of the war were to be depreciated, then the loss of the
ultramarine colonies lightened the expenses of France, facilitated her
remittances, and therefore _her colonists put them into our hands_.
According to this author's system, the actual possession of those
colonies ought to give us little or no advantage in the negotiation for
peace; and yet the chance of possessing them on a future occasion gives
a perfect security for the preservation of that peace.[51] The conquest
of the Havannah, if it did not serve Spain, rather distressed England,
says our author.[52] But the molestation which her galleons may suffer
from our station in Pensacola gives us advantages, for which we were not
allowed to credit the nation for the Havannah itself; a place surely
full as well situated for every external purpose as Pensacola, and of
more internal benefit than ten thousand Pensacolas.

The author sets very little by conquests;[53] I suppose it is because he
makes them so very lightly. On this subject he speaks with the greatest
certainty imaginable. We have, according to him, nothing to do, but to
go and take possession, whenever we think proper, of the French and
Spanish settlements. It were better that he had examined a little what
advantage the peace gave us towards the invasion of these colonies,
which we did not possess before the peace. It would not have been amiss
if he had consulted the public experience, and our commanders,
concerning the absolute certainty of those conquests on which he is
pleased to found our security. And if, after all, he should have
discovered them to be so very sure, and so very easy, he might at least,
to preserve consistency, have looked a few pages back, and (no
unpleasing thing to him) listened to himself, where he says, "that the
most successful enterprise could not compensate to the nation for the
waste of its people, by carrying on war in unhealthy climates."[54] A
position which he repeats again, p. 9. So that, according to himself,
his security is not worth the suit; according to fact, he has only a
chance, God knows what a chance, of getting at it; and therefore,
according to reason, the giving up the most valuable of all possessions,
in hopes to conquer them back, under any advantage of situation, is the
most ridiculous security that ever was imagined for the peace of a
nation. It is true his friends did not give up Canada; they could not
give up everything; let us make the most of it. We hav