Their numbers are
yet not great; their trade, though daily improved, is not very
extensive; their country is barren; their fortresses, though numerous,
are weak, and rather shelters from wild beasts, or savage nations, than
places built for defence against bombs or cannons. Cape Breton has been
found not to be impregnable; nor, if we consider the state of the places
possessed by the two nations in America, is there any reason upon which
the French should have presumed to molest us, but that they thought our
spirit so broken, that we durst not resist them; and in this opinion our
long forbearance easily confirmed them.
We forgot, or rather avoided to think, that what we delayed to do, must
be done at last, and done with more difficulty, as it was delayed
longer; that while we were complaining, and they were eluding, or
answering our complaints, fort was rising upon fort, and one invasion
made a precedent for another.
This confidence of the French is exalted by some real advantages. If
they possess, in those countries, less than we, they have more to gain,
and less to hazard; if they are less numerous, they are better united.
The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same
interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means.
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