7 Essays 27 Now all the kinds of security we have mentioned are obtained by subduing and retaining Canada. Our present possessions in America are secured; our planters will no longer be massacred by the Indians, who, depending absolutely on us for what are now become the necessaries of life to them (guns, powder, hatchets, knives, and clothing), and having no other Europeans near, that can either supply them, or in- stigate them against us, there is no doubt of their being always disposed, if we treat them with com- mon justice, to live in perpetual peace with us. And, with regard to France, she cannot, in case of another war, put us to the immense expense of defending that long-extended frontier; we shall then, as it were, have our backs against a wall in America; the sea-coast will be easily protected by our superior naval power; and here “our own watchfulness and our own strength’’ will be properly, and cannot but be successfully, employed. In this situation, the force now employed in that part of the world may be spared for any other service here or elsewhere; so that both the offensive and defensive strength of the British empire, on the whole, will be greatly increased. But to leave the French in possession of Canada, when it is in our power to remove them, and depend (as the Remarker proposes) on our own “strength and watchfulness’’ * to prevent the mischiefs that may attend it, seems neither safe nor prudent. Happy as we now are, under the best of kings, and in the prospect of a succession promising every felicity I Remarks, p. 25. - 2 7 “50;