~ Essays :
apprehended as dangerous to the State. Let an act
of Parliament then be made, enjoining the colony
midwives to stifle in the birth every third or fourth
child. By this means you may keep the colonies to
their present size. And if they were under the hard
alternative of submitting to one or the other of these
schemes for checking their growth, I dare answer
for them, they would prefer the latter.
But all the debate about the propriety or impropriety
 of keeping or restoring Canada is possibly too
early. We have taken the capital indeed, but the
country is yet far from being in our possession; and
perhaps never will be; for, if our ministers are persuaded
 by such counsellors as the Remarker, that
the French there are “not the worst of neighbours,”
and that, if we had conquered Canada, we ought, for
our own sakes, to restore it, as a check to the growth
of our colonies, I am then afraid we shall never take
it. For there are many ways of avoiding the completion
 of the conquest, that will be less exceptionable
 and less odious than the giving it up.
7. Canada easily peopled without draining Great Brit
ain of any of its Inhabitants.
The objection I have often heard, that, if we had
Canada, we could not people it without draining
Britain of its inhabitants, is founded on ignorance
* “And Pharaoh said unto his people: Behold, the people of the
children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us
deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that,
when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and
fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. And the king
spake to the Hebrew midwives,’ etc.—Exodus, ch. i.

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