e, from experience and

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{204} In France, before the revolution, the revenues of the clergy, in
lands, tythes, &c. were reckoned to amount to 25,000,000 L. sterling
per annum. The number of feasts and fasts was also a great drawback
on industry.
-=-

[end of page #266]

reason, that, of all religions, the Christian is the most favourable to the
prosperity of a people, and that of its different branches, the
Protestant, or what is termed the Reformed Religion, is again the best.
It is the religion established in Britain.

Another source of hope arises from a circumstance of very great
importance, and very peculiarly favourable to Great Britain.

It has been observed, that the colonies in the West, and conquests in
the East, cost a great deal and produce little; that, in short, their
possession is of very doubtful advantage.

The possession of the North American provinces, now the United
States, were a great burthen to England, from their first settlement till
about the year 1755, when their trade began to be of advantage to this
nation; but, in twenty years after, the revolt took place, and cost
England a prodigious sum.

To enter into a long detail on this subject it is not necessary; but no
sooner were the hostilities at an end, than the American states bought
more of our manufactures than ever. Their laws and manners are
similar to our own, the same language, and a government evidently
approaching as near to ours as a republican well can to a monarchical
form. There is not, at this time, any branch of trade, either so great in
its amount, or beneficial in its nature, as that with the United States;
with this farther advantage, that it is every day augmenting, {205} and
as no country ever increased so fast in population and wealth, so none
ever promised to afford so extensive a market for our mannfactures
=sic= as the United States. This market is the more secure, that it will
not be the interest of the people who have got possession of that
immense tract of country to neglect agriculture and become
manufacturers, for a long period of time.

The greatest project, by which any nation ever endeavoured to enrich
itself, was certainly that of peopling America with a civilized race of
inhabitants. It was a fair and legitimate mode of extending her means
of acquiring riches; but Britain failed in the manner of obtaining her
object, though not in the object itself, and

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{205} By this is not literally mean