: Quebec For all that has been faid above, has a clofe and manifeft connection with that important event. BUT allowing the above conclufions to be juftly drawn; yet fome may perhaps demand ftill," Cui bono?" Tho' things fhould turn out thus; yet what real and confiderable benefit would from hence refult to Great-Britain and her colonies? (For we have all learnt, at length, to confider their interefts, not as being fepárate, but clofely united.) This is the demand, to which fome answer was promifed above; tho' it is hardly to be fuppofed, indeed, that fuch a question could be feriously asked by any intelligent person, the advantages accruing from hence, being fo many, great and manifest. To hint at fome of the principal, and moft obvious of them then: In the firft place, one great advantage we should gain hereby is this, that all the British colonies and provinces would henceforward enjoy peace on their extentive frontiers, or inland borders. We fhall be delivered from the ravages and barbarities of faithlefs favages, and more faithlefs Frenchmen; of all which ravages and barbarities, the French being in poffeffion of Quebec and St. Lawrence river, has, from first to last, been the principal caufe. For the Indians would all have long fince been our friends, had it not been for them in our neighbourhood, to fet them upon us both in war and peace. How much blood has been heretofore fhed on the frontiers of the British colonies? What a vaft treasure has been annually expended in defending ourselves, tho' very ineffectually, from our American enemies, different in complexion, yet much the fame in heart? How have our infant fettlements Even Monf. Vaudreuil, the Governor General of Canada, and himself a Canadian by birth, it is confidently and credibly tlements, otherwife very flourishing, been diftreffed, kept back, and, many of them quite broken up, by the enemy? Whereas we may now rationally expect to have peace in all our borders; and that there will be no more breaking in, or carrying out to a wretched captivity. The public expences, and confequently the public taxes, will be vaftly leffened; and become very fmall in comparrison of what they have hitherto been in time of war. And we fhall fave, not only much money, but, what is far more precious in the fight of God and wife men, much blood. Our colonies will of course increase and people faft; and, under the common bleffing of providence, flourish more than ever, quickly filling up, and extending themfelves far back into the country. Of which, the mother-country will reap the benefit in common with These are fuch great and obvious advantages, that all must needs fee them. us. In the next place, an extensive trade will of course be opened with all the favage nations back of us; particularly the fur trade, of late years almost engroffed by the French,who have had those favages in their interest. They must now hunt for us in our turn, in order to pay us for the neceffaries which they must come to us for. Which is alfo in fome meafure applicable to the Canadians themselves, that country being reduced, if any of them fhall remain therein. They muft all be fupplied by us, and pay us for it fome way or other. So that in fhort, all the commerce of this part of the world, from the northward of Hudson's Bay to Florida, affirmed, had the inhumanity, or may I not rather fay the brutality, to ornament a room with English fcalps hung round it; which he used to show to his unhappy prifoners; to infult them; pointing out to them, which were the fcalps of their near relations friends and neighbours! da, and back to the Miffifipi, or near it, will of courfe be in the hands of British fubjects: A commerce, which will greatly increafe the demand for British manufactures, and both well employ and maintain many thoufand more people in Great-Britain, than do or can get a livelihood there at prefent in any honeft way. It will alfo much increafe her navigation, and that of her colonies. MOREOVER: The reduction of Quebec, and fuppofed reduction of Canada in confequence thereof, will be a benefit to us, as it will be, in fome measure at leaft, a cramping of the French fugar-islands, which have of late much more than rivalled our own. The French West India iflands, if I am not misinformed, have heretofore had great dependence upon Canada for bread-corn, and other provifions, for fome kinds of naval ftores, and divers other articles, both neceffary for them, and which they cannot, elfewhere, be fo commodioufly fupplied with. The depriving them of which, especially if an effectual ftop fhould be pur to the illicit trade carried on thither from fome British parts of the continent, muft greatly distress and reduce them, and be a proprotionable advantage to ours; Jeffen their commerce and navigation, and increase our own. Again One would think that France would now, almost of course, be wholly cut out of the American cod-fifhery, of which fhe has heretofore made fuch vaft advantages. Her Louisbourg fifhery was gone before. That up the gulph and river St. Lawrence is now gone. All treaties, by virtue of which fhe claimed a right to make fish on the coast of Newfoundland, have been violated by her; they are broken thro', and become mere nullities, as tho' they had never been. been. And if we fhould hold the poffeffion of Louis bourg, Canada and Newfoundland, with the coaft of Labrador, one would think it eafy to prevent her making fish in any of thofe parts, efpecially confidering the great fuperiority of the British navy. Nor does it feem improbable that this whole fishery may fall into the hands of British fubjects; unless we should perhaps hereafter have a miniftry as complaifant to his Moft Chriftian Majefty, and the court of Verfailles, as that in the latter end of Queen Ann's reign, which complimented France with the beft places for carrying on the cod-fifhery, in all North-America; i. e. in the world. But at prefent, to be fure, there is no reafon for any apprehenfions of this fort. Now the deftruction of the French fishery would be the deftruction of one most material and extensive branch of her commerce,in which fhe was before our too fuccefsful rival: And this whole fishery, falling into the hands of Britain, would prodigiously increase her trade and wealth; giving her the advantage of fupplying all thofe markets, which France fupplied before? This wou'd alfo be the leffening of the latter's maritime power in general, and the increafing, proportionably, that of Great-Britain. For France, being deprived of this fifhery, could not employ and maintain fo many feamen as heretofore, by many thoufands; whereas we might then employ and maintain many thoufands more than ever. This is a confideration of the laft importance to the welfare and fafety of Great-Britain,and of her colonies,if not of all Europe; her chief dependence and fecurity, under divine providence, being placed in the fuperiority of her naval power, and keeping under that of France. For fhould France, whofe ambition is fo exorbitant and boundlefs, and whofe power is. fo great on the continent, once become fuperior by fea, the liberties of Great-Britain, and perhaps of Europe, are no more. THESE THESE are not all,but only fome of the chief of thofe fecular and national advantages which occur to my thoughts, as naturally refulting from, or having an ap parent connection with, the great things which God hath Jately done for us; more efpecially in the reduction of Quebec, which, you will remember, I now confider as being in effect the reduction of Canada, and bringing all the Indian favages into a friendly alliance with us. Whether that chain of reafoning, by which I came to view it in this light, will hold together, and be ftrong enough to fupport fo weighty and important a conclufion; or whether it be only like a rope of fand, which cannot be even lightly touched without being broken to pieces, must be fubmitted to the judgment of others: As alfo, whether, allowing it to be good, and duly connected, the advantages above-mentioned, may naturally be fuppofed, to flow from fuch a conqueft of the French in America, and fuch an alliance with the Indians. IF thefe inferences are not unjustly deduced, as it is humbly conceived they are not, what great caufe have we to be glad and rejoice at this day; and to praife God for the great things which he hath done for us? Our religious, as well as civil privileges feemed, a few years ince, to be in fome danger from the growing power and encroachments of the enemy here, fupported by France. For had they at length got the upper hand, we fhould doubtlefs have been deprived of the free enjoyments of the protefiant religion; harraffed, perfecuted and butchered, by fuch blind and furious zealots for the religion of Rome, under the direction of a priefthood and hierarchy, whofe Wifdem, to be fure, is not from above, if the characteristic of that which is fo, is to be either pure, or peaceable, gentle, or eafy to be entreated, full of mercy, or of good fruits, without partiality, |