In short, the plantation trade of North America is to Britain, what the fishery is to France, the great nursery of seamen, which may be much improved. It is for this reason that we have always thought this nation ought, for its safety, to enjoy an exclusive right to the one or the other of these at least.] and brings in more money to the nation than all the products of America perhaps put together. But those gross commodities that afford these sources of navigation, however valuable they may be to the public, and to this nation in particular, are far from being so to individuals: they are cheap, and of small value, either to make, or to trade {xviii} in them; and for that reason they are neglected by private people, who never think of making them, unless the public takes care to give them all due encouragement, and to set them about those employments; for which purpose good and proper lands, such as those on the Missisippi, are absolutely necessary, without which nothing can be done. The many advantages of such lands that produce a staple for Britain, in North America, are not to be told. The whole interest of the nation in those colonies depends upon them, if not the colonies themselves. Such lands alone enable the colonies to take their manufactures and other necessaries from Britain, to the mutual advantage of both. And how necessary that may be will appear from the state of those colonies in North America, which do not make, one with another, as much as is sufficient to supply them only with the necessary article of cloathing; not to mention the many other things they want and take from Britain; and even how they pay for that is more than any man can tell. In short, it would appear that our colonies in North America cannot subsist much longer, if at all, in a state of dependence for all their manufactures and other necessaries, unless they are provided with other lands that may enable them to purchase them; and where they will find any such lands, but upon the Missisippi, is more than we can tell. When their lands are worn out, are poor and barren, or in an improper climate or situation, or that they will produce nothing to send to Britain, such lands can only be converted into corn and pasture grounds; and the people in our colonies are thereby necessarily obliged, for a bare subsistence, to interfere with Britain, not only in manufactures, but in the very produce of their lands.