5thly.
Had even those colonies remained in, or returned to a state of subjection to England, would not the same interruption of correspondence have been productive of the same inconvenience?—During the war, which terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, all the French colonies had remained under the dominion of France, and yet during all the first, and great part of the second year of peace most of the French goods were sold at Martinique and St. Domingo, 15 and 20 per cent. below the prime cost in Europe;—between dependent and independent colonies, then, in this respect, who can perceive a shadow of difference?
6thly.
If the English merchants, after having over-stocked the American markets with European goods, have attempted to strip America of the little money she had to boast of, and to leave her goods on her own hands, do the complaints set up in England on this subject, prove any thing essential either to England, or to the rest of the world, more than the impossibility of carrying into execution beyond a certain degree, the plan, as destructive as it is absurd, of any other trade but that which is founded on a reciprocity of advantages, on an exchange of the gifts with which Nature and Art have favoured one country, against those with which Nature and Art have favoured another country? And even, upon a supposition, that America should have returned under the domination of England, if the English merchants had, in this case, attempted to wrest from her the little money she was possessed of, would not the American colonists have been justified in taking every measure necessary to preserve it?—Would they in enforcing that right have been free from the misfortune, common to mankind, of always doing, in order to guard against an injury, much more than is either just or necessary?—The impossibility of making returns adequate to the extravagant invoices sent by the French traders to their colonies in America, after the war I have mentioned, determined also the agents of the French trade to strip those colonies of all the money they could lay their hands upon: no other way to put a stop to that spoliation was left, but to bore in the middle of their dollars a large hole, which restoring the equilibrium between the rapacity of the foreign trader, and the wants of the interior commerce, preserved within those colonies the trifling sum in specie that still remained there. Soon after, the equilibrium was also restored between the imports and the consumption; and from that instant an end was put to the thirst after money, as well as to the necessity of boring the dollars.—What difference then can exist, in this respect also, between a colony and a free State?
7thly.
All the exports from England to the colonies, the monopoly of which she has preserved by the peace, (including her trade to India) amounted, in 1773, to 2,430,420l. (for the details see Sir Charles Whitworth). Now the annual expence of the British navy, and its accessaries, considering the increase in that of France, must be, at present, or will be soon, 2,000,000l. May it not be fairly concluded, that England is about to pay the annual sum of 2 millions sterling, in order to maintain herself in the exclusive privilege of carrying annually to the distance of 1500, of 2000, of 4 or 6000 leagues, the value of 2,432,420l. in European goods?—And would not that privilege be dearly bought, were not France to lay out annually likewise 45 millions of livres tournois, in protecting her privileged exportation?
8thly,
I have at present before my eyes no other standard, whereby to estimate the exportation of France to her sugar-colonies, than that of England to hers; that exportation amounted, in 1773, to 197,236l. But the population of the French colonies is far from being in a treble proportion to that of the English colonies, and luxury is equal in both; yet let us suppose that the amount of the exports from France to her colonies, including those she sends to India, be annually 80 millions tournois.—The interest of the national debt in France is 202 millions tournois, (see Administration des Finances de la France) one half, or rather three fourths of which have been incurred for the protection of her establishments in those parts of the world.—May it not be said, that France is at the yearly expence of 150 millions tournois, independently of the 45 millions for her navy, for the purpose of maintaining herself in the exclusive privilege of exporting every year the value of 80 millions tournois, in European goods, to her possessions in India and America?
9thly,