Pownall stands forth conspicuous for his championship of our national independence, and especially for his foresight with regard to our national future. In both these respects his writings are unique. Other Englishmen were in favor of our independence, and saw our future also; but I doubt if any one can be named who was his equal in strenuous action, or in minuteness of foresight. While the war was still proceeding, as early as 1780, he openly announced, not only that independence was inevitable, but that the new nation, "founded in nature and built up in truth," would continually expand; that its population would increase and multiply; that a civilizing activity beyond what Europe could ever know would animate it; and that its commercial and naval power would be found in every quarter of the globe. All this he set forth at length with argument and illustration, and he called his prophetic words "the stating of the simple fact, so little understood in the Old World." Treated at first as "unintelligible speculation" and as "unfashionable," the truth he announced was neglected where it was not rejected, but generally rejected as inadmissible, and the author, according to his own language, "was called by the wise men of the British Cabinet a Wild Man, unfit to be employed." But these writings are a better title now than any office. In manner they are diffuse and pedantic; but they hardly deserve the cold judgment of John Adams, who in his old age said of them, that "a reader who has patience to search for good sense in an uncouth and disgusting style will find in those writings proofs of a thinking mind."[40]
He seems to have written a good deal. But the works which will be remembered the longest are not even mentioned by several of his biographers. Rose, in his Biographical Dictionary, records works by him, entitled Antiquities of Ancient Greece; Roman Antiquities dug up at Bath; Observations on the Currents of the Ocean; Intellectual Physics; and also contributions to the Archæologia. Gorton in his Biographical Dictionary adds some other titles to this list. But neither mentions his works on America. This is another instance where the stone rejected by the builders becomes the head of the corner.
At an early date Pownall comprehended the position of our country, geographically. He saw the wonderful means of internal communication supplied by its inland waters, and also the opportunities of external commerce supplied by the Atlantic Ocean. On the first he dwells, in a memorial drawn-up in 1756 for the Duke of Cumberland.[41] Nobody in our own day, after the experience of more than a century, has portrayed more vividly the two masses of waters,—one composed of the great lakes and their dependencies, and the other of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The great lakes are described as "a wilderness of waters spreading over the country by an infinite number and variety of branchings, bays, and straits." The Mississippi, with its eastern branch, called the Ohio, is described as having, "so far as we know, but two falls,—one at a place called, by the French, St. Antoine, high up on the west or main branch"; and all its waters "run to the ocean with a still, easy, and gentle current." The picture is completed by exhibiting the two masses of water in combination:—
"The waters of each respective mass—not only the lesser streams, but the main general body of each going through this continent in every course and direction—have by their approach to each other, by their communication to every quarter and in every direction, an alliance and unity, and form one mass, or one whole."[42]
Again, depicting the intercommunication among the several waters of the continent, and how "the watery element claims and holds dominion over this extent of land," he insists that all shall see these two mighty masses in their central throne, declaring that "the great lakes which lie upon its bosom on one hand, and the great river Mississippi and the multitude of waters which run into it, form there a communication,—an alliance or dominion of the watery element, that commands throughout the whole; that these great lakes appear to be the throne, the centre of a dominion, whose influence, by an infinite number of rivers, creeks, and streams, extends itself through all and every part of the continent, supported by the communication of, and alliance with the waters of the Mississippi."[43]
If these means of internal commerce were vast, those afforded by the Atlantic Ocean were not less extensive. The latter were developed in the volume entitled "The Administration of the Colonies," the fourth edition of which, published in 1768, is now before me. This was after the differences between the Colonies and the mother country had begun, but before the idea of independence had shown itself. Pownall insisted that the Colonies ought to be considered as parts of the realm, entitled to representation in Parliament. This was a constitutional unity. But he portrayed a commercial unity also, which he represented in attractive forms. The British isles, and the British possessions in the Atlantic and in America, were, according to him, "one grand marine dominion," and ought, therefore, by policy, to be united into one empire, with one centre. On this he dwells at length, and the picture is presented repeatedly.[44] It was incident to the crisis produced in the world by the predominance of the commercial spirit which already began to rule the powers of Europe. It was the duty of England to place herself at the head of this great movement.
"As the rising of this crisis forms precisely the object, on which government should be employed, so the taking leading measures towards the forming all those Atlantic and American possessions into one empire, of which Great Britain should be the commercial and political centre, is the precise duty of government at this crisis."
This was his desire. But he saw clearly the resources as well as the rights of the Colonies, and was satisfied that, if power were not consolidated under the constitutional auspices of England, it would be transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. Here his words are prophetic:—
"The whole train of events, the whole course of business, must perpetually bring forward into practice, and necessarily in the end into establishment, either an American or a British union. There is no other alternative."
The necessity for union is enforced in a manner which foreshadows our national Union:—