Adair's History of the American Indians

by James Adair

SHEWING

The advantages of mutual affection between Great Britain, and the North American colonies—A description of the Floridas, and the Missisippi lands, with their productions—The benefits of colonizing Georgiana, and civilizing the Indians—and the way to make all the colonies more valuable to the mother country.

APPENDIX.

ADVICE to STATESMEN;

Though Great Britain hath been many years invested with the Missisipi-possessions, and which she purchased at a very high price; little hath been done to improve them. Every friend to his country and mankind, must wish administration to pay a due regard to the inestimable value of the American colonies—which is best done in engaging the colonists, by wise and prudent conduct, to exert themselves to promote her interest in the same manner they faithfully did, till arbitrary power assailed their maritime ports, to their grief, and her own immense loss. In proportion as a mother loves, or hates her children, and strives to make them either happy or miserable, they in the same degree will exert their endeavours to make a suitable return.

Whatever scheme is unjust, it is unwise in statesmen to form, or attempt to put in execution. Instinct moves the brutal creation to defend their young ones and property at the peril of their lives. The virtue of Britons will not allow them to do less for themselves and their children. As British legislators must be convinced that honesty is the best policy, it is to be hoped they will studiously apply themselves to promote the general good of their fellow-subjects, and engage the northern colonists cheerfully to bend their force in supplying Great Britain with such staple commodities {451} as bountiful nature has given to them, but which through a strange kind of policy, she now chiefly purchases from foreigners, particularly timber and iron. The North-American trees are better in quality, than those which are brought from the Baltic, and in a far greater variety: and ships of a proper construction, might soon carry American timber to England as cheap as she has it from thence. The colonists could build either merchant-men, or men of war, of any size, much cheaper than can possibly be done in any European country, which would always insure them a ready market. French gold for their ships, would be of no disservice to Great Britain, though perhaps it might be as disagreeable to her, as the Spanish gold and silver was from the hands of the British Americans: however, to consign their ships to some British merchants, would sufficiently silence those who might find their present account in opposing the public good.

Natural causes produce natural effects. They who sow well, reap well; and as nature has planted a great plenty of iron ore through the American high lands, we hope the time will soon come, to allow her to take in so weighty a harvest. The consequence is great, and the application ought to be proportioned to the high value of so inviting, and complicated an acquisition. Their hills not only abound with inexhaustible mines of iron ore, but lie convenient to navigable rivers; such a commodious situation would soon enable them to sell it cheaper than Britain can ever expect from the Russians, who carry it from a distance to Petersburgh, as far as from Georgiana on the Missisippi,[^[271]] to the city of New York. We have been assured by gentlemen of veracity, that on repeated experiments, they found the American iron to be equal in goodness to that of Russia, or Sweden. Common sense directs Britain to live independent of such supplies, within her own prodigious empire, and not lay herself at the mercy of any foreign power, lest necessity should compel her a second time, to pay as dear for her left-handed wisdom as she did in the year 1703, for Swedish tar in Swedish bottoms,—which was nearly four hundred per cent, more than she in a short time paid to the American planters for the like, with her own manufactures, to the advantage of her merchants, the employment of her ships, and the increase of her seamen. {452}

If Britain feels a decay of her former American trade, on account of attempting to introduce among her friendly colonies, illegal and dangerous innovations, it is high time to retract. She hath it yet in her power by a prudent and maternal conduct to enlarge her trade, to a far greater extent than it ever attained, by making it the interest of the northern planters to saw timber, and work in iron, for the British yards and merchants. She should invite the young, and unsettled families, to remove to the fertile lands of the Missisippi, and raise those valuable staple commodities she needs most. The Americans say, that, though their hearts burn with a seraphic fire, for constitutional blessings—ever sacred and inviolable; yet their tender feelings for the unhappy situation of their free-minded brethren in Great Britain and Ireland, are by sympathy, equal to their own for the sickened condition of their mourning provinces—that the fraternal tye will always incline their hearts to promote their welfare, if instead of endeavouring to oppress them, they make them such a return as brethren might justly expect on the like interesting occasion. If British legislators design to promote the true interests of their country, they will pay a steady regard to the real channel of her great wealth and power,—adopt such measures, as wisdom and honesty readily direct to, and endeavour to dispel those uneasinesses from the hearts of all the American colonists, produced by the unjust and invidious representations of men, whose garb and station ought to have kept them, even from the suspicion of ever fomenting so dangerous a controversy.

Great Britain, on account of her extensive American possessions, might soon and easily repair her decayed trade, and increase it beyond conception, on a sure and permanent foundation, by upright measures. The opposite means to whatsoever caused its decay, would gradually recover it—But when once the channel of trade is stopped by violent methods, it is exceedingly difficult to make it flow again in its former cheerful course. Force can never effect it, for that she utterly contemns. No mistress is more sagacious and coy. She must first be courted, and afterward treated kindly: if folly uses any violence, or makes any material breach of good faith to her, she soon flies, and never returns, unless she is strongly invited back, and can reasonably hope for better usage. A powerful maritime state may gain new colonies by the sword, but can never settle and continue such extensive ones as the American, by force of arms,—except over people of dastardly spirits, {453} and in the enfeebling regions of the south. Even there, when the springs of the state-machine are any considerable time over-stretched, the sharp feelings of the people naturally rouse, and force them to conquer their timorous disposition, and exert their powers to break the torturing wheels, and free themselves of their pains. The voice of nature is against tyranny. It execrates the abettors, and consigns them to punishment.

As the lands in Virginia, and Maryland, are greatly exhausted by raising that impoverishing weed, tobacco,—Great Britain may expect to feel a gradual decay of that valuable branch of trade, in proportion to the increase of the people in those provinces, unless new colonies are settled on the Missisippi. Besides this tract, there is not a sufficient space of fertile land in North America, to invite planters to raise that staple commodity. Though the Ohio settlements are now numerous, and increasing fast, the settlers will only consult their own ease, as nature is there very prolific of every convenience of life; except government wisely encourages them to raise such products as would suit the mother-country, and reward them for their labour. Were proper measures adopted, the desire of gain would induce them to plant with the utmost assiduity: and smiling industry would soon beget a spirit of emulation among the planters, prompting each to excel his neighbour in the annual quantity and good quality of those staple commodities they were invited to fix upon. The vast tracts of fertile woods, which are now shamefully allowed to be only the haunts of wild beasts, and wolfish savages seeking for prey, might far easier be turned into valuable fine plantations by bounties, than the marshes and barren lands in Britain were, into their present flourishing condition, by the repeated encouragements of the Royal Society, and of parliament. Any thing that promotes greatly the public good, ought always to be done at the expence of the public; otherwise it will never be done, especially by labouring individuals. Charity begins at home, and every one’s domestic affairs demand his close attention. To preserve the Ohio lands, cost Great Britain, and our colonies in particular, a river of blood, in consequence of the blindness and obstinacy of a haughty general. A legal constitutional form of government, ought immediately to be established there, both for the general welfare, and preventing evils that may reasonably be expected to grow up among a remote, and numerous body of people,—hardy and {454} warlike,—without any public religion or civil law,—in a healthful climate, and very extensive and fertile country.