroying the lives and distressing the commerce of America, we shall feel from that country such shafts of deadly hate, as will finally ruin our credit, destroy our manufactures, reduce to nothing our influence in Europe, depress our naval power to such an inferiority to France and Spain, as we never shall recover; leave the East Indies and Ireland in a state of Independency too, and the West India Islands ready to petition any other power for protection, and indeed this island itself at the mercy of an invader. If we continue this war, France and Spain too will be able to rival us in manufactures. They are both attentive at this time to this object; they are not only endeavouring to introduce our manufactures, but to accommodate them more to the taste and use of the Americans. And the Americans are daily growing more familiar with French articles, 555and acquiring a taste for them. The advantages in trade, already granted to Ireland, and the consequent growth of manufactures there, will infinitely facilitate the introduction and improvement of manufactures; and the emigration of manufactures into France and Spain, by means of the intimate intercourse between Ireland and those kingdoms. In short, the continuance of the war will indeed be fatal: it will enable France to rival us in effect in our most essential interests; and there has hardly ever happened among mankind so obstinate and so blind a perseverance in error so obvious, for so long a time, as we have already pursued this ruinous war. Let us open our eyes. We are amused with insinuations that France is sick of the part she has acted. This is to suppose her sick of the wisest, most successful, most honourable, and noble part she ever acted.—Think as we will, all the rest of Europe and America are convinced of this:—and if we had sold ourselves to France, we could not serve her more essentially, in every interest, commercial, naval, political, or oeconomical, than by continuing this war.

Our cool thinker goes on. “We receive, say he, from the West India Islands, certain commodities, absolutely necessary to carry on our manufactures to any advantage and extent, which we can procure from no other country. We must take the remains from France or America, after they have supplied themselves, and fullfilled their contracts with their allies at their own prices, and loaded with the expence of foreign transportation, if we are permitted to trade for them at all.”2 If this was intended as an argument for continuing the war, I should have thought it the raving of the delirium of a fever, rather than a cool thought. Is it possible to urge an argument more clear for making peace now, while we may have our islands? How are we to supply our islands with lumber, and other necessaries, if we continue the war? A man who has really thought coolly upon the subject, would have advised us to make peace and save our West India islands. He would have told us, that by continuing the war, we should certainly lose them, and with them the articles so necessary to our manufactures. America does not wish the English Islands in the hands of the French. She is very ready to warrantee to the English all that are not taken, and very probably France would restore those which are, in exchange for other possessions which we have taken from them. America cannot wish to continue the war; because she gains nothing,* except in military skill; in the advancement of agriculture and manufactures, laying the strongest possible foundation for future commerce, prosperity and naval power. France and Spain 556indeed may be supposed to wish its continuance, because they are gaining every year conquest of territory, as well as augmentation of manufactures and commerce, naval power, and political consideration in Europe. THE ENGLISH MALADY IS UPON US.—THE DISPOSITION TO SUICIDE, WHICH DESTROYS SO MANY INDIVIDUALS AMONG US, HAS SEISED THE PUBLIC.—WHEN PEACE LEADS TO GLORY, AND WAR TO NOTHING BUT DISGRACE AND RUIN, WE FALL HEADLONG INTO THE ABYSS OF THE ONE, AND LEAVE THE PLEASANT AND SAFE PATH OF THE OTHER.

IF “we receive from the West India Islands certain commodities necessary to manufactures,” as the cool reasoner on the consequences of American Independence pretends, “which we can procure from no other country;”1 is not this a motive for France to continue the war, as forcible as for us? The rivalry, and the enmity, between England and France, is so ancient, and so deeply rooted in the hearts of the two nations, that each considers the weakening of the other, as a strengthening of itself, and a loss to the other as a gain to itself. The English have, a long time, made it a maxim never to suffer France 557either to have a navy, or a flourishing commerce. An active, prosperous trade, or a formidable marine, have ever been considered as a legitimate cause of war. And whether we think of it coolly or not, England would have been at war with France before now, if we had never had any war with America, merely to burn, sink, and destroy her Marine. Can we be so ignorant of the human heart then, as not to know that depriving us of these commodities, which we derive from the West India Islands, and which are necessary to our manufactures, will be an inducement to our enemies to continue the war? Depriving us of a commodity, taking from us a manufacture, is motive enough, if our enemies act upon the same maxims that we do; but, adding the commodity or the manufacture to themselves, is a double motive. In short, is it possible for this writer to adduce one reason for us to continue the war, which is not also a cool argument for France, Spain, and America to continue it? The question still is, Which can hold out longest, France, who has not yet laid on one new imposition, or we, who add annually almost a million to our perpetual taxes? America, whose whole national debt does not amount to more than five millions, or we, whose debt is more than 200 millions, at least sixty of which have been already added by this war? By making peace, we save the Islands, with their commodities; by continuing the war, we lose them infallibly.

“But this is not all,” says this cool declaimer: “We must add to our loss of seamen, sustained by the Independence of America, at least twenty thousand more, who have been bred and maintained in the trade from Great Britain to the West Indies, and in the West India trade among themselves, and with other parts, amounting in the whole to upwards of eighty thousand; a loss which cannot fail to affect the sensibility of every man who loves this country, and knows that its safety can only be secured by its Navy.”2

But has it been considered, that neither of the powers at war have any pretence of claim to these Islands now? That they will have pretences upon them if they take them, which we cannot hinder if we continue the war? That once taken by France, America is bound by treaty to warrant them to her? This treaty lasts no longer than this war. Another war, America will be under no such obligations, unless, by continuing the war, we should compel her into further treaties, which may be, though she would be averse to them.3 Is it prudency in us to hazard so much upon the events of war, which are always uncertain, where forces are equal? But we are now most impolitically entangling ourselves in a war where the forces and resources are two 558to one against us? But will France and Spain be the less zealous to conquer the English Islands, because, by this means, they shall certainly take away so many seamen, and share them with America? Annexing these Islands to France and Spain, will increase the trade of France, Spain, Denmark, the United Provinces of the Low Countries, and the United States of America, and the twenty thousand seamen will be divided in some proportion between all these powers. The Dutch and the Americans will have the carriage of a great part of this trade, in consequence of the dismemberment of these Islands from you, and annexation to France and Spain. Do we expect to save these things by continuing the war? If we do, I wish we could reflect more coolly upon things. Every success we have yet had, in the whole course of this war, has been owing to fortunate contingences, or the mistaken policy of our enemies. It is too much for us to presume, that a series of miracles will be wrought for our deliverance, or that our enemies will never discover where their strength lies. We may bless our stars, and not our wisdom, that we have now an army, a navy, or an island in the West Indies.

“Will not Great Britain lose much of her Independence, if obliged to other countries for her naval stores?”4 Has she lost her Independence? Has she not been obliged to other countries for naval stores these five years?

“In the time of Queen Anne, we paid 3£. a barrel for tar to the extortionate Swede; and such was the small demand of those countries for the manufactures of this, that the ballance of trade was greatly in their favour. The gold we obtained in other commerce, was continually pouring into their laps. But we have reduced that ballance, by our importation of large quantities of those supplies from America.”5

But what is to hinder Great Britain from importing these large quantities of pitch, tar, and turpentine, from America, after we shall be wise enough to acknowledge and guarantee her Independence, by an honourable and advantageous peace with her? Great Britain may be obliged to give a price somewhat higher, because other nations will import them too. But this augmentation of price will probably be very little. Will the prospect of this higher price induce America to give up her Independence, and her new Governments, which, whatever we may think, are more firmly and solidly established than ours is? Will not our manufacturers purchase pitch from independent America? Will the prospect which is opened to the other maritime 559powers, of drawing these supplies, as well as those of masts, yards, bowsprits, ship timber, and ready-wrought ships too, make them less zealous to support American Independence? Will the increase of the demand upon the Northern Powers for those Article, in consequence of the destruction of the British monopoly, in America, make these powers less inclined to American Independency?

The British monopoly and bounties, in fact, reduced the price of these articles in the Northern markets. The ceasing of that monopoly, and those bounties, will rather raise the price in the Baltic: Because those States in America, where pitch and tar chiefly grow, have so many articles of more profitable cultivation, that, without bounties, it is not likely that trade will flourish to a degree, to reduce the prices in the North of Europe.

Every day shews us more and more, that we undertook this war too rashly; without considering ourselves; without knowing the character and resources of America, and without weighing the relations between America and Europe. 6 they have all decided this question against us, and in favour of America, as fully as even France has done. They all think that the cause of America is just, and that every one of them is interested in supporting her Independence. They have not had motives so pressing as France, Spain, and Holland, to engage in open war; but the measures they are taking, are as clearly in favour of America. There is not a power upon earth so much interested as America in the capital point which they are establishing, That free ships make free goods.

“Should a war take place between us and the Northern Powers, where are we to procure our naval stores?”7 I answer, make peace with America, and procure them from her. But when you go to war with America and the Northern Powers at once, you will get them no where. This writer appears to have had no suspicion, when he wrote his book, of the real intentions of the Northern Powers. What he thinks now, after their confederation against Great Britain, I know not. It is remarkable that this confederation was known in Europe eighteen months, and in the American Congress twelve months (not indeed as an act executed, but as a sentiment and design in which they were all agreed, and for which they were all making preparations)8 before it was either known or attended to by that Administration, of which Lord North was the ostensible Premier.9 We may affect to be as much astonished as we will: We may cry: “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have thirteen thankless children!”10 We may 560 growl amidst the tempest, like Lear, and cry to the thunders: “Rumble your fill! Fight whirlwind! hail! and fire!”11 But we must submit to fate. Her ordinances cannot be repealed by our Parliament, which has not yet claimed jurisdiction over her in all cases whatsoever.