Benjamin Franklin [ire
cannot at present make war with England, without
exposing those advantages, while divided among the
numerous islands they now have, much more than
they would were they possessed of St. Domingo only;
their own share of which would, if well cultivated,
grow more sugar than is now grown in all their West
India Islands.
I have before said I do not deny the utility of the
conquest, or even of our future possession, of Guadaloupe,
 if not bought too dear. The trade of the
West Indies is one of our most valuable trades. Our
possessions there deserve our greatest care and attention.
 So do those of North America. I shall not
enter into the invidious task of comparing their due
estimation. It would be a very long and a very disagreeable
 one, to run through every thing material
on this head. It is enough to our present point, if
I have shown that the value of North America is
capable of an immense increase, by an acquisition
and measures that must necessarily have an effect
the direct contrary of what we have been industriously
 taught to fear: and that Guadaloupe is,
in point of advantage, but a very small addition to
our West India possessions; rendered many ways
less valuable to us than it is to the French, who will
probably set more value upon it than upon a country
[Canada] that is much more valuable to us than to
them.
There is a great deal more to be said on all the
parts of these subjects; but as it would carry me
into a detail that I fear would tire the patience of my
readers, and which I am not without apprehensions

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