from it. Far from deciding on a fudden or partial view, I would patiently go round and round the subject, and furvey it minutely in every poffible aspect. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this ftubborn spirit, which prevails in your colonies, and difturbs your government. These are-To change that fpirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes. To profecute it as criminal. Or, to comply with it as neceffary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been started, that of giving up the colonies; but it met fo flight a reception, that I do not think myfelf obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little fally of anger; like the frowardness of peevish children; who, when they cannot get all they would have, are refolved to take nothing.

The first of these plans, to change the spirit as inconvenient, by removing the causes, I think is the most like a fyftematick proceeding. It is radical in its principle; but it is attended with great difficulties, fome of them little short, as I conceive, of impoffibilities. This will appear by examining into the plans which have been proposed.

As the growing population in the colonies is evidently one cause of their refiftance, it was last feffion mentioned in both houses, by men of weight, and received not without applause, that, in order to check this evil, it would be proper for the crown to make no further grants of land. But to this scheme, there are two objections. The first, - that there is already so much unsettled land in private hands, as to afford room for an immenfe future population, although the crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its foil. If this be the cafe, then the only effect of

this avarice of defolation, this hoarding of a royal wildernefs, would be to raise the value of the poffeffions in the hands of the great private monopolifts, without any adequate check to the growing and alarming mischief of population.

But, if you stopped your grants, what would be the confequence? The people would occupy without grants. grants. They have already so occupied in many places. You cannot station garrisons in every part of these deferts. If you drive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of the people in the back fettlements are already little attached to particular fituations. Already they have topped the Apalachian mountains. From thence they behold before them an immense plain, one vaft, rich, level meadow; a square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander, without a poffibility of restraint; they would change their manners with the habits of their life; would foon forget a government, by which they were difowned; would become hordes of English Tartars; and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the flaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command and bleffing of Providence, "Encrease and multiply." Such would be the happy result of an endeavour to keep as a lair of wild beasts, that earth, which God, by an express charter, has given to the children of men. Far different, and furely much wifer, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the hufbandman, to look to authority for his' VOL. II. title.

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title. We have taught him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into diftricts; that the ruling power fhould never be wholly out of fight. We have fettled all we could; and we have carefully attended every fettlement with government.

Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reafons I have just given, I think this new project of hedgingin population to be neither prudent nor practicable.

To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arreft the noble course of their marine enterprizes, would be a more easy task. I freely confefs it. We have fhewn a difpofition to a system of this kind; a disposition even to continue the restraint after the offence; looking on ourfelves as rivals to our colonies, and perfuaded that of course we must gain all that they fhall lofe. Much mischief we may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things is often more than fufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediate power of the colonies to refift our violence, as very formidable. In this, however, I may be miftaken. But when I confider, that we have colonies for no purpose but to be ferviceable to us, it feems to my poor understanding a little prepofterous, to make them unferviceable, in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its fubjects into fubmiffion. But, remember, when you have compleated your fyftem of impoverishment, that nature ftill proceeds in her ordinary courfe; that difcontent will increafe with mifery; and that there are critical moments in the fortune of all ftates, when they, who are too weak to contribute to your profperity, may be ftrong enough to complete your ruin. Spoliatis arma fuperfunt.

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The temper and character, which prevail in our colonies, are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falfify the pedigree of this fierce people, and perfuade them that they are not fprung from a nation, in whofe veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they would hear you tell them this tale, would detect the impofition; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfitteft perfon on earth, to argue another Englishman into flavery.

I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their republican religion, as their free defcent; or to fubftitute the Roman Catholick, as a penalty; or the church of England, as an improvement. The mode of inquifition and dragooning, is going out of fashion in the old world; and I should not confide much to their efficacy in the new. The education of the Americans is alfo on the fame unalterable bottom with their religion. You cannot perfuade them to burn their books of curious fcience; to banish their lawyers from their courts of law; or to quench the lights of their affemblies, by refufing to choose those perfons who are best read in their privileges. It would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating the popular affemblies, in which these lawyers fit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us; not quite fo effectual; and perhaps, in the end, full as difficult to be kept in obedience.

With regard to the high aristocratick spirit of Virginia and the fouthern colonies, it has been propofed, I know, to reduce it, by declaring a general enfranchisement of their flaves. This project has had its advocates and panegyrifts; yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves are often much attached to their mafters. A general wild offer of liberty, would not always be accepted. Hiftory furnishes

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furnishes few inftances of it. It is fometimes as hard to perfuade flaves to be free, as it is to compel freemen to be flaves; and in this aufpicious scheme, we should have both these pleafing tasks on our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that the American master may enfranchise too; and arm fervile hands in defence of freedom? A measure to which other people have had recourse more than once, and not without fuccefs, in a defperate fituation of their affairs.

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from flavery, muft they not a little fufpect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has fold them to their present masters? From that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refufal to deal any more in that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from England, would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African veffel, which is refufed an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to fee the Guinea captain attempting at the fame inftant to publish his proclamation of liberty, and to advertise his fale of flaves.

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But let us fuppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its prefent bed, fo long all the caufes which weaken authority by diftance will continue. "gods, annihilate but space and time, and make two lovers "happy!"-was a pious and paffionate prayer;-but just as reasonable, as many of the ferious wishes of very grave and folemn politicians.

If then, Sir, it feems almoft defperate to think of any alterative course, for changing the moral caufes (and not quite easy to remove the natural) which produce prejudices irreconcileable