anders-in-chief, and with a judicious mixture of our own
subordinates, the West Indies would at this day have been ours. It may
be said that these French officers would take them for the king of
France, and that they would not be in our power. Be it so. The islands
would not be ours, but they would not be Jacobinized. This is, however,
a thing impossible. They must in effect and substance be ours. But all
is upon that false principle of distrust, which, not confiding in
strength, can never have the full use of it. They that pay, and feed,
and equip, must direct. But I must speak plain upon this subject. The
French islands, if they were all our own, ought not to be all kept. A
fair partition only ought to be made of those territories. This is a
subject of policy very serious, which has many relations and aspects.
Just here I only hint at it as answering an objection, whilst I state
the mischievous consequences which suffer us to be surprised into a
virtual breach of faith by confounding our ally with our enemy, because
they both belong to the same geographical territory.

My clear opinion is, that Toulon ought to be made, what we set out with,
a royal French city. By the necessity of the case, it must be under the
influence, civil and military, of the allies. But the only way of
keeping that jealous and discordant mass from tearing its component
parts to pieces, and hazarding the loss of the whole, is, to put the
place into the nominal government of the regent, his officers being
approved by us. This, I say, is absolutely necessary for a poise amongst
ourselves. Otherwise is it to be believed that the Spaniards, who hold
that place with us in a sort of partnership, contrary to our mutual
interest, will see us absolute masters of the Mediterranean, with
Gibraltar on one side and Toulon on the other, with a quiet and composed
mind, whilst we do little less than declare that we are to take the
whole West Indies into our hands, leaving the vast, unwieldy, and feeble
body of the Spanish dominions in that part of the world absolutely at
our mercy, without any power to balance us in the smallest degree?
Nothing is so fatal to a nation as an extreme of self-partiality, and
the total want of consideration of what others will naturally hope or
fear. Spain must think she sees that we are taking advantage of the
confusions which reign in France to disable that country, and of course
every country, from affording her protection, and i