annually, several hundred thousand
pounds against this country.[45] Such is its aspect on the custom-house
entries; but we know the direct contrary to be the fact. We know that
the West-Indians are always indebted to our merchants, and that the
value of every shilling of West India produce is English property. So
that our import from them, and not our export, ought always to be
considered as their true value; and this corrective ought to be applied
to all general balances of our trade, which are formed on the ordinary
principles.

If possible, this was more emphatically true of the French West India
islands, whilst they continued in our hands. That none or only a very
contemptible part, of the value of this produce could be remitted to
France, the author will see, perhaps with unwillingness, but with the
clearest conviction, if he considers, that in the year 1763, _after we
had ceased to export_ to the isles of Guadaloupe and Martinico, and to
the Havannah, and after the colonies were free to send all their
produce to Old France and Spain, if they had any remittance to make; he
will see, that we imported from those places, in that year, to the
amount of 1,395,300_l._ So far was the whole annual produce of these
islands from being adequate to the payments of their annual call upon
us, that this mighty additional importation was necessary, though not
quite sufficient, to discharge the debts contracted in the few years we
held them. The property, therefore, of their whole produce was ours; not
only during the war, but even for more than a year after the peace. The
author, I hope, will not again venture upon so rash and discouraging a
proposition concerning the nature and effect of those conquests, as to
call them a convenience to the remittances of France; he sees, by this
account, that what he asserts is not only without foundation, but even
impossible to be true.

As to our trade at that time, he labors with all his might to represent
it as absolutely ruined, or on the very edge of ruin. Indeed, as usual
with him, he is often as equivocal in his expression as he is clear in
his design. Sometimes he more than insinuates a decay of our commerce in
that war; sometimes he admits an increase of exports; but it is in order
to depreciate the advantages we might appear to derive from that
increase, whenever it should come to be proved against him. He tells
you,[46] "that it was chiefly occasioned by the demands of our own
fle