British, 2,449,555 tons-foreign only 905,690. This state (his own) demonstrates that the neutral nations did not entirely engross our navigation.

I am willing from a ftrain of candour to admit that this author speaks at random; that he is only flovenly and inaccurate, and not fallacious. In matters of account, however, this want of care is not excufable: and the difference between neutral nations entirely engroffing our navigation, and being only subsidiary to a vaftly augmented trade, makes a moft material difference to his argument. From that principle of fairness, though the author fpeaks otherwise, I am willing to suppose he means no more than that our navigation had fo declined as to alarm us with the probable lofs of this valuable object. I fhall however fhew, that his whole propofition, whatever modifications he may please to give it, is without foundation; that our navigation was not decreased; that, on the contrary, it was greatly encreased in the war; that it was encreased by the war; and that it was probable the fame cause would continue to augment it to a still greater height; to what an height it is hard to fay, had our fuccefs continued.

But first I muft obferve, I am much less folicitous whether his fact be true or no, than whether his principle is well established. Cafes are dead things, principles are living and productive. I then affirm that, if in time of war our trade had

VOL. II,

D

the

the good fortune to encrease, and at the fame time a large, nay the largeft, proportion of carriage had been engroffed by neutral nations, it ought not in itself to have been confidered as a circumstance of diftrefs. War is a time of inconvenience to trade; in general it must be ftraitened, and muft find its way as it can. It is often happy for nations that they are able to call in neutral navigation. They all aim at it. France endeavoured at it, but could not compafs it. Will this author fay, that in a war with Spain, fuch an affiftance would not be of abfolute neceffity? that it would not be the moft grofs of all follies to refuse it?

In the next place, his method of ftating a medium of fix years of war, and fix years of peace, to decide this queftion is altogether unfajr. To fay, in derogation 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 teft but the war which he fo bitterly laments. One may lay it down as a maxim, that an average estimate of an object in a fteady courfe of rifing or of falling, muft in its nature be an unfair one; more particularly if the cause of the rife or fall be vifible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Average eftimates are never juft but when the object fluctuates, and no reafon can be affigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate. The author chufes to allow

nothing

nothing at all for this: he has taken an average of fix years of the war. He knew, for every body knows, that the first three years were on the whole rather unsuccessful; and that, in confequence of this ill fuccefs, trade funk, and navigation declinedwith it; but that grand delufion of the three laft years turned the scale in our favour. At the beginning of that war (as in the commencement of every war), traders were ftruck with a fort of panick. Many went out of the freighting business. But by degrees, as the war continued, the terrour wore off; the danger came to be better appreciated, and better provided againft; our trade was carried on in large fleets, under regular convoys, and with great safety. The freighting bufinefs revived. The fhips were fewer, but much larger; and though the number decreased, the tonnage was vaftly augmented; infomuch that in 1761 the British shipping had rifen by the author's own account 527,557 tons. In the last year he has given us of the peace it amounted to no more than 494,772; that is, in the last year of the war it was 32,785 tons more than in the correspondent year of his peace average. No year of the peace exceeded it except one, and that but little.

The fair account of the matter is this. Our trade had, as we have juft feen, encreased to fo aftonishing a degree in 1761, as to employ British and foreign fhips to the amount of 707,659 tons, which

D 2

for them, it is not in the ordinary courfe of God's providence to mend our condition.

In vain does the author declaim on the high premiums given for the loans during the war. His long note fwelled with calculations on that fubject (even fuppofing the most inaccurate of all calculations to be juft) would be entirely thrown away, did it not ferve to raise a wonderful opinion of his financial skill in those who are not lefs furprized than edified, when, with a folemn face and myfterious air, they are told that two and two make four. For what else do we learn from this note? That the more expence is incurred by a nation, thẹ more money will be required to defray it; that in proportion to the continuance of that expence, will be the continuance of borrowing; that the encrease of borrowing and the encrease of debt will go hand in hand; and laftly, 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 infignificance, of these propofitions? what do they prove; that war is expenfive, and peace defirable. They contain nothing more than a common-place againft war; the cafieft of all topicks. To bring them home to his purpofe, he ought to have fhewn, that our enemies had money upon better terms; which he has not fhewn, neither can be. I thall fpeak more fully to this point in another

another place. He ought to have fhewn, that the money they raised, upon whatever terms, had procured them a more lucrative return. He knows that our expenditure purchased commerce and conqueft: theirs acquired nothing but defeat and bankruptcy.

Thus the author has laid down his ideas on the fubject of war. Next follow thofe he entertains on that of peace. The treaty of Paris upon the whole has his approbation. Indeed, if his account of the war be juft, he might have spared himself all further trouble. The reft is drawn on as an inevitable conclufion.* If the houfe of Bourbon had the advantage, fhe muft give the law; and the peace, though it were much worfe than it is, had still been a good one. But, as the world is yet deluded on the state of that war, other arguments are neceffary; and the author has in my opinion very ill supplied them. He tells He tells of many things. we have got, and of which he has made out a kind of bill. This matter may be brought within a very narrow compafs, if we come to confider the requifites of a good peace under fome plain diftinct heads. I apprehend they may be reduced to these: 1. Stability; 2. Indemnification; 3. Alliance.

As to the first, the author more than obfcurely hints in feveral places, that he thinks the peace not