tion, as I mentioned before,
could never be worth the charge of obtaining it by arms; and any kind of
formal obedience which America could have made, would have weighed with
the lightness of a laugh against such a load of expense. It is therefore
most probable that the ministry will at last justify their policy by
their dishonesty, and openly declare, that their original design was
conquest: and, in this case, it well becomes the people of England to
consider how far the nation would have been benefited by the success.

In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the charge of
making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be
worth their while to go to war for profit's sake. If they are made war
upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their
duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light, and
from every other cause, is war inglorious and detestable. But to return
to the case in question--

When conquests are made of foreign countries, it is supposed that the
commerce and dominion of the country which made them are extended. But
this could neither be the object nor the consequence of the present
war. You enjoyed the whole commerce before. It could receive no possible
addition by a conquest, but on the contrary, must diminish as the
inhabitants were reduced in numbers and wealth. You had the same
dominion over the country which you used to have, and had no complaint
to make against her for breach of any part of the contract between
you or her, or contending against any established custom, commercial,
political or territorial. The country and commerce were both your own
when you began to conquer, in the same manner and form as they had been
your own a hundred years before. Nations have sometimes been induced to
make conquests for the sake of reducing the power of their enemies, or
bringing it to a balance with their own. But this could be no part of
your plan. No foreign authority was claimed here, neither was any such
authority suspected by you, or acknowledged or imagined by us. What
then, in the name of heaven, could you go to war for? Or what chance
could you possibly have in the event, but either to hold the same
country which you held before, and that in a much worse condition, or
to lose, with an amazing expense, what you might have retained without a
farthing of charges?

War never can be the interest of a trading nation, any more than
quar