how uncertain are the days of every mortal, and how are Princes, Ministers, or States, tempted into action by circumstances, opportunities, and advantages? Let us well weigh what it is for a private man, but much more for a great Nation, to part with the means of their prosperity out of their own hands, and to place it in the power and determination of those of whom they have, on account of a long and ancient rivalship, and the continuation of many bloody wars, the utmost reason to be suspicious and jealous.

We cannot too much consider or reflect upon what happened between Spain and the Dutch Provinces, at their breach and separation. The Spanish Government consisted, at that time, of Spain, of Portugal, of Mexico, and Peru, and other Provinces of America, of the Spanish and Portuguese, being all the European settlements at that time in the East Indies, and of Flanders, making seventeen Provinces, whereof those now united and then revolted, were only seven. How unequal a match! But yet the battle was not to the strong. The story and event of their war are well known. I am not about to repeat them. How little did, in the beginning, the Spaniards or Portuguese, or even the Dutch themselves, dream that the latter would, before long, strip and divest the former of the chief of these their settlements in the East Indies, and make them their own. They were, nevertheless, different Nations, spoke different languages, had different customs, and religions inconsistent together, and were themselves, before the end, extremely odious to one another. The Dutch obtained nothing except by force, victory, and conquest. But surely we are well aware how different things may, in these respects, be between us and the Americans, and bow much to the advantage of the latter. We are one Nation, with the same language, the same manners, and the same religion. Their seamen, their soldiers, their people, are ours, and ours theirs. How easy will be the transition or the change of dependence, protection, or Government, between one and the other? Our people do already and at this moment seek with them shelter and refuge from their domestick poverty and misery. Should ever these our Provinces, in the events of chance and time, come to look us in the face with any near equality, or be much assisted by any other Nation, would it then be a very strange thing if they should cause a general revolt of all or of almost all the seamen of the British Empire? These might not look upon themselves as engaging or acting against their country, but as choosing between two parts of it. They will at their pleasure distribute the titles of unreasonable and unjust, of injured and oppressed. The best terms and the best treatment will not fail to carry the greater numbers. There is, perhaps, on the one side, towards this brave and deserving body of men, a most cruel, unjust, and impolitick practice, which has long cried for vengeance, and which cannot fail to be one day heard, and at that moment, perhaps, as likely as at any other. It is in every one's discourse, that something of the same kind may happen with respect to our common soldiery. I will not, therefore, dwell on that point. But what part might our Islands in the West Indies take at such a conjuncture? To whom are they the nearest, or on whom do they most depend for their provisions, lumber, and other necessary circumstances of their trade? Would there be in the East Indies the same necessity of conquest as the Dutch found? Might more equal conditions, or independence itself, be no temptation to one or the other, or might it in that day be thought a great sin to change the words Old England for New? There is one point so important, so critical, that I hardly know either how to mention or how to be silent in it. Suppose that Ireland itself, I mean the Protestant, opulent, and ruling part of Ireland, should grow jealous—should begin to make comparisons between the state, situation, and relation of the Americans towards us and their own—but I will pass by this subject. However, I know so well the openness and frankness of that Nation, as to be fully assured that there are at least none of that country who advise or urge at this time the present proceedings with any distant or double view to forward and hasten the independence of Ireland, and that not at its own, but at the cost and hazard of America. The human heart can hardly be conceived to conceal such mysteries. But were it otherwise, our Administration would no doubt be sensible of it, and instead of being duped or imposed upon thereby, be only the more circumspect on the occasion, and the more upon their guard.

Unhappy are the people which pursue those steps that their friends most fear, and their enemies most wish. Were the Cabinets of Versailles and Madrid, or any other the most jealous of the power and prosperity of Great Britain, united in council, and that they had it in their option to drive and push us, for their own advantage, upon some ruinous and destructive measure, what would they choose before this very one which we are now of ourselves so fatally and so madly running upon?

It is a common proverb in politicks, that any state may, at its own pleasure, commence war, but that they must afterwards ask their enemies when it shall be ended. Let us stay our hand and reflect once more while we may, and before that the die is cast not to be recalled. No man knows otherwise, whether the next time that we and the Americans shall treat upon terms, it may be on the ground of Acts of Parliament and Acts of Assembly, or upon that of a treaty of peace.

It is sometimes said that Providence blinds the understanding of those whom it destines to destruction. When things are ripe for that end, men often provoke and hasten their own fate. But God forbid that any one being at the helm of this state should ever not fully and repeatedly consider, or that he should from any unhappy impulse scruple or hesitate to stay and to stop such measures as may, in their consequences, make his master to sit uneasy on his throne, nor suffer himself to lay down his head upon his pillow, without bearing on it the curses of his country, but which may throw all the parts of the British Empire into such disorder and confusion, that neither he nor any man shall be able to guide or hold the reins of its Government.

I cannot guess into whose hands these sheets may fall, or how they may be received. It is not a Prince alone who may in these abject times be surrounded with flattery; a Minister may not want his share of it. It is withal but a poor satisfaction for a private person to wish, in the waste and havock of his country, that it may be remembered; that there was not wanting one who laid freely and plainly before the publick and those governing it, the risk and the likelihood of these fatal events and circumstances. But it is to be hoped that better and more substantial effects and consequences will follow, should the things here advanced be, on consideration, found no other than truth and reason. May not otherwise these advices and admonitions rise up one day in witness against those who shall now despise them? It is at the same time the furthest from my meaning, that futurity can be foreseen, or that it is permitted to look into the book of the time to come. There is nothing certain in human affairs; but in incidents of this prodigious importance; in the fate of States and of Kingdoms; in dangers of this transcendant magnitude, probability takes the place of certainty, and every prudent ruler ought to shun and avoid the one with almost as much caution as he would the other; nor can I finish this subject, without once more repeating, that our present debts puts us into a situation in which no Nation ever was before.

I know that some people affect to magnify the debts of France, but they are hardly worth speaking of in comparison of ours. I don't believe that they exceeded, at the utmost, fifteen millions sterling, when the Regent Duke of Orleans took the method of the Mississippi to cancel and annihilate them. The wants of Louis the Fourteenth had been great, but his credit was as small. What can the present King have contracted since, to be compared to the debt of Great. Britain? Where is the credit? Does any one believe the Dutch concerns of that kind to be equal in France to what they are in England, or has France itself supplied the rest? However, I will only observe more that the French debt consists, in great measure, of arrears of pensions, places, posts, and other grants which the same hand withholds as conferred; but that our debt was all received in millions sterling.

As to what has been said, that great men moving in a publick sphere are above the rules of right and wrong, he must be unworthy to hold the helm of any Government, who is so ignorant of the facts and incidents before his time, or so blind to those about him, as not to observe and perceive that good and virtuous actions, I mean such as are