6o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



America, of a tax of threepence on the pound of tea, which they 

 thought proper not to pay. Whether this war was juft or un- 

 juft, prudent or imprudent, does not belong to the fubjedt of this 

 work to determine : But this I will venture to affirm, that it was 

 one of the mod deftrudtive wars that ever any nation was engaged 

 in; for it is computed that it coft us above 50,000 men, and added 

 100 mliiions to our national debt. 



Thus we fee that war, for the fake of money, has been produc- 

 tive of very great mifchief, not only in the nations on the other fide 

 of the Atlantic, but here at home in Britain; and, indeed, in a coun- 

 try^ fuch as this, of trade and manufacture, war of any kind muft be 

 very hurtful. Our Minifters, therefore, fhould avoid it as much as 

 poffible: And it is the great praife of our prefenc Minifter, that he 

 has done every thing in his power to avoid it. It was faid of him 

 in fome French paper, which I have read, that he was always pre^ 

 paring for war, but never made it. Now, 1 think, this is the greaC- 

 eft praife that the writer of this paper could have beftowed upon 

 him, that by preparing for war h^ prevented it : And this was the 

 cafe of two wars with which we were threatned not long ago. The 

 firft was a war with Spain, which our Minifter prevented by pre- 

 paring fo well for it, that Spain thought proper to make a fatisfac- 

 tion for the injury done us, and concluded a peace with us. The 

 other was a war in which the Ruffians were engaged with the Turks, 

 and had gained fuch advantages over them, that it is not unlikely 

 they would have taken onftantinople, and deftroyed the Empire of 

 the Turks, and thereby acquired fo much territory, as to overturn the 

 balance of power in Europe. But this our Minifter prevented by 

 interpofing in behalf of the Turks, and making fuch preparations to 

 defeat the ambitious views of the Emprefs of Ruffia, that ftie thought 

 proper to conclude a peace with the Porte. The prefent war with 

 France, whatever the event of it may be, is a neceflary war on 



Gur 



