Martin Bladen's description of the Commission.
But I confess, I cannot help thinking it will be to a very little purpose to puzzle ourselves about setting boundaries, by treaty, in the North of America, if the French have so concise a way of fixing theirs in the south, without asking our concurrence; it is to be hoped they will have the modesty to recede from this new acquisition, but in the meantime I cannot help saying this gives me no very good relish either of their friendship or discretion.
I cannot leave this subject without observing how much it imports us to be upon our guard in our American Colonies. It were to be wished that the several Governments of His Majesty's plantations would pay the respect they owe to their instructions, and if those of Barbados for some time past had observed theirs, relating to Santa Lucia, the settlement of a hundred French families there could never have been put upon us at this day as a proof of their right to that island.
There is, further, much talk of a "multiplicity of books and papers necessary to be read," and of "arduous labours" in going over maps, charts and memoirs, which, however numerous, "are not to be depended on."[51]
While this initial work was going on, one of the adventurers was entreating his fellows at a Company meeting in London, to take note of a scheme which the French had been insidiously attempting for the previous four years to utterly destroy not only the Company's trade, but all the English colonies as well. He proceeded to read a private letter from a relation in the colony of Pennsylvania in which it was shewn that the Mississippi Company required close watching.
"Its leaders are egged on by the Jesuits, and will stop at no bloody measures to draw down trade from the Indians. Their projects must inevitably succeed if we are not watchful."
This was put forward as one potent reason why the French were complaisant about yielding us the Bay itself. It was but the shell they would surrender, whilst preserving to themselves the kernel.
This letter from the Pennsylvanian had its effect upon the easily-alarmed adventurers, for they lost no time in communicating their apprehensions to the Lords of Trade.