nquests, we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense
of Holland, our _ally_,--of Holland, the immediate cause of the war, the
nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and not of the Republic which
it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatic
conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that
Holland is reduced) unable to retain them, and which will virtually
leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland
declines still more as a state. She loses so much carrying trade, and
that means of keeping up the small degree of naval power she holds: for
which policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she maintains the
Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In that case, resentment, faction,
and even necessity, will throw her more and more into the power of the
new, mischievous Republic. But on the probable state of Holland I shall
say more, when in this correspondence I come to talk over with you the
state in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe.

So far as to the East Indies.

As to the West Indies,--indeed, as to either, if we look for matter of
exchange in order to ransom Europe,--it is easy to show that we have
taken a terribly roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even if, for the
sake of holding conquests there, we should refuse to redeem Holland,
and the Austrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely
as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide ambassador governs at
Madrid,) will see with perfect satisfaction Great Britain sole mistress
of the isles. In truth, it appears to me, that, when we come to balance
our account, we shall find in the proposed peace only the pure, simple,
and unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We shall have the satisfaction of
knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared by the Allies for
support of the Regicide system. We shall reflect at leisure on one great
truth: that it was ten times more easy totally to destroy the system
itself than, when established, it would be to reduce its power,--and
that this republic, most formidable abroad, was of all things the
weakest at home; that her frontier was terrible, her interior feeble;
that it was matter of choice to attack her where she is invincible, and
to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal
disorders. We shall reflect that our plan was good neither for offence
nor defence.

It would not be at all