A LETTER FROM A FRENCH REFUGEE IN AMERICA, TO HIS FRIEND, A GENTLEMAN IN ENGLAND *. SIR, TH HE lofer must be allowed to speak; you will give us leave therefore, who have already begun to fuffer, and who know not what is yet behind, to represent to you some of the inftances of neglect on our own part, and of ill-conduct and unkind ufage toward us, on the part of our mother country. I shall begin with the policy of the English in appointing us our GOVERNORS, who are generally strangers and have no landed intereft here; and who therefore cannot be fuppofed to have that natural affection for us, or that political attachment to us, which natives, or those who From the Literary Magazine, June 1756. have a large landed intereft here, may be fuppofed to have. Another confideration, which tends to break the tie between us, is, that they generally refide but a little while among us; or, at least, have no views of continuing for life; and are too often fent hither only to ferve a turn. Is it therefore any wonder that fuch persons as thefe should be but very indifferent with regard to our intereft, however folicitous they may be in cultivating what they may call their own* ? Another hardship is, not being fuffered to go into thofe manufactures, which nature has fitted and defigned us for. This reftraint, you are fenfible, is laid upon us under the pretence, left we should rival our mother country. Whereas God and nature no doubt defigned, that every part of the globe should contribute its quota towards the wants and advantages of human life; and to restrain any part of the earth, in this respect, from political confiderations, is nothing lefs than laying an embargo upon nature, and fhackling, as it were, divine Providence itself. If we rival Europe in fome articles, Europe rivals us in others. Nature ought to have its free courfe in this refpect, and not to be checked, and • Without an attendance to the above confiderations, it is hard to conceive how fuch enormous incroachments could have been fuffered to have taken place on our territories in America, by the French and Spaniards, more efpecially by the former; who have in a manner covered that country with their forts, in order to maintain those incroachments. See a map published in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1755, where thefe incroachments appear by infpection, as alfo the numerous forts built in defence of them, many of which have been erected fince the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. put out of the direction the God of nature and the great king of kings has given her. Nor, indeed, are princes aware what injuries they do themselves, as well as what hardships they lay their fubjects under, by reftraints of this kind; how many countries have revolted, and others been loft and torn from their mother nations by being kept in this bondage. And it will be well, if, by thus keeping down the American colonies, and not letting us exert our natural ftrength, we do not become a prey to foreign power, instead of being a defence to our mother country, as we might eafily have been made ere this in much greater degrees than we are now capable of being, had we been fuffered to have exerted ourselves in our own proper fphere. Another inftance of grofs neglect has been the not repelling immediately and without any lofs of time, the first incroachments, whether on the fea-coaft, or inland, or with regard to islands. As foon as ever advice had been received that the French or Spaniards had invaded our territories, or neutral lands or islands, and were beginning to settle and fortify themselves upon them, we should have gone against these invaders directly, and have driven them out fword in hand; and not pretended to have entered into treaty with people who will spend year after year in treating with you, and keep all the while invading you, and fortifying themselves in thofe invafions, and then you may drive them out of their incroachments how you can. If the French or Spaniards had any demands upon us, they should have propofed them to us and made their claims; and if we would not have heard the voice of treaties, of evidence, reafon and justice, it would then then have been time enough for them to have had recourfe to arms, but to invade us firft, and then to talk about treating, is all a mere joke *. But once more, our mother country has been certainly wanting to us as well as to herself, in not directing long fince the building a strong fquadron of fhips here; where we have so many materials towards it, and could fo eafily have manned them; which would have ferved as a fleet of obfervation to have watched the fea-coafts and prevented all incroachments upon them, not to say, on the neutral American islands; and even the landing of the last late armament from France, which may prove so fatal to us, if not counter-wrought by a proper reinforcement from England, might, in all probability, have been prevented. What shall I fay to the giving up Cape-Breton? Had we been fuffered to keep that important place, it might have prevented the prefent American war, by breaking in a good measure the chain, which the French have formed between Canada and Louisiana. Certainly, as it was an American conqueft it ought in juftice, and more efpecially, in POLICY, to have been left to America. And if all the powers of Europe CANNOT, or will not make head against France on the European continent; why muft America, a poor infant fettlement of but about a century or two's standing, be the facrifice? Had we kept the It was as long ago as July, 1754, that the French had the infolence to attack colonel Washington, and to drive him out of fort Neceffity in Virginia, murdering a number of his men; at which time the whole garrifon narrowly escaped being put to the fword. See Gentleman's Magazine, 1754, page 399. 5 ifland ifland of Cape-Breton it would have been a good step towards driving the French intirely out of America; and, it is much to be feared, we fhall never have any folid peace till that is done. In which cafe, we had been in condition to have lent our mother country incredible affiftance in a time of war; whereas, now, by being thus reduced again into bondage, we ftand in need of affiftance from her. Louisburg is the Dunkirk of America. I come now to an article of much folly and guilt: I mean no other than our management of the Indians. Thefe, we fhould have endeavoured, no doubt by all poffible means, to have gained over to, and fecured in our intereft; in oppofition to thofe in the intereft of France and Spain. This should have been attempted by all poffible applications to their minds and their bedies. We fhould have endeavoured to have given them juft notions of life, natural, civil, and religious; and fhewn them the difference between the friendship, the fervice, and the government of the English, and of the French and Spaniards. Where reafon had failed us, I mean where we had found the Indians incapable of the convictions of reason, we fhould have had recourfe to fuch other confiderations as are immediate and palpable; and fuch as confidering them as mere animals only, they could not but have been fenfible to. After gaining over as many of the ADULTS as poffible into our intereft, we should have been particularly attentive to the education of their CHILDREN; in order to have worn out the race of the wild Indians, we should have taught them our language, and the first principles of our learning, natural, sivil and religious: initiated them |