The author had his reasons for
stopping
short at the preceding year.
Edmund Burke
We know that the West-Indians are always indebted our merchants, and that the value of every shilling of West India produce English property.
So that our import from them, and not our export, ought always to be _considered as their true value and this corrective ought to be applied to all general balances of our trade, which are formed on the ordinary prin ciples.
If possible, this was more emphatically true of the French West India islands, whilst they continued in our hands. That none or only vcry contemptible part, of the value of this produce could be remitted to France, the author will see, perhaps with unwill ingness, but with the clearest conviction, he con siders, that in the year 1763, after we had ceased to export to the isles of Guadaloupe and Martinico, and to the Havannah, and after the colonies were
? 'F Total imports from the West Indies in 1764 . Exports to ditto in ditto . . .
Excess ofimports .
In this, which the common way of stating the balance, itwill
appear upwards of two millions against us, which ridiculous.
. ? 2,909,411 896,511
. . ? 2,0l2,900
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free to send all their produce to Old France and Spain, if they had any remittance to make; he will see, that we imported from those places, in that year, to the amount of 1,395,. 300l. So far was the whole annual produce of these islands from being adequate to the payments of their annual call upon us, that this mighty additional importation was necessary, though not quite sufficient, to dis charge the debts contracted in the few y,ears we held
them. The property, therefore, of their whole prod uce was ours ; not only during the war, but even for more than a year after the peace. The author, I hope, will not again venture upon so rash and dis couraging a proposition concerning the nature and effect of those conquests, as to call them a conven
ience to the remittances of France; he sees, by this account, that what he asserts is not only without foundation, but even impossible to be true.
As to our trade at that time, he labors with all his might to represent it as absolutely ruined, or"on the very edge of ruin. Indeed, as usual with him, he is often as equivocal in his expression as he is clear in his design. Sometimes he more than insinuates a decay of our commerce in that war; sometimes he
admits an increase of exports; but it is in order to depreciate the advantages we might appear to derive from that increase, whenever it should come to be
proved against him. He tells you,* "that it was chiefly occasioned by the demands our own fleets and armies, and, instead or bringing wealth to the nation, was to be paid for by oppressive taxes upon the people of England. " Never was anything more destitute of foundation. It might be proved, with
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the greatest ease, from the nature and quality of the goods exported, as well as from the situation of the places to which our merchandise was sent, and which the war could no wise affect, that the supply of our fleets and armies could not have been the cause of this wonderful increase of trade: its cause was evi dent to the whole world; the ruin of the trade of France, and our possession of her colonies. What wbnderful effects this cause produced the reader will see below ; * and he will form on that account some judgment of the author's candor or information.
Ditto of foreign goods in time . . . . 2,910,836 14 9 Ditto of ditto out of time . . . . . . 559,485 2 10
Total exports of all kinds . . . . . . 11,7s1,s2s 12 10 Totalimports . . . . . . . . . s,09s,472150
Balance in favor of England . . . . ? 3,694,355 17 10
1754.
* Total export of British goods . . . value, 8,317,506 15 3
1761.
Total export of British goods . . . . 10,649,581 12 6 Ditto of foreign goods in time . . 3,553,692 7 1 Dittoofdittooutoftime. . . . . . 355,01502
Total exports of all kinds . . . . . . 14,55s,2ss19 9 Totalimports . . . . . . . . . 9,294,915 1 6.
Balance in favor of England . . . . ? 5,263,373 1s a
Here is the state of our trade in 1761, compared with a very good year of profound peace: both are taken from the authentic entries at the custom-house. How the author can contrive to make this increase of the export of' English produce agree with his account of the dread ful want of hands in England, page 9, unless he supposes manufactures to be made without hands, I really do not see. It is painful to be S0 frequently obliged to set this author right in matters of fact. This state will fully refute all that he has said or insinuated upon the dif ficulties and decay of our trade, pages 6, 7, and 9.
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Admit however that a great part of our export, though nothing is more remote from fact, was owing to the supply of our fleets and armies; was it not something? --was it not peculiarly fortunate for a nation, that she was able from her own bosom to con tribute largely to the supply of her armies militating in so many distant countries ? The author allows that France did not enjoy the same advantages. But it is remarkable, throughout his whole book, that those circumstances which have ever been considered as great benefits, and decisive proofs of national supe riority, are, when in our hands, taken either in dim inution of some other apparent advantage, or even sometimes as positive misfortunes. The optics of that politician must be of a strange conformation,
A
who beholds everything in this distorted shape.
So far as to our trade. With regard to our navi
gation, he is still more uneasy at our. situation, and still more fallacious in his state of it. In his text, he affirms it "to have been entirely engrossed by the neutral nations. " * This he asserts roundly and boldly, and without the least concern; although it
cost no more than a single glance of the eye upon'his own margin to see the full refutation of this asser tion. His own account proves against him, that, in the year 1761, the British shipping amounted to 527,557 tons,--the foreign to no more than 180,102. The medium of his six years British, 2,449,555 tons, -foreign only 906,690. This state (his own) dc monstrates that the neutral nations did not entirely
engross our navigation.
I am willing from a strain of ca11dor_ to admit that
this author speaks at random ; that he is only sloven
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ly and inaccurate, and not fallacious. In matters of account, however, this want of care is not excusable; and the diiference between neutral nations entirely engrossing our navigation, and being only subsidiary to a vastly augmented trade, makes a most material difference to his argument. From that principle of fairness, though the author speaks otherwise, I am willing to suppose he means no more than that our navigation had so declined as to alarm us with the
probable loss of this valuable object. I shall however show, that his whole proposition, whatever modifica tions he may please to give without foundation; that our navigation had not decreased; that, on the
? had greatly increased in the war; that had increased by the war and that was probable the same cause would continue to augment to still greater height; to what an height hard to say, had our success continued.
But first must observe, am much less solicitous whether his fact be true or no, than whether his prin ciple well established. Cases are dead things, prin ciples are living and productive. affirm then, that,
. in time of war our trade had the good fortune to increase, and at the same time large, nay the largest, proportion of carriage had been engrossed by neutral nations, ought not in itself to have been considered as circumstance of distress. War time of inconvenience to trade; in general must be straitened, and must find 'its way as can. It often happy for nations that they are able to call in neutral navigation. They all aim at it. France en deavored at but could not compass it. Will this author say, that, in war with Spain, such an assist ance would not be of absolute necessity? that would not be the most gross of all follies to refuse it?
contrary,
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In the next place, his method of stating a medium of six years of war, and six years of peace, to decide this question, is altogether unfair. To say, in dero gation of the advantages of a war, that navigation is not equal to what it was in time of peace, is what
hitherto has never been heard of. No war ever bore that test but the war which he so bitterly laments. One may lay it down as a maxim, that an average es timate of an object in a steady course of rising or of falling, must in its nature be an unfair one; more particularly if the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Aver
age estimates are never just but when the object fluc tuates, and no reason can be assigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate. The author chooses to allow nothing at all for this: he has taken an av erage of six years of the war. He knew, for every body knows, that the first three years were on the whole rather unsuccessful ; and that, in consequence of this ill success, trade sunk, and navigation declined with it; but that grand delusion of the three last years turned the scale in our favor. At the begin ning of that war (as in the commencement of every war), traders were struck with a sort of panic. Many went out of the freighting business. But by degrees, as the war continued, the terror wore oif; the danger came to be better appreciated, and bet ter provided against; our trade was carried on in large fleets, under regular convoys, and with great safety. The freighting business revived. The ships
were fewer, but much larger; and though the num ber decreased, the tonnage was vastly augmented: insomuch that in 1761 the British shipping had risen by the author's own account to 527,557 tons. --In the
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last year he has given us of the peace, it amounted to no more than 494,772; that in the last year the war was 32,785 tons more than i-n the corre spondent year of his peace average. No year of the peace exceeded except one, and that but little.
The fair account of the matter this. Our trade had, as we have just seen, increased to so astonishing degree in 1761, as to employ British and foreign
ships to the amount of 707,659 tons, which 149,500 more than we employed in the last year of the peace. --Thus our trade increased more than fifth; our British navigation had increased likewise with this astonishing increase of trade, but was not able to keep pace with it; and we added about 120,000 tons of foreign shipping to the 60,000, which had been employed in the last year of the peace. Whatever happened to our shipping in the former years of the war, this would be no true state of the case at the time of the treaty. If we had lost something in the beginning, we had then recovered,'and more than re covered, all our losses. Such the ground of the doleful complaints of the author, that the carrying trade was wholly engrossed the neutral nations.
have done fairly, and even very moderately, in taking this year, and not his average, as the standard of what might be expected in future, had the war continued. The author will be compelled to allow
unless he undertakes to show; first, that the pos session of Canada, Martinico, Guadaloupe, Grenada, the Havannah, the Philippines, the whole African trade, the whole East India trade, and the whole Newfoundland fishery, had no certain inevitable ten dency to increase the British shipping; unless, in the second place, he can prove that those trades were, or
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might be, by law or indulgence, carried on in foreign vessels; and unless, thirdly, he can demonstrate that the premium of insurance on British ships was rising~ as the war continued. He can prove not one of these points. I will show him a fact more that is mortal to his assertions. It is the state of our shipping in 1762.
The author had his reasons for stopping short at the preceding year. It would have appeared, had he pro ceeded farther, that our tonnage was in a course of uniform augmentation, owing to the freight derived
from our foreign conquests, and to the perfect securi ty of our navigation from our clear and decided supe riority at sea. This, I say, would have appeared from the state of the two years: --
? 1761. British . 1762. Ditto . 1761. Foreign . 1762. Ditto .
. . 527,557 tons. . 559,537 tons. . 180,102 tons.
. . 129,502 tons.
The two last years of the peace were in no degree equal to these. Much of the navigation of 1763 was also owing to the war ; this is manifest from the large part of it employed in the carriage from the ceded islands, with which the communication still continued
No such circumstances of glory and advan tage ever attended upon a war. Too happy will be our lot, if we should again be forced into a war, to behold anything that shall resemble them ; and if we
were not then the better for them, it is not in the ordinary course of God's providence to mend our condition.
In vain does the author declaim on the high pre miums given for the loans during the war. His long note swelled with calculations on that subject
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(even supposing the most inaccurate of all calcula>> tions to be just) would be entirely thrown away, did it not serve to raise a wonderful opinion of his finan cial skill in those who are not less surprised than ed ified, when, with a solemn face and mysterious air, they are told that two and two make four. For what else do we learn from this note ? That the more ex pense is incurred by a nation, the more money will be required to defray it; that in proportion to the continuance of that expense, will be the continuance of borrowing ; that the increase of borrowing and the increase of debt will go hand in hand ; and lastly, that the more money you want, the harder it will be to get it; and that the scarcity of the commodity will enhance the price. Who ever doubted the truth, or the insignificance, of these propositions? what do they prove ? that war is expensive, and peace desira ble. They contain nothing more than a common place against war; the easiest of all topics. To bring them home to his purpose, he ought to have shown that o1u' enemies had money upon better terms; which he has not shown, neither can he. I shall speak more fully to this point in another place. He ought to have shown that the money they raised, upon whatever terms, had procured them a more lucrative return. He knows that our expenditure purchased commerce and conquest: theirs acquired nothing but defeat and bankruptcy.
Thus the author has laid down his ideas on the subject of war. Next follow those he entertains on that of peace. The treaty of Paris upon the whole has his approbation. Indeed, if his account of the war be just, he might have spared himself all further trouble. The rest is drawn on as an inevitable con
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elusi0n. * If the House of Bourbon had the advan
tage, she must give the law; and the peace, though it were much worse than it had still been good one. But as the world yet deluded on the state of that war, other arguments are necessary; and the author has in my opinion very ill supplied them. He tells of many things we have got, and of which he has made out kind of bill. This matter may be brought within very narrow compass, we come to consider the requisites of good peace under some
plain distinct heads. apprehend they may be re duced to these: Stability; Indemnification; 3. Alliance.
As to the first, the author more than obscurely hints in several places, that he thinks the peace not likely to last. However, he does furnish security;
security, in any light, fear, but insufficient; on his hypothesis, surely very odd one. " By stipulat ing for the entire possession of the Continent (says he) the restored French islands are become in some measure dependent on the British empire; and the
good faith of France in observing the treaty guaran teed by the value at which she estimates their pos
sessi0n. "1'
When the advantages of the war were to be depreciated, then the loss of the ultramarine col onies lightened the expenses of France, facilitated her remittances, and therefore her cohmists put them into our hands. According to this author's system,
the actufl possession of those colonies ought to give us little or no advantage in the negotiation for peace and yet the chance of possessing them on future oc
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casion gives a perfect security for the preservation of that peace? " The conquest of the Havannah, if it did not serve Spain, rather distressed England, says our author. 1' But the molestation which her galleons may suffer from our station in Pensacola gives us ad vantages, for which we were not allowed to credit the nation for the Havannah itself ; a place surely full as well situated for every external purpose as Pensa cola, and of more internal benefit than ten thousand Pensacolas.
The author sets very little by conquests ; 1 I sup pose it is because he makes them so very lightly. On this subject he speaks with the greatest certainty imaginable. We have, according to him, nothing to do, but to go and take possession, whenever we think proper, of the French and Spanish settlements. It were better that he had examined a little what advan tage the peace gave us towards the invasion of these colonies, which we did n'ot possess before the peace. It would not have been amiss if he had consulted the public experience, and our commanders, concerning the absolute certainty of those conquests on which he is pleased to found our security. And after all, he should have discovered them to be so very sure, and so very easy, he might at least, to preserve con sistency, have looked few pages back, and (no un pleasing thing to him) listened to himself, where he says, "that the most successful enterprise could not compensate to the nation for the waste of its people, by carrying on war in unhealthy climates. "? po
* Page 6.
" 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. "-- State of the Nation, p.
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sition which he repeats again, p. 9. So that, accord ing to himself, his security is not worth the suit; according to fact, he has only a chance, God knows what a chance, of getting at it; and therefore, ac cording to reason, the giving up the most valuable of all possessions, in hopes to conquer them back, un der any advantage of situation, is the most ridiculous security that ever was imagined for the peace of a na tion. It is true his friends did not give up Canada ; they could not give up everything; let us make the most of it. We have Canada, we know its value. We have not the French any longer to fight in North America; and from this circumstance we derive con siderable advantages. But here let me rest a little.
The author touches upon a string which sounds i1n der his fingers but a tremulous and melancholy note. North America was once indeed a great strength to this nation, in opportunity of ports, in ships, in provisions, in men. We found her a sound, an active, a vigorous member of the empire. I hope, by wise management, she will again become so. But one of our capital
present
restore that security for the peace, and for
cannot
everything
lost along with the affection and the obedience of our
valuable to this country, which we have
297
? misfortunes is her discontent and disobedi ence. To which of the author's favorites this discon tent is owing, we all know but too sufficiently. It would be a dismal event, if this foundation of his se
curity, and indeed of all our public strength, should, in reality, become our weakness; and if all the pow ers of this empire, which ought to fall with a com pacted weight upon the head of our enemies, should be dissipated and distracted by a jealous vigilance, or
by hostile attempts upon one another. Ten Canadas
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colonies. He" is the wise minister, he is the true friend to Britain, who shall be able to restore it.
To return to the security for the peace. The au thor tells us, that the original great purposes of the war were more than accomplished by the treaty. Surely he has experience and reading enough to know, that, in the course of a war, events may hap pen, that render its original very far from being its principal purpose. This original may dwindle by circumstances, so as to become not a purpose of the second or even the third magnitude. I trust this is so obvious that it will not be necessary to put cases for its illustration. In that war, as soon as Spain en tered into the quarrel, the security of North America was no longer the sole nor the foremost object. The Family Compact had been I know not how long before in agitation. But then it was that we saw produced into daylight and action the most odious and most formidable of all the conspiracies against the liberties of Europe that ever has been framed. The war with
Spain was the first fruits of that league ; and a secu rity against that league ought to have been the funda
mental point of a pacification with the powers who compose it. We had. materials in our hands to have constructed that security in such a manner as never to be shaken. But how did the virtuous and able men of our author labor for this great end? They took no one step towards it. On the contrary they countenanced, and, indeed, as far as it depended on them, recognized it in all its parts; for our plenipo tentiary treated with those who acted for the two crowns, as if they had been different ministers of the same monarch. The Spanish minister received his instructions, not from Madrid, but from Versailles.
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299
This was not hid from our ministers at home; and the discovery ought to have alarmed them, if the good of their country had been the object of their anxiety. They could not but have seen that the whole Spanish monarchy was melted down into the cabinet of Ver sailles. But they thought this circumstance an ad
vantage; as it enabled them to go through with their work the more expeditiously. Expedition was every thing to them ; because France might happen during a protracted negotiation to discover the great imposi tion of our victories.
In the same spirit they negotiated the terms of the peace. If it were thought advisable not to take any positive security from Spain, the most obvious princi ples of policy dictated that the burden of the cessions ought to fall upon France; and that everything which was of grace and favor should be given to Spain. Spain could not, on her part, have executed a capital article in the family compact, which obliged her to
compensate the losses of France. At least she could not do it in America ; for she was expressly pre cluded by the treaty of Utrecht from ceding any ter ritory or giving any advantage in trade to that power. What did our ministers? They_ took from Spain the territory of Florida, an object of no value except to show our dispositions to be quite equal at least towards both powers; and they enabled France to compensate Spain by the gift of Louisiana: loading us with all the harshness, leaving the act of kindness
with France, and opening thereby a door to the ful filling of this the most consolidating article of the family compact. Accordingly that dangerous league,
thus abetted and authorized by the English ministry without an attempt to invalidate it in any way, or in
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any of its parts, exists to this hour; and has grown stronger and stronger every hour of its existence.
As to the second component of a good peace, com pensation, I have but little trouble; the author has said nothing upon that head. _ He has nothing to say.
After a war of such expense, this ought to have been a capital consideration. But on what he has been so prudently silent, I think it is right to speak plainly. All our new acquisitions together, at thistime, scarce afford matter of revenue, either at home or abroad, sufficient to defray the expense of their establishments; not one shilling towards the reduction of our debt. Guadaloupe or Martinico alone would have given us material aid; much in the way of duties, much in the way of trade and navigation. A good ministry would have considered how a renewal of the Assiento might have been obtained. We had as much right to ask it at the treaty of Paris as at the treaty of Utrecht. We had incomparably more in our hands to purchase it. Floods of treasure would have poured into this king dom from such a source ; and, under proper manage ment, no small part of it would have taken a public direction, and have fructified an exhausted exchequer.
If this gentleman's hero of finance, instead of fly ing from a treaty, which, though he now defends, he could not approve, and would not oppose ; if he, in stead of shifting into an office, which removed him from the manufacture of the treaty, had, by his credit with the then great director, acquired for us these, or any of these, objects, the possession of Guadaloupe or Martinico, or the renewal of the Assiento, he might have held his head high in his country; because he would have performed real service ; ten thousand times more real service, than all the economy of
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301
which this writer is perpetually talking, or all the little tricks of finance which the expertest juggler of the treasury can practise, could amount to in a thou sand years. But the occasion is lost; the time is gone, perhaps forever.
As to the third requisite, alliance, there too _the author is silent. What strength of that kind did they acquire? They got no one new ally; they stript the enemy of not a single old one. They dis gusted (how justly, or unjustly, matters not) every ally we had; and from that time to this we stand friendless in Europe. But of this naked condition
'
? of their country I know some people are not ashamed. They have their system of politics; our ancestors grew great by another. In this manner these virtu ous men concluded the peace; and their practice is only consonant to their theory.
_ Many things more might be observed on this curi ous head of our author's speculations. But, taking leave of what the writer says in his serious part, if he be serious in any part, I shall only just point out a piece of his pleasantry. No man, I believe, ever de nied that the time for making peace is that in which the best terms may be obtained. But what that time is, together with the use that has been made of we are to judge seeing whether terms adequate to our advantages, and to our necessities, have been actually obtained. Here the pinch of the question, to which the author ought to have set his shoulders
in earnest. Instead of doing this, he slips out of the harness by jest; and sneeringly tells us, that, to determine this point, we must know the secrets of the French and Spanish cabinets)' and that Parliament
* Something however has transpired in the quarrels among those
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was pleased to approve the treaty of peace without calling for the correspondence concerning it. How
just this sarcasm on that Parliament may be, I not; but how becoming in the author, I leave it to his friends to determine.
Having thus gone through the questions of war and peace, the author proceeds to state our debt, and the interest which it carried, at the time of the treaty, with the unfairness and inaccuracy, however, which distinguish all his assertions, and all his calculations. To detect every fallacy, and rectify every mistake, would be endless. It will be enough to point outa few of them, in order to show how unsafe it is to place anything like an implicit trust in such a writer.
The interest of debt contracted during the war is stated by the author at 2,614,892l. The particulars appear in pp. 14 and 15. Among them is stated the unfunded debt, 9,975,017l. , supposed to carry inter est on a medium at 3 per cent, "which amounts to 299,250l. We are referred to the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of the Kingdom," p. 22, for the particulars of that unfunded debt. Turn to the work, and to the place referred to by the author him self, if you have a mind to see a clear detection of a capital fallacy of this article in his account. You will there see that this unfunded debt consists of the nine following articles 1 the remaining subsidy to
concerned in that transaction. It seems the good Genius of Britain, so much vaunted by our author, did his duty nobly. Whilst we were gaining such advantages, the court of France was astonished at our concessions. " J'ai apporte? a Versailles, il est vrai, les Ratifica tions du Roi d'Angletcrre, :2 vostre grand e? tormement, et 12 celui de bien d'auzres. Jc dois cela an bonte?
If possible, this was more emphatically true of the French West India islands, whilst they continued in our hands. That none or only vcry contemptible part, of the value of this produce could be remitted to France, the author will see, perhaps with unwill ingness, but with the clearest conviction, he con siders, that in the year 1763, after we had ceased to export to the isles of Guadaloupe and Martinico, and to the Havannah, and after the colonies were
? 'F Total imports from the West Indies in 1764 . Exports to ditto in ditto . . .
Excess ofimports .
In this, which the common way of stating the balance, itwill
appear upwards of two millions against us, which ridiculous.
. ? 2,909,411 896,511
. . ? 2,0l2,900
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free to send all their produce to Old France and Spain, if they had any remittance to make; he will see, that we imported from those places, in that year, to the amount of 1,395,. 300l. So far was the whole annual produce of these islands from being adequate to the payments of their annual call upon us, that this mighty additional importation was necessary, though not quite sufficient, to dis charge the debts contracted in the few y,ears we held
them. The property, therefore, of their whole prod uce was ours ; not only during the war, but even for more than a year after the peace. The author, I hope, will not again venture upon so rash and dis couraging a proposition concerning the nature and effect of those conquests, as to call them a conven
ience to the remittances of France; he sees, by this account, that what he asserts is not only without foundation, but even impossible to be true.
As to our trade at that time, he labors with all his might to represent it as absolutely ruined, or"on the very edge of ruin. Indeed, as usual with him, he is often as equivocal in his expression as he is clear in his design. Sometimes he more than insinuates a decay of our commerce in that war; sometimes he
admits an increase of exports; but it is in order to depreciate the advantages we might appear to derive from that increase, whenever it should come to be
proved against him. He tells you,* "that it was chiefly occasioned by the demands our own fleets and armies, and, instead or bringing wealth to the nation, was to be paid for by oppressive taxes upon the people of England. " Never was anything more destitute of foundation. It might be proved, with
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the greatest ease, from the nature and quality of the goods exported, as well as from the situation of the places to which our merchandise was sent, and which the war could no wise affect, that the supply of our fleets and armies could not have been the cause of this wonderful increase of trade: its cause was evi dent to the whole world; the ruin of the trade of France, and our possession of her colonies. What wbnderful effects this cause produced the reader will see below ; * and he will form on that account some judgment of the author's candor or information.
Ditto of foreign goods in time . . . . 2,910,836 14 9 Ditto of ditto out of time . . . . . . 559,485 2 10
Total exports of all kinds . . . . . . 11,7s1,s2s 12 10 Totalimports . . . . . . . . . s,09s,472150
Balance in favor of England . . . . ? 3,694,355 17 10
1754.
* Total export of British goods . . . value, 8,317,506 15 3
1761.
Total export of British goods . . . . 10,649,581 12 6 Ditto of foreign goods in time . . 3,553,692 7 1 Dittoofdittooutoftime. . . . . . 355,01502
Total exports of all kinds . . . . . . 14,55s,2ss19 9 Totalimports . . . . . . . . . 9,294,915 1 6.
Balance in favor of England . . . . ? 5,263,373 1s a
Here is the state of our trade in 1761, compared with a very good year of profound peace: both are taken from the authentic entries at the custom-house. How the author can contrive to make this increase of the export of' English produce agree with his account of the dread ful want of hands in England, page 9, unless he supposes manufactures to be made without hands, I really do not see. It is painful to be S0 frequently obliged to set this author right in matters of fact. This state will fully refute all that he has said or insinuated upon the dif ficulties and decay of our trade, pages 6, 7, and 9.
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Admit however that a great part of our export, though nothing is more remote from fact, was owing to the supply of our fleets and armies; was it not something? --was it not peculiarly fortunate for a nation, that she was able from her own bosom to con tribute largely to the supply of her armies militating in so many distant countries ? The author allows that France did not enjoy the same advantages. But it is remarkable, throughout his whole book, that those circumstances which have ever been considered as great benefits, and decisive proofs of national supe riority, are, when in our hands, taken either in dim inution of some other apparent advantage, or even sometimes as positive misfortunes. The optics of that politician must be of a strange conformation,
A
who beholds everything in this distorted shape.
So far as to our trade. With regard to our navi
gation, he is still more uneasy at our. situation, and still more fallacious in his state of it. In his text, he affirms it "to have been entirely engrossed by the neutral nations. " * This he asserts roundly and boldly, and without the least concern; although it
cost no more than a single glance of the eye upon'his own margin to see the full refutation of this asser tion. His own account proves against him, that, in the year 1761, the British shipping amounted to 527,557 tons,--the foreign to no more than 180,102. The medium of his six years British, 2,449,555 tons, -foreign only 906,690. This state (his own) dc monstrates that the neutral nations did not entirely
engross our navigation.
I am willing from a strain of ca11dor_ to admit that
this author speaks at random ; that he is only sloven
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ly and inaccurate, and not fallacious. In matters of account, however, this want of care is not excusable; and the diiference between neutral nations entirely engrossing our navigation, and being only subsidiary to a vastly augmented trade, makes a most material difference to his argument. From that principle of fairness, though the author speaks otherwise, I am willing to suppose he means no more than that our navigation had so declined as to alarm us with the
probable loss of this valuable object. I shall however show, that his whole proposition, whatever modifica tions he may please to give without foundation; that our navigation had not decreased; that, on the
? had greatly increased in the war; that had increased by the war and that was probable the same cause would continue to augment to still greater height; to what an height hard to say, had our success continued.
But first must observe, am much less solicitous whether his fact be true or no, than whether his prin ciple well established. Cases are dead things, prin ciples are living and productive. affirm then, that,
. in time of war our trade had the good fortune to increase, and at the same time large, nay the largest, proportion of carriage had been engrossed by neutral nations, ought not in itself to have been considered as circumstance of distress. War time of inconvenience to trade; in general must be straitened, and must find 'its way as can. It often happy for nations that they are able to call in neutral navigation. They all aim at it. France en deavored at but could not compass it. Will this author say, that, in war with Spain, such an assist ance would not be of absolute necessity? that would not be the most gross of all follies to refuse it?
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In the next place, his method of stating a medium of six years of war, and six years of peace, to decide this question, is altogether unfair. To say, in dero gation of the advantages of a war, that navigation is not equal to what it was in time of peace, is what
hitherto has never been heard of. No war ever bore that test but the war which he so bitterly laments. One may lay it down as a maxim, that an average es timate of an object in a steady course of rising or of falling, must in its nature be an unfair one; more particularly if the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Aver
age estimates are never just but when the object fluc tuates, and no reason can be assigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate. The author chooses to allow nothing at all for this: he has taken an av erage of six years of the war. He knew, for every body knows, that the first three years were on the whole rather unsuccessful ; and that, in consequence of this ill success, trade sunk, and navigation declined with it; but that grand delusion of the three last years turned the scale in our favor. At the begin ning of that war (as in the commencement of every war), traders were struck with a sort of panic. Many went out of the freighting business. But by degrees, as the war continued, the terror wore oif; the danger came to be better appreciated, and bet ter provided against; our trade was carried on in large fleets, under regular convoys, and with great safety. The freighting business revived. The ships
were fewer, but much larger; and though the num ber decreased, the tonnage was vastly augmented: insomuch that in 1761 the British shipping had risen by the author's own account to 527,557 tons. --In the
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last year he has given us of the peace, it amounted to no more than 494,772; that in the last year the war was 32,785 tons more than i-n the corre spondent year of his peace average. No year of the peace exceeded except one, and that but little.
The fair account of the matter this. Our trade had, as we have just seen, increased to so astonishing degree in 1761, as to employ British and foreign
ships to the amount of 707,659 tons, which 149,500 more than we employed in the last year of the peace. --Thus our trade increased more than fifth; our British navigation had increased likewise with this astonishing increase of trade, but was not able to keep pace with it; and we added about 120,000 tons of foreign shipping to the 60,000, which had been employed in the last year of the peace. Whatever happened to our shipping in the former years of the war, this would be no true state of the case at the time of the treaty. If we had lost something in the beginning, we had then recovered,'and more than re covered, all our losses. Such the ground of the doleful complaints of the author, that the carrying trade was wholly engrossed the neutral nations.
have done fairly, and even very moderately, in taking this year, and not his average, as the standard of what might be expected in future, had the war continued. The author will be compelled to allow
unless he undertakes to show; first, that the pos session of Canada, Martinico, Guadaloupe, Grenada, the Havannah, the Philippines, the whole African trade, the whole East India trade, and the whole Newfoundland fishery, had no certain inevitable ten dency to increase the British shipping; unless, in the second place, he can prove that those trades were, or
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might be, by law or indulgence, carried on in foreign vessels; and unless, thirdly, he can demonstrate that the premium of insurance on British ships was rising~ as the war continued. He can prove not one of these points. I will show him a fact more that is mortal to his assertions. It is the state of our shipping in 1762.
The author had his reasons for stopping short at the preceding year. It would have appeared, had he pro ceeded farther, that our tonnage was in a course of uniform augmentation, owing to the freight derived
from our foreign conquests, and to the perfect securi ty of our navigation from our clear and decided supe riority at sea. This, I say, would have appeared from the state of the two years: --
? 1761. British . 1762. Ditto . 1761. Foreign . 1762. Ditto .
. . 527,557 tons. . 559,537 tons. . 180,102 tons.
. . 129,502 tons.
The two last years of the peace were in no degree equal to these. Much of the navigation of 1763 was also owing to the war ; this is manifest from the large part of it employed in the carriage from the ceded islands, with which the communication still continued
No such circumstances of glory and advan tage ever attended upon a war. Too happy will be our lot, if we should again be forced into a war, to behold anything that shall resemble them ; and if we
were not then the better for them, it is not in the ordinary course of God's providence to mend our condition.
In vain does the author declaim on the high pre miums given for the loans during the war. His long note swelled with calculations on that subject
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(even supposing the most inaccurate of all calcula>> tions to be just) would be entirely thrown away, did it not serve to raise a wonderful opinion of his finan cial skill in those who are not less surprised than ed ified, when, with a solemn face and mysterious air, they are told that two and two make four. For what else do we learn from this note ? That the more ex pense is incurred by a nation, the more money will be required to defray it; that in proportion to the continuance of that expense, will be the continuance of borrowing ; that the increase of borrowing and the increase of debt will go hand in hand ; and lastly, that the more money you want, the harder it will be to get it; and that the scarcity of the commodity will enhance the price. Who ever doubted the truth, or the insignificance, of these propositions? what do they prove ? that war is expensive, and peace desira ble. They contain nothing more than a common place against war; the easiest of all topics. To bring them home to his purpose, he ought to have shown that o1u' enemies had money upon better terms; which he has not shown, neither can he. I shall speak more fully to this point in another place. He ought to have shown that the money they raised, upon whatever terms, had procured them a more lucrative return. He knows that our expenditure purchased commerce and conquest: theirs acquired nothing but defeat and bankruptcy.
Thus the author has laid down his ideas on the subject of war. Next follow those he entertains on that of peace. The treaty of Paris upon the whole has his approbation. Indeed, if his account of the war be just, he might have spared himself all further trouble. The rest is drawn on as an inevitable con
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elusi0n. * If the House of Bourbon had the advan
tage, she must give the law; and the peace, though it were much worse than it had still been good one. But as the world yet deluded on the state of that war, other arguments are necessary; and the author has in my opinion very ill supplied them. He tells of many things we have got, and of which he has made out kind of bill. This matter may be brought within very narrow compass, we come to consider the requisites of good peace under some
plain distinct heads. apprehend they may be re duced to these: Stability; Indemnification; 3. Alliance.
As to the first, the author more than obscurely hints in several places, that he thinks the peace not likely to last. However, he does furnish security;
security, in any light, fear, but insufficient; on his hypothesis, surely very odd one. " By stipulat ing for the entire possession of the Continent (says he) the restored French islands are become in some measure dependent on the British empire; and the
good faith of France in observing the treaty guaran teed by the value at which she estimates their pos
sessi0n. "1'
When the advantages of the war were to be depreciated, then the loss of the ultramarine col onies lightened the expenses of France, facilitated her remittances, and therefore her cohmists put them into our hands. According to this author's system,
the actufl possession of those colonies ought to give us little or no advantage in the negotiation for peace and yet the chance of possessing them on future oc
Pages 12, 13. Page 17.
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casion gives a perfect security for the preservation of that peace? " The conquest of the Havannah, if it did not serve Spain, rather distressed England, says our author. 1' But the molestation which her galleons may suffer from our station in Pensacola gives us ad vantages, for which we were not allowed to credit the nation for the Havannah itself ; a place surely full as well situated for every external purpose as Pensa cola, and of more internal benefit than ten thousand Pensacolas.
The author sets very little by conquests ; 1 I sup pose it is because he makes them so very lightly. On this subject he speaks with the greatest certainty imaginable. We have, according to him, nothing to do, but to go and take possession, whenever we think proper, of the French and Spanish settlements. It were better that he had examined a little what advan tage the peace gave us towards the invasion of these colonies, which we did n'ot possess before the peace. It would not have been amiss if he had consulted the public experience, and our commanders, concerning the absolute certainty of those conquests on which he is pleased to found our security. And after all, he should have discovered them to be so very sure, and so very easy, he might at least, to preserve con sistency, have looked few pages back, and (no un pleasing thing to him) listened to himself, where he says, "that the most successful enterprise could not compensate to the nation for the waste of its people, by carrying on war in unhealthy climates. "? po
* Page 6.
" 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. "-- State of the Nation, p.
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sition which he repeats again, p. 9. So that, accord ing to himself, his security is not worth the suit; according to fact, he has only a chance, God knows what a chance, of getting at it; and therefore, ac cording to reason, the giving up the most valuable of all possessions, in hopes to conquer them back, un der any advantage of situation, is the most ridiculous security that ever was imagined for the peace of a na tion. It is true his friends did not give up Canada ; they could not give up everything; let us make the most of it. We have Canada, we know its value. We have not the French any longer to fight in North America; and from this circumstance we derive con siderable advantages. But here let me rest a little.
The author touches upon a string which sounds i1n der his fingers but a tremulous and melancholy note. North America was once indeed a great strength to this nation, in opportunity of ports, in ships, in provisions, in men. We found her a sound, an active, a vigorous member of the empire. I hope, by wise management, she will again become so. But one of our capital
present
restore that security for the peace, and for
cannot
everything
lost along with the affection and the obedience of our
valuable to this country, which we have
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? misfortunes is her discontent and disobedi ence. To which of the author's favorites this discon tent is owing, we all know but too sufficiently. It would be a dismal event, if this foundation of his se
curity, and indeed of all our public strength, should, in reality, become our weakness; and if all the pow ers of this empire, which ought to fall with a com pacted weight upon the head of our enemies, should be dissipated and distracted by a jealous vigilance, or
by hostile attempts upon one another. Ten Canadas
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colonies. He" is the wise minister, he is the true friend to Britain, who shall be able to restore it.
To return to the security for the peace. The au thor tells us, that the original great purposes of the war were more than accomplished by the treaty. Surely he has experience and reading enough to know, that, in the course of a war, events may hap pen, that render its original very far from being its principal purpose. This original may dwindle by circumstances, so as to become not a purpose of the second or even the third magnitude. I trust this is so obvious that it will not be necessary to put cases for its illustration. In that war, as soon as Spain en tered into the quarrel, the security of North America was no longer the sole nor the foremost object. The Family Compact had been I know not how long before in agitation. But then it was that we saw produced into daylight and action the most odious and most formidable of all the conspiracies against the liberties of Europe that ever has been framed. The war with
Spain was the first fruits of that league ; and a secu rity against that league ought to have been the funda
mental point of a pacification with the powers who compose it. We had. materials in our hands to have constructed that security in such a manner as never to be shaken. But how did the virtuous and able men of our author labor for this great end? They took no one step towards it. On the contrary they countenanced, and, indeed, as far as it depended on them, recognized it in all its parts; for our plenipo tentiary treated with those who acted for the two crowns, as if they had been different ministers of the same monarch. The Spanish minister received his instructions, not from Madrid, but from Versailles.
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299
This was not hid from our ministers at home; and the discovery ought to have alarmed them, if the good of their country had been the object of their anxiety. They could not but have seen that the whole Spanish monarchy was melted down into the cabinet of Ver sailles. But they thought this circumstance an ad
vantage; as it enabled them to go through with their work the more expeditiously. Expedition was every thing to them ; because France might happen during a protracted negotiation to discover the great imposi tion of our victories.
In the same spirit they negotiated the terms of the peace. If it were thought advisable not to take any positive security from Spain, the most obvious princi ples of policy dictated that the burden of the cessions ought to fall upon France; and that everything which was of grace and favor should be given to Spain. Spain could not, on her part, have executed a capital article in the family compact, which obliged her to
compensate the losses of France. At least she could not do it in America ; for she was expressly pre cluded by the treaty of Utrecht from ceding any ter ritory or giving any advantage in trade to that power. What did our ministers? They_ took from Spain the territory of Florida, an object of no value except to show our dispositions to be quite equal at least towards both powers; and they enabled France to compensate Spain by the gift of Louisiana: loading us with all the harshness, leaving the act of kindness
with France, and opening thereby a door to the ful filling of this the most consolidating article of the family compact. Accordingly that dangerous league,
thus abetted and authorized by the English ministry without an attempt to invalidate it in any way, or in
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any of its parts, exists to this hour; and has grown stronger and stronger every hour of its existence.
As to the second component of a good peace, com pensation, I have but little trouble; the author has said nothing upon that head. _ He has nothing to say.
After a war of such expense, this ought to have been a capital consideration. But on what he has been so prudently silent, I think it is right to speak plainly. All our new acquisitions together, at thistime, scarce afford matter of revenue, either at home or abroad, sufficient to defray the expense of their establishments; not one shilling towards the reduction of our debt. Guadaloupe or Martinico alone would have given us material aid; much in the way of duties, much in the way of trade and navigation. A good ministry would have considered how a renewal of the Assiento might have been obtained. We had as much right to ask it at the treaty of Paris as at the treaty of Utrecht. We had incomparably more in our hands to purchase it. Floods of treasure would have poured into this king dom from such a source ; and, under proper manage ment, no small part of it would have taken a public direction, and have fructified an exhausted exchequer.
If this gentleman's hero of finance, instead of fly ing from a treaty, which, though he now defends, he could not approve, and would not oppose ; if he, in stead of shifting into an office, which removed him from the manufacture of the treaty, had, by his credit with the then great director, acquired for us these, or any of these, objects, the possession of Guadaloupe or Martinico, or the renewal of the Assiento, he might have held his head high in his country; because he would have performed real service ; ten thousand times more real service, than all the economy of
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which this writer is perpetually talking, or all the little tricks of finance which the expertest juggler of the treasury can practise, could amount to in a thou sand years. But the occasion is lost; the time is gone, perhaps forever.
As to the third requisite, alliance, there too _the author is silent. What strength of that kind did they acquire? They got no one new ally; they stript the enemy of not a single old one. They dis gusted (how justly, or unjustly, matters not) every ally we had; and from that time to this we stand friendless in Europe. But of this naked condition
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? of their country I know some people are not ashamed. They have their system of politics; our ancestors grew great by another. In this manner these virtu ous men concluded the peace; and their practice is only consonant to their theory.
_ Many things more might be observed on this curi ous head of our author's speculations. But, taking leave of what the writer says in his serious part, if he be serious in any part, I shall only just point out a piece of his pleasantry. No man, I believe, ever de nied that the time for making peace is that in which the best terms may be obtained. But what that time is, together with the use that has been made of we are to judge seeing whether terms adequate to our advantages, and to our necessities, have been actually obtained. Here the pinch of the question, to which the author ought to have set his shoulders
in earnest. Instead of doing this, he slips out of the harness by jest; and sneeringly tells us, that, to determine this point, we must know the secrets of the French and Spanish cabinets)' and that Parliament
* Something however has transpired in the quarrels among those
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was pleased to approve the treaty of peace without calling for the correspondence concerning it. How
just this sarcasm on that Parliament may be, I not; but how becoming in the author, I leave it to his friends to determine.
Having thus gone through the questions of war and peace, the author proceeds to state our debt, and the interest which it carried, at the time of the treaty, with the unfairness and inaccuracy, however, which distinguish all his assertions, and all his calculations. To detect every fallacy, and rectify every mistake, would be endless. It will be enough to point outa few of them, in order to show how unsafe it is to place anything like an implicit trust in such a writer.
The interest of debt contracted during the war is stated by the author at 2,614,892l. The particulars appear in pp. 14 and 15. Among them is stated the unfunded debt, 9,975,017l. , supposed to carry inter est on a medium at 3 per cent, "which amounts to 299,250l. We are referred to the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of the Kingdom," p. 22, for the particulars of that unfunded debt. Turn to the work, and to the place referred to by the author him self, if you have a mind to see a clear detection of a capital fallacy of this article in his account. You will there see that this unfunded debt consists of the nine following articles 1 the remaining subsidy to
concerned in that transaction. It seems the good Genius of Britain, so much vaunted by our author, did his duty nobly. Whilst we were gaining such advantages, the court of France was astonished at our concessions. " J'ai apporte? a Versailles, il est vrai, les Ratifica tions du Roi d'Angletcrre, :2 vostre grand e? tormement, et 12 celui de bien d'auzres. Jc dois cela an bonte?
