IT 
THE INTEREST OF GREAT BRITAIN CONSIDERED, WITH 
REGARD TO HER COLONIES AND THE ACQUISI- 
TIONS OF CANADA AND GUADALOUPE'* 
I have perused with no small pleasure, the Letter 
Addressed to Two Great Men, and the Remarks on 
that letter. It is not merely from the beauty, the 
force, and perspicuity of expression, or the general 
elegance of manner, conspicuous in both pamphlets, 
that my pleasure chiefly arises; it is rather from 
this, that I have lived to see subjects of the greatest 
I When the war with France was drawing to its close, the question 
whether Canada was to be given up to the French or retained as a 
set-off for acquisitions in the West Indies was much and warmly 
debated. The Earl of Bath published a Letter to Two Great Men (Pitt 
and Newcastle), recommending the retention of Canada as the more 
valuable; and shortly afterwards Remarks on the Letter to Two Great 
Men, attributed by some to Edmund Burke, and by some to William 
Burke, appeared,—the writer preferring Guadeloupe to Canada. 
At this stage of the debate Franklin contributed this pamphlet to 
the discussion. It provoked a reply, supposed also to have been 
written by Burke, who stated that he should confine his remarks to 
the writer of this performance, because of all those who had treated 
the opposite side of the question “he is clearly the ablest, the most 
ingenious, the most dexterous, and the most perfectly acquainted with 
the fort and faible of the argument, and we may therefore conclude 
that he has said every thing in the best manner that the cause would 
bear.” 
It is difficult now to understand how such a debate could have been 
provoked by such a question, and not at all surprising that Franklin's 
view prevailed. 
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