* STUDY XIII* 145 



ïilty ! Undoubtedly, had this natural progrefTion 

 been adopted, our power would at this day have 

 extended to the very centre of the American Con- 

 tinent, and could have bidden defiance to every 

 attack. 



Government has been taught to believe, that 

 the independence of our colonies would be a ne- 

 ceffary confequence of their profperity, and the 

 cafe of the Anglo-American colonies has been ad- 

 duced in proof of this. But ihefe colonies were 

 not loft to Great-Britain becaufe flie had rendered 

 them too happy ; it was, on the contrary, becaufe 

 flie oppreffed them. Britain was, befides, guilty 

 of a great error, by introducing too great a mixture 

 of ftrangers among her colonifts. There is, far- 

 ther, a remarkable difference between the genius 

 of the Englifli and ours. The Engliiliman carries 

 his country with him wherever he goes : if he is 

 making a fortune abroad, he embellifhes his habi- 

 tation in the place where he has fettled, introduces 

 the manufactures of his own Nation into it, there he 

 live?, and there he dies; or, if he returns to his coun- 

 try, he fixes his refidence near the place of his birth. 

 The Frenchman does not feel in the fame manner: 

 all thofe whom I have feen in the Weft-Indies, al- 

 ways confider themfelves as ftrangers there. During 

 a twenty years relidence in one habitation, they 

 will not plant a fingle tree before the door of the 

 VOL, IV. L houfe. 



