It is said that the members of the English parliament being generally of contrary opinions, long debates are very frequent in that assembly; and that these debates produce lights, from which the hearers receive great improvement, and become better qualified to serve their country. It is otherwise in France: here the contrariety of opinions only bewilders the understanding, and increases the confusion.
“The Canada affair, said the last writer, too nearly concerns the French monarchy, to be left as it is. Every minute we lose diminishes our power, and augments that of our enemies. The war ought to have been continued, had not second causes forced the government into a peace; but those causes no longer subsisting, we should take up arms again.
“The English will never keep within the limits assigned by the commissaries. They will, by skirmishes and secret practices, be ever endeavouring to come beyond those barriers: they must be prevented in time, their schemes must be destroyed at their very first appearance, otherwise it will be too late.
“The loss of Canada would be an inconceivable detriment to France. It is that to which England owes its being mistress of the sea, opening to it numberless branches of commerce, which it would never have known without being possessed of this continent.
“Though we have no great navy, yet have we shipping enough; a sea quarrel is not the point, but a land war. It is enough for us to send over some troops to Canada; the American affairs have no connection with those of our country. Should any disturbances happen in Germany, they will spring from a quite different cause; and if the King of Prussia declares against France, it will be for some particular views of his own, quite foreign to our colonies; he would declare himself, if we had no dispute with the Britons about Canada.
“It is not the first time of our having several wars on our hands, or, rather, it is impossible that we should have but one at a time.
“Our concerns are so closely linked with the other powers of Europe, that on our arming, five or six princes cannot avoid declaring.
“The situation of affairs in Canada lays us under a necessity of renewing the war: we cannot continue in the state we now are in; the capital effort of our politics should be to recover the advantage which we lost by means of the English.
“Amidst all the magnified superiority of the British navy, its successes are not so certain as supposed. Advantages in war depend on a great number of unforeseen events. It is often observed, that the certain expectation of a victory has suddenly turned into the disappointment of a defeat.
“England has not had time, since the peace, to increase its marine; its naval force is, at this day, just as it was at the end of the war. Before the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, we could defend ourselves at sea, and still can: but if we defer any longer, the time will be over; for the British navy now is encreasing every day. Our’s will be so much inferior, as not to dare to shew its face before them; and then we shall be obliged to relinquish North America.