"I have given a relation of this anecdote, because I am one of the four or five persons who alone know the truth of it, and because I am of opinion, that it is not yet too late to revive a project, which will save a million of Christians from becoming widows and orphans. As to the first object of such a confederacy, Lord Rochford did not doubt of the proposition's being accepted by all the powers, because it was the interest of all to accept it. The losses of France in the two Indies the last war, and their misfortunes in the East Indies in the present one, where, in six weeks, they have lost all they possessed; the losses of the Spaniards in the last war in the two Indies, and even the stroke the other day in the Bay of Honduras, by a young captain with a handful of soldiers; the facility with which Portugal lost the Island of St Catharine in the Brazils, and the misfortunes of the English armies the three last years in America, all prove that France, Spain, Portugal, and England, have their tender parts in America and the two Indies, and of consequence, that they have all an interest in a mutual guarantee of their possessions in those three parts of the world. "As to the second object of the confederacy, I am sensible, that the idea of the other three powers participating in the commerce of America, under the limitation of its not being incompatible with the common interests of English America and England, is an idea somewhat vague, and subject to disputes. But, fortunately for humanity, there are five persons in those five countries, of characters which render them proper to draw the outlines of some determinate regulations, which will admit of no disputes, and may enrich France, Spain, and Portugal, without impoverishing England and her Colonies. In America there is Doctor Franklin, perhaps the first genius of the age, who is well acquainted with the commercial connexions between America and England; France has her Comptroller-General, who, from his youth, has been brought up in the practice of commerce; in Spain, we find M. Campomanes, who has employed the maturity of his life in studies, that give him a superiority in discussions of this kind; Portugal will be assisted by the counsels of the Duke of Braganza, who has gathered knowledge in almost every field, in courts, in libraries, and even on the exchanges of the merchants of Europe; and as for England, she has a Minister who, thoroughly versed in the true interests of commerce, will not refuse to America what he has just granted to Ireland.