which is 149,500 more than we employed in the laft year of the peace. Thus our trade encreased more than a fifth; our British navigation had encreased likewife with this aftonifhing encreafe of trade, but was not able to keep pace with it; and we added about 120,000 ton of foreign fhipping to the 60,000, which had been employed in the laft year of the peace. Whatever happened to our fhipping in the former years of the war, this would be no true ftate of the cafe at the time of the treaty. If we had loft fomething in the beginning, we had then recovered, and more than recovered, all our loffes. Such is the ground of the doleful complaints of the author, that the carrying trade was wholly engroffed by the neutral nations.

I have done fairly, and even very moderately, in taking this year, and not his average, as the ftandard of what might be expected in future, had the war continued. The author will be compelled to allow it, unlefs he undertakes to fhew; firft, that the poffeffion of Canada, Martinico, Guadaloupe, Grenada, the Havannah, the Philippines, the whole African trade, the whole Eaft India trade, and the whole Newfoundland fishery, had no certain inevitable tendency to increase the Britifh fhipping; unlefs, in the fecond place, he can prove that thofe trades were, or might, by law or indulgence, be carried on in foreign veffels; and unlefs, thirdly, he can demonftrate that the pre

mium of infurance on Britifh fhips was rifing as the war continued. He can prove not one of thefe points. I will fhew him a fact more that is mortal to his affertions. It is the ftate of our shipping in 1762. The author had his reasons for ftopping fhort at the preceding year. It would have appeared, had he proceeded farther, that our tonnage was in a courfe of uniform augmentation, owing to the freight derived from our foreign conquefts, and to the perfect fecurity of our navi+ gation from our clear and decided fuperiority at fea. This, I fay, would have appeared from the ftate of the two years:

The two laft years of the peace were in no degree equal to thefe. Much of the navigation of 1769 was alfo owing to the war; this is manifeft from the large part of it employed in the carriage froin the ceded iflands, with which the communication ftill continued open. No fuch circumftances of glory and advantage 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 ther the better

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 elfe do we learn from this note? That the more expence is incurred by a nation, the 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 fcarcity of the commodity will enhance the price. Who ever doubted the truth, of the infignificance, of thefe 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 shall fpeak more fully to this point in

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, she must give the law; and the peace, though it were much worse 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 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 thefe: 1. Stability; 2. Indemnification; 3. Alliance.

K

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

likely to laft. However, he does furnish a fecurity; a fecurity, in any light, I fear, but infufficient; on his hypothefis, furely a very odd one,

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By ftipulating for the entire poffeffion of the "continent, (fays he) the restored French islands are become in fome measure dependent on the "British empire; and the good faith of France in "obferving the treaty guaranteed by the value at "which she estimates their poffeffion." This author foon grows weary of his principles. They feldom last him for two pages together. When the advantages of the war were to be depreciated, then the lofs of the ultramarine colonies lightened. the expences of France, facilitated her remittances, and therefore her colonists put them into our hands. According to this author's fyftem, the actual poffeffion of those colonies ought to give us little or no advantage in the negotiation for peace; and yet the chance of poffeffing them on a future occafion gives a perfect fecurity for the prefervation of that peace. The conqueft of the Havannah, if it did not serve Spain, rather diftreffed England, fays our author. But the moleftation which her galleons may fuffer from our ftation in Pensacola

"Our merchants fuffered by the detention of the gal"leons, as their correspondents in Spain were disabled from paying them for their goods fent to America." State of the Nation, p. 7.