Full text : Essays of Benjamin Franklin

17% Essays 5
Tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen
 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 necessary
 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 retain
 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, however
 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.

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