ets and armies, and, instead or bringing wealth to the nation, was to
be paid for by oppressive taxes upon the people of England." Never was
anything more destitute of foundation. It might be proved, with the
greatest ease, from the nature and quality of the goods exported, as
well as from the situation of the places to which our merchandise was
sent, and which the war could no wise affect, that the supply of our
fleets and armies could not have been the cause of this wonderful
increase of trade: its cause was evident to the whole world; the ruin of
the trade of France, and our possession of her colonies. What wonderful
effects this cause produced the reader will see below;[47] and he will
form on that account some judgment of the author's candor or
information.

Admit however that a great part of our export, though nothing is more
remote from fact, was owing to the supply of our fleets and armies; was
it not something?--was it not peculiarly fortunate for a nation, that
she was able from her own bosom to contribute largely to the supply of
her armies militating in so many distant countries? The author allows
that France did not enjoy the same advantages. But it is remarkable,
throughout his whole book, that those circumstances which have ever been
considered as great benefits, and decisive proofs of national
superiority, are, when in our hands, taken either in diminution of some
other apparent advantage, or even sometimes as positive misfortunes. The
optics of that politician must be of a strange conformation, who beholds
everything in this distorted shape.

So far as to our trade. With regard to our navigation, he is still more
uneasy at our situation, and still more fallacious in his state of it.
In his text, he affirms it "to have been _entirely_ engrossed by the
neutral nations."[48] This he asserts roundly and boldly, and without
the least concern; although it cost no more than a single glance of the
eye upon his own margin to see the full refutation of this assertion.
His own account proves against him, that, in the year 1761, the British
shipping amounted to 527,557 tons,--the foreign to no more than 180,102.
The medium of his six years British, 2,449,555 tons,--foreign only
906,690. This state (his own) demonstrates that the neutral nations did
not _entirely engross our navigation_.

I am willing from a strain of candor to admit that this author speaks at
random; that he is only slovenly and inaccurate, and n