The Duke agrees fully with me in the maxim, that those Colonies will grow the most in wealth, improvement, population, and every sort of prosperity, which are allowed the freest communication with us, and that we shall be allowed to carry lumber, fish, and live stock, to their islands, but that the export of their sugars to us, he thinks, must be in their own ships, because they are afraid of our becoming the carriers of all their commerce, because they know and say, that we can do it cheaper than they can. These sentiments are different from those, which he mentioned to me a few days ago, when he said, the West India trade with us must be carried on in French bottoms. The Duke said, the English had been trying to deceive us, but were now developing their true sentiments. They pretended, for awhile, to abolish the navigation act and all distinctions, to make one people with us again, to be friends, brothers, &c. in hopes of drawing us off from France, but not finding success, they were now showing their true plan. As to the pretended system of Shelburne, of a universal free commerce, although he thought it would be for the good of mankind in general, yet, for an English Minister, it was the plan of a madman, for it would be the ruin of that nation. He did not think Shelburne was sincere in it; he only meant an illusion to us. Here I differ from the Duke, and believe, that the late Ministry were very sincere towards us, and would have made a treaty with us, at least to revive the universal trade between us, upon a liberal plan. This doctrine of ruin, from that plan, to the English, has been so much preached of late in England by the French and the American refugees, who aim at establishments in Canada and Nova Scotia, and by the old Butean administration and their partisans, that I do not know whether any Ministry could now support a generous plan. But if Temple, Thurlow, Shelburne, Pitt, &c. should come in, I should not despair of it. It is true, the Shelburne administration did encourage the ideas of cordial, perfect friendship, of entire reconciliation of affections, of making no distinction between their people and ours, especially between the inhabitants of Canada and Nova Scotia and us, and this, with the professed purpose of destroying all seeds of war between us. These sentiments were freely uttered by Fitzherbert, Oswald, Whiteford, Vaughan, and all who had the confidence of that Ministry; and in these sentiments they were, I believe, very sincere. And they are, indeed, the only means of preventing a future war between us and them, and so sure as they depart from that plan, so sure, in less than fifteen years, perhaps less than seven, there will break out another war. Quarrels will arise among fishermen, between inhabitants of Canada and Nova Scotia and us, and between their people and ours in the West Indies, in our ports, and in the ports of the three kingdoms, which will breed a war in spite of all we can do to prevent it.