o be spared from the
flames. As for Boston, it should be pillaged, its workshops,
manufactures, shipyards, all its fine establishments ruined, and its
ships sunk." If these gentle means are used thoroughly, he thinks that
New England will cease to be a dangerous rival for some time, especially
if "Rhodelene" (Rhode Island) is treated like Boston.[154]

While the correspondent of the French court was thus consigning New
England to destruction, an attack was preparing against Canada less
truculent but quite as formidable as that which he urged against Boston.
The French colony was threatened by an armament stronger in proportion
to her present means of defence than that which brought her under
British rule half a century later. But here all comparison ceases; for
there was no Pitt to direct and inspire, and no Wolfe to lead.

The letters of Dudley, the proposals of Vetch, the representations of
Nicholson, the promptings of Jeremiah Dummer, agent of Massachusetts in
England, and the speech made to the Queen by the four Indians who had
been the London sensation of the last year, had all helped to draw the
attention of the ministry to the New World, and the expediency of
driving the French out of it. Other influences conspired to the same
end, or in all likelihood little or nothing would have been done.
England was tiring of the Continental war, the costs of which threatened
ruin. Marlborough was rancorously attacked, and his most stanch
supporters the Whigs had given place to the Tories, led by the Lord
Treasurer Harley, and the Secretary of State St. John, soon afterwards
Lord Bolingbroke. Never was party spirit more bitter; and the new
ministry found a congenial ally in the coarse and savage but powerful
genius of Swift, who, incensed by real or imagined slights from the late
minister, Godolphin, gave all his strength to the winning side.

The prestige of Marlborough's victories was still immense. Harley and
St. John dreaded it as their chief danger, and looked eagerly for some
means of counteracting it. Such means would be supplied by the conquest
of New France. To make America a British continent would be an
achievement almost worth Blenheim or Ramillies, and one, too, in which
Britain alone would be the gainer; whereas the enemies of Marlborough,
with Swift at their head, contended that his greatest triumphs turned
more to the profit of Holland or Germany than of England.[155] Moreover,
to send a part of his army acr