them into the mechanical trades: and fhewn them the conveniences and accommodations of life, in order to have drawn them off from the favage life of their parents; and a few of genius selected out from each nation among them, might have been introduced to an acquaintance with the liberal arts, who might have been made inftruments to have gained others.

But there is the lefs neceffity to enlarge upon this head; as I have obferved, from time to time among the advertisements found in the Gentleman's Magazine you fent me, a treatife upon the importance of gaining and preferving the friendship of the Indians to the British intereft; which however, I fuppofe, like multitudes of your other books, has lain by neglected among you, as it has done among us.

Laftly, it is pity, methinks, that a scheme, like that obtaining among the French, was not fet on foot here; by which an immediate estimate might be made of our natural, civil, and military strength; which, more especially in a time of war, might be of infinite fervice.

I fay nothing at prefent of the neglect with regard to the peopling of us more thoroughly: though there is room, it is certain, to receive, and work enough to employ all the fpare hands of the islands of Great-Britain and Ireland: nor need you have any fingle beggar or ftroller left throughout the three kingdoms.

Nor do I take any notice of the deficiencies in the forming and training our MILITIA, or thofe already fettled among us. Thefe, together with feveral other articles natural, civil and religious, will be the fubject of another year's letters, if Providence shall permit the continuance

tinuance of the correspondence; which however, confidering my age and the troubles in view, is not, I am afraid, very probable.

Thus, Sir, I have laid before you a fpecimen of our grievances; fome of them occafioned by our own indolence, and others by the neglect of our mother country. You compaffionate us, I do not queftion, harraffed by robbers on either fide, the inhabitants of Canada and Louifiana; not to fay the French and the Spaniards*; but, Sir, pity alone, give me leaye to tell you, will not do. You must fend us fupplies, veterans and engineers are the people that we want to mix with our raw levies, and to pit against the veterans and engineers of France; without a timely and powerful fupply of which, God only knows what must be the confequence.

Adieu, dear Sir, and may heaven avert the melancholy appearances which now threaten us.

Make my compliments to all our common friends, and particularly to the Rev. Mr. and his very agreeable family, letting him know how fincerely glad I now am, that he did not accept my preffing invitations of fettling here, offered him when I was laft in England. Since, if there are not already enow of us to repel the French, there are however enow of us to fall before them, and to be enflaved by them; one or the

* It is not long fince we had advice that the Spaniards had rebuilt the forts of incroachment in Georgia, which had been demolished by general Oglethorpe during his government of that colony; to fay nothing of their late conduct in regard to our fettlements in the bays of Honduras and Campeachy.

other

other of which muft certainly be the fate of all the inhabitants of every country, where thefe perfidious and bloody people obtain the mastery. I ạm,

Dear, Sir, &c.

America, Aug. 1, 1755.

GALLO-ANGLUS.

P. S. Do not you think me an unhappy man? Driven out of France, as you know I first was together with my parents, in infancy, by that hoary tyrant Louis XIV. into Holland: from thence refiding fome years in England. And now fettling, as I thought, for the laft time in order to spend the remainder of my days in these solitudes, to have the repofe of my old age broken, by men whom I am afhamed to call my countrymen: as they are indeed no other than the common enemies and fworn difturbers of mankind; refolving that no body fhall ever have any enjoyment of life, till they become their fubjects; when it will be impoffible they fhould have any.

OBSERVATIONS on the foregoing LETTER.

IT

BY DR. JOHNSON.

T is natural for every man to think highly of his own ufefulness and importance, and confequently of the importance of that community, or part of the community, with which he is connected.

From this difpofition proceeds much of the right and of the wrong in every man's actions and opinions; and to this must be imputed whatever is cenfurable in the foregoing letter, which contains many juft obfervations and pofitions, that, though very little to the honour of our country, cannot be difputed.

His complaints of restraints laid upon their manufactures are fuch as every man makes, who finds himself reftrained. But his cant about nature and providence would prove that no human legislature has a right to make any prudential laws, or to regulate any thing which before fuch regulation was indifferent. But fuch is the state of society, that part must be sometimes incommoded for the advantage of the whole. Every nation forbids fome importations or exportations, or regulates the buildings, plantations, and agriculture of its own people.

I do not attempt to prove, that all the restraints laid on the Americans are prudent. I have not in general a favourable opinion of reftraints, which always produce difcontent and an habitual violation of laws, and, perhaps, feldom contribute much to the end propofed. But whether wife or not they may undoubtedly be jult.

If the American colonies can fupport themselves against their enemies, to what do they owe that ftrength, but to the protection of England, and how can they repay it but by contributing to the wealth of that country which protected them in their helpless ftate, on condition that they fhould obey her laws, and promote her

intereft.

If they yet cannot fubfift but by the help and defence which they receive from England, as indeed they cannot for a fingle year, they may furely be content to purchase that protection by the use of the manufactures of their native country.

When he talks of their importance, he forgets that their importance is the confequence of the restraints which he condemns; for if our colonies did not confume our manufactures, they would be to us of no importance or value, nor fhould we have any interest in defending them more than any other body of exiles or fugitives.

When he talks of their ftrength, he in fome measure confutes himself: for if they are grown fo ftrong in fo short a time, it is evident that they cannot have been much discouraged or oppreffed.

With as little reafon does he complain of the reftitution of Cape-Breton, which, as he knows, was restored only because it could not be kept. Nothing can be more abfurd than to claim it as an American conqueft: which is falfe, because it was conquered by the help of an English fleet, and which, if it were true, could not be urged without confidering the Americans as having an intereft diftinct from that of their mother country.

If the powers of EUROPE, fays he, cannot or will not make bead against France, why must America, a poor infant colony, be facrificed? If any facrifice must be made, which we hope to be always able to refufe, what should we facrifice but a poor infant colony? What should