[The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) by Edmund Burke]@TWC D-Link bookThe Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) PARTy divisions, whether on the whole operating for good or evil, are 33/396
However, he does furnish a security; a security, in any light, I fear, but insufficient; on his hypothesis, surely a very odd one.
"By stipulating for the entire possession of the Continent (says he) the restored French islands are become in some measure dependent on the British empire; and the good faith of France in observing the treaty guaranteed by the value at which she estimates their possession."[50] This author soon grows weary of his principles.
They seldom last him for two pages together.
When the advantages of the war were to be depreciated, then the loss of the ultramarine colonies lightened the expenses of France, facilitated her remittances, and therefore _her colonists put them into our hands_. According to this author's system, the actual possession of those colonies ought to give us little or no advantage in the negotiation for peace; and yet the chance of possessing them on a future occasion gives a perfect security for the preservation of that peace.[51] The conquest of the Havannah, if it did not serve Spain, rather distressed England, says our author.[52] But the molestation which her galleons may suffer from our station in Pensacola gives us advantages, for which we were not allowed to credit the nation for the Havannah itself; a place surely full as well situated for every external purpose as Pensacola, and of more internal benefit than ten thousand Pensacolas. The author sets very little by conquests;[53] I suppose it is because he makes them so very lightly.
On this subject he speaks with the greatest certainty imaginable.
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