chap. XX.} 1763. |
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them books, and pamphlets, and many newspapers:
they had a ministry chiefly composed of men of their own election.
In private life they were accustomed to take care of themselves; in public affairs they had local legislatures, and municipal self-direction.
And now this continent from the Gulf of Mexico to where civilized life is stayed by barriers of frost, was become their dwelling-place and their heritage.
Reasoning men in New York, as early as 1748, foresaw and announced that the conquest of Canada, by relieving the Northern Colonies from danger, would hasten their emancipation.
An attentive Swedish traveller in that year heard the opinion, and published it to Sweden and to Europe; the early dreams of John Adams made the removal of ‘the turbulent Gallics’ a prelude to the approaching greatness of his country.
During the negotiations for peace, the kinsman and bosom friend of Edmund Burke, employed the British press to unfold the danger to England from retaining Canada; and the French minister for foreign affairs frankly warned the British envoy, that the cession of Canada would lead to the independence of North America.1
Unintimidated by the prophecy, and obeying a higher and wiser instinct, England happily persisted.
‘We have caught them at last,’2 said Choiseul to those around him on the definitive surrender of New France; and at once giving up Louisiana to Spain, his eager hopes anticipated the speedy struggle of America for separate existence.
So soon as the sagacious
1 Hans Stanley to William Pitt, 1760, printed in Thackeray's Chatham.
2 From oral communications to me by the late Albert Gallatin, confirmed by papers in my possession, relating to periods a little earlier and a litt'e later.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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