it was insinuated, by certain keen-sighted politicians, would prove the source of new evils. It would embolden our old colonies to shake off the controul of the mothercountry, since they no longer stood in need of her protection, and to erect themselves into independent states. This insinuation, however, was generally considered as alike illiberal and unjust. And the humanity and generosity of the English nation, amid all the violent discontents provoked by the treaty of peace, found no small consolation in reflecting, that our American brethren would thenceforth be happily exempted from the annoyance of any European enemy, and able to keep the natives in awe.

Nor was this our only consolation. The magnitude of the British empire in North-America, and the prospect of its growth in population and improvement, afforded a wide sweep for the projects of political ambition, and a boundless field for the speculations of commercial avidity. The undivided sovereignty of that vast continent, with the sole enjoyment of its exclusive trade, seemed to open to the citizens of Great-Britain such sources of industry, and channels of naval greatness, as had never fallen to the lot of any other people; and which the immensity of her conquests, and their towering hopes of farther acquisitions, with an ardent desire of finally humbling the house of Bourbon, only could have made them consider as beneath her haughtiest wish.

These conciliatory reflections are offered merely from a love of truth, not suggested by a desire of palliating the justly execrated peace of Paris; a measure that must eternally rouse the keenest emotions of indignation in the mind of every honest and enlightened Englishman. No human consideration should have induced the British ministry to give up Cuba, or to stop short of the reduction of Hispaniola; while our naval force enabled us to protect the one, and to subdue the other; as each promised a prodigious augmentation of that force, and also of the means of supporting it. We ought not to have left the French or Spaniards in possession of a single island in the West

Indies.

Indies. Hispaniola and Porto-Rico alone remained to them.

An armament planned in the East Indies, and fitted. out in the port of Manila, would have enabled us to become masters of the rich but defenceless kingdom of Peru; and by holding, in the port of Havana, the key of the Gulf of Florida, we might be said to be actually possessed of all the treasure of Mexico. No ship could pass from Vera-Cruz to Europe without our permission, nor any European vessel thither. Deprived of the articles which they had been accustomed to receive from the mothercountry, and which are necessary to their accommodation, the inhabitants of New-Spain would readily have submitted to that power, which alone could supply their wants; and which would have offered them the free exercise of their religion, with a more indulgent government, and a more advantageous market for their pro duce.

But let us moderate our ideas; let us confine our views solely to the places we had positively taken, and we shall find (admitting Belleisle to be equal in importance to the island of Minorca, which it certainly is to France or England) that we gave up at the peace of Paris, without any equivalent, except the sandy promontory of Florida, not only Martinico, Guadaloupe and St. Lucia, but the principal part of the large and fertile island of Cuba, with the Havana its almost impregnable port, the Gibraltar of America! and eventually the rich city of Manila, and the whole range of the Philippines; to say nothing of the situation of Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and many other places in the East Indies, with the island of Goree, on the coast of Africa.

If it was necessary to grant some indulgence to France, in order to quiet the jealousy of other powers, (though I am not sensible that Great-Britain, considering her insular situation, had occasion to be afraid of giving umbrage to any European power) France might have been allowed to retain, along with the town of New-Orleans and its territory, her settlements higher on the Mississippi,

Missisippi, and the province of Canada, confined within its natural boundaries, the four lakes; or if, instead of Canada, she had wished to possess a sugar island, in addition to her plantations in Hispaniola, Martinico or Guadaloupe might have been indulged to her, without the liberty of erecting fortifications. A suspension of

the blow hanging over the remaining dominions of Spain in the West Indies, with the provisional restitution of the Philippines, was all that she could reasonably have demanded.

By such an equitable treaty of peace, the haughty family of Bourbon would have been effectually humbled and held in awe, and the sinews of their naval strength so completely cut, as to prevent them from again becoming formidable by sea. By such a peace, England, without farther acquisitions, would have established, beyond the possibility of dispute, that dominion which she has long claimed over the empire of the waves. And have established it forever; by building it upon the keels of a rich and extensive commerce, which the unrivalled command of the ocean, and the produce of the principal islands in the West Indies, would have rendered perpetual.

The apparent cause, why so glorious an opportunity of humbling our ambitious enemies was neglected, has already been assigned:-" the INFLUENCE of tory counsels!" alike discernible, whether we regard the inadequate treaty of peace, or the premature termination of the war. The fatal effects of those counsels and of that influence, I shall have farther occasion to shew, in describing the convulsions, and the dismembering of the British empire; subjects less pleasing to Englishmen, but not less interesting, than its struggles in advancing toward aggrandisement. In the meantime I must carry forward the progress of society, to this grand æra in the HISTORY Of

MODERN EUROPE.

LETTER

LETTER XXXVI.

THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY.

I HAVE brought down, in a former letter, the progress of society to the close of the last century. And if we look back on the history of the present, and compare it, as far as it has advanced, with the annals of modern Europe, during any preceding period of the same extent, we shall find much cause to congratulate mankind on the improvements in the social system; which have, with a happy conformity, at once diminished the miseries and multiplied the enjoyments of human life.

If enlightened reason, after ascertaining the interests of nations and the rights of individuals, has not been able wholly to restrain the ambition of princes, it has at least introduced into the operations of war a spirit of generosity and fellow-feeling unknown to our ferocious forefathers. Persecution has ceased to kindle the faggot for the trial of orthodoxy, or to water the earth with the blood of unbelievers; and the peaceful citizen has seldom been disturbed in his industrious pursuits, or ingenious labours, by the ravages of intestine war.

If the most exact regulation of police have not hitherto proved altogether effectual to suppress private violence, or the strict execution of justice, to banish fraud from the transactions of men, both have been rendered less frequent. Property is become more secure. The comforts and conveniencies of life are more equally enjoyed. Pestilence and famine are kept at a distance. Asylums are every where provided for poverty, and hospitals for disease. Private festivities are enlivened by public entertainments. The pleasures of sense, refined by delicacy, are heightened by those of imagination and sentiment; while taste, in contemplating the beauties

of

of nature and art, may be said to open new sources of satisfaction to the soul, and to offer new delights to the heart.

And if there are some speculative visionaries, under the name of philosophers, who represent man as more happy in the savage state, that when furnished with all those social enjoyments and elegant delights, their arguments are too futile to deserve a serious answer: and it would be but a just puuishment for their impertinence, to shut them out from the pale of polished life; and condemn them to reside among those barbarians, whose manners they affect, and whose condition they pretend to admire.

In support of this representation, my dear Philip, I shall exhibit to your view some leading circumstances, which could not readily enter into the general narration.

Russia, altogether rude and barbarous at the beginning of the present century, has made rapid advances toward civilization. It has experienced the most sudden and fortunate change, of any country of the same extent in the history of human affairs. But that change, as I have had occasion to remark, has not been attended with such beneficial consequences as might have been wished to the body of the people, whom Peter I. found and left in a state of slavery. And notwithstanding the more generous policy of Catharine II. who endeavours to revive a spirit of liberty among the lower classes, and extends encouragement and protection to her subjects of all degrees, the liberal and ingenious arts of Russia have been hitherto cultivated chiefly by foreigners; or by such natives as have been initiated in them abroad, and with whom they die. They are still in some measure exotics in that great and flourishing empire; not as Raynal insinuates, on account of the coldness of the climate, but because the mental soil is not yet sufficiently prepared for their reception. The influence of example, however, daily extends itself; and the general progress of

1. Part II. Letter XXV.

improvement