' Essays 
6. The French remaining in Canada, an Encourage- 
ment to Disaffections wn the British Colonies. 
If they prove a Check, that (Check of the most 
barbarous Nature— 2 / 
if the visionary danger of independence “in“our 
colonies is to be feared, nothing is more likely to 
render it substantial than the neighbourhood of for- 
eigners at enmity with the sovereign governments, 
capable of giving either aid,’ or an asylum, as the 
event shall require. Yet against even these disad- 
vantages, did Spain preserve almost ten provinces 
merely through their want of union; which, indeed, 
could never have taken place among the others, but 
I The aid Dr. Franklin alludes to must probably have consisted in 
early and full supplies of arms, officers, intelligence, and trade of 
export and of import, through the river St. Lawrence, on risks both 
public and private; in the encouragement of splendid promises and a 
great ally; in the passage from Canada to the back settlements being 
shut to the British forces; in the quiet of the great body of Indians; 
in the support of emissaries and discontented citizens; in loans and 
subsidies to Congress, in ways profitable to France; in a refuge to be 
granted them in case of defeat, in vacant lands, as settlers; in the 
probability of war commencing earlier between England and France, 
at the Gulf of St. Lawrence (when the shipping taken were rightfully 
addressed to Frenchmen) than in the present case. All this might 
have happened as soon as America’s distaste of England had exceeded 
the fear of the foreign nation; a circumstance frequently seen possible 
in history, and which the British ministers took care should not be 
wanting. 
This explanation would have been superfluous, had not the opinion 
been very general in England, that had not the French been removed 
from Canada, the revolt of America never would have taken place. Why, 
then, were the French not left in Canada at the peace of 1763? Or, 
since they were not left there, why was the American dispute begun? 
Yet, in one sense, perhaps this opinion is true; for kad the French been 
left in Canada, the English ministers would not only have sooner felt, 
but sooner have seen, the strange fatality of their plans. 
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