‘ Essays 7 
on that side the water more numerous than they now 
are on this; but,— 
4. Not necessary that the American Colonies should 
cease being useful to the Mother Country. Their 
Preference over the West India Colonies stated. 
—1 am far from entertaining, on that account, any 
fears of their becoming either useless or dangerous 
to us; and I look on those fears to be merely imagi- 
nary and without any probable foundation. The 
Remarker is reserved in giving his reasons; as, in his 
opinion, this “is not a fit subject for discussion.” I 
shall give mine, because I conceive it a subject 
necessary to be discussed; and the rather, as those 
fears, how groundless and chimerical soever, may, 
by possessing the multitude, possibly induce the 
ablest ministry to conform to them against their own 
judgment; and thereby prevent the assuring to the 
British name and nation a stability and permanency, 
that no man acquainted with history durst have 
hoped for, till our American possessions opened the 
pleasing prospect. 
The Remarker thinks that our people in America, 
“finding no check from Canada, would extend them- 
selves almost without bounds into the inland parts, 
and increase infinitely from all causes.” The very 
reason he assigns for their so extending, and which 
is indeed the true one (their being “invited to it by 
the pleasantness, fertility, and plenty of the coun- 
try’’), may satisfy us that this extension will con- 
tinue to proceed as long as there remains any 
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