rest terms, have no other
merit than that of a scrivener, who ruins in silence, over a plunderer
that seizes by force; all have taken what had other owners, and all have
had recourse to arms, rather than quit the prey on which they had
fastened.

The American dispute, between the French and us, is, therefore, only the
quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger; but, as robbers
have terms of confederacy, which they are obliged to observe, as members
of the gang, so the English and French may have relative rights, and do
injustice to each other, while both are injuring the Indians. And such,
indeed, is the present contest: they have parted the northern continent
of America between them, and are now disputing about their boundaries,
and each is endeavouring the destruction of the other, by the help of
the Indians, whose interest it is that both should be destroyed.

Both nations clamour, with great vehemence, about infractions of limits,
violation of treaties, open usurpation, insidious artifices, and breach
of faith. The English rail at the perfidious French, and the French at
the encroaching English: they quote treaties on each side, charge each
other with aspiring to universal monarchy, and complain, on either part,
of the insecurity of possession near such turbulent neighbours.

Through this mist of controversy, it can raise no wonder, that the truth
is not easily discovered. When a quarrel has been long carried on
between individuals, it is often very hard to tell by whom it was begun.
Every fact is darkened by distance, by interest, and by multitudes.
Information is not easily procured from far; those whom the truth will
not favour, will not step, voluntarily, forth to tell it; and where
there are many agents, it is easy for every single action to be
concealed.

All these causes concur to the obscurity of the question: By whom were
hostilities in America commenced? Perhaps there never can be remembered
a time, in which hostilities had ceased. Two powerful colonies, inflamed
with immemorial rivalry, and placed out of the superintendence of the
mother nations, were not likely to be long at rest. Some opposition was
always going forward, some mischief was every day done or meditated, and
the borderers were always better pleased with what they could snatch
from their neighbours, than what they had of their own.

In this disposition to reciprocal invasion, a cause of dispute never
could be wanting. The fore