17% Essays 5 
Tower of London, to secure them against highway- 
men and housebreakers. 
As to the third kind of security, that we shall not 
in a few years, have all we have done to do over 
again in America, and be obliged to employ the same 
number of troops and ships, at the same immense 
expense, to defend our possessions there, while we 
are in proportion weakened here; such forts, I think, 
cannot prevent this. During a peace, it is not to be 
doubted the French, who are adroit at fortifying, 
will likewise erect forts in the most advantageous 
places of the country we leave them; which will 
make it more difficult than ever to be reduced in 
case of another war. We know, by experience of 
this war, how extremely difficult it is to march an 
army through the American woods, with its neces- 
sary cannon and stores, sufficient to reduce a very 
slight fort. The accounts at the treasury will tell 
you what amazing sums we have necessarily spent 
in the expeditions against two very trifling forts, 
Duquesne and Crown Point. While the French re- 
tain their influence over the Indians, they can easily 
keep our long-extended frontier in continual alarm, 
by a very few of those people; and, with a small 
number of regulars and militia, in such a country, we 
find they can keep an army of ours in full employ 
for several years. We therefore shall not need to be 
told by our colonies, that if we leave Canada, how- 
ever circumscribed, to the French, “we have done 
nothing’’ *; we shall soon be made sensible ourselves 
of this truth, and to our cost. 
I Remarks, p. 26. 
0] 2c