“Until you shall be convinced that you are no longer sovereigns over America, but that the United States are an independent, sovereign people,—until you are prepared to treat with them as such,—it is of no consequence at all what schemes or plans of conciliation this side the House or that may adopt.”[533]
The position taken in Parliament he maintained by writings; and here he depicted the great destinies of our country. He began with “A Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe,” published early in 1780, and afterwards, through the influence of John Adams, while at the Hague, abridged and translated into French. In this remarkable production independence was the least that he claimed for us. Thus he foretells our future:—
“North America is become a new primary planet in the system of the world, which, while it takes its own course, in its own orbit, must have effect on the orbit of every other planet, and shift the common centre of gravity of the whole system of the European world. North America is de facto an independent power, which has taken its equal station with other powers, and must be so de jure.… The independence of America is fixed as Fate. She is mistress of her own fortune, knows that she is so, and will actuate that power which she feels she hath, so as to establish her own system and to change the system of Europe.”[534]
Not only is the new power to take an independent place, but it is “to change the system of Europe.” For all this its people are amply prepared. “Standing on that high ground of improvement up to which the most enlightened parts of Europe have advanced, like eaglets they commence the first efforts of their pinions from a towering advantage.”[535] This same conviction appears in another form:—
“North America has advanced and is every day advancing to growth of state with a steady and continually accelerating motion, of which there has never yet been any example in Europe.”[536] “It is a vitality, liable indeed to many disorders, many dangerous diseases; but it is young and strong, and will struggle, by the vigor of internal healing principles of life, against those evils, and surmount them.… Its strength will grow with its years.”[537]
He then dwells in detail on “the progressive population” of the country; on its advantage in lying “on another side of the globe, where it has no enemy”; on the products of the soil, among which is “bread-corn to a degree that has wrought it to a staple export for the supply of the Old World”; on the fisheries, which he calls “mines producing more solid riches to those who work them than all the silver of Potosi”; on the inventive spirit of the people; and on their commercial activity.[538] Of such a people it is easy to predict great things; and our prophet announces,—
1. That the new state will be “a great naval power,” exercising a peculiar influence on commerce, and, through commerce, on the political system of the Old World,—becoming the arbitress of commerce, and perhaps the mediatrix of peace.[539]
2. That ship-building and the science and art of navigation have made such progress in America that her people will be able to build and navigate cheaper than any country in Europe, even Holland, with all her economy.[540]
3. That the peculiar articles to be had from America only, and so much sought in Europe, must give Americans a preference in those markets.[541]
4. That a people “whose empire stands singly predominant in a great continent” can hardly “suffer in their borders the establishment of such a monopoly as the European Hudson’s Bay Company”; that it cannot be stopped by Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope; that before long “they will be found trading in the South Sea and in China”; and that “the Dutch will hear of them in Spice Islands.”[542]