COLONY OF CHARLOTINA                    135
hended, but upon one side only; and are of as large extent as Britain can be supposed ever to have occasion for, or as may be thought proper for the mother-country to have in any separate continent, and so remote.
Our Rivals, no doubt, will look with regret, and with a wishful eye upon the fine extensive country they have been obliged to cede, and may, in some future period, agreeable to their usual temper and practice, attempt to annoy and disturb us in that quarter, if they shall have, or imagine they have, any probability of retrieving, were it but in part their late great and gating losses.
The object they had in view, according to a plan concerted long before the last war commenced, was no less than the command of the whole continent of North- [5] America. With this view, were all their encroachments upon our settlements, begun many years ago, but carried on chiefly after signing the treaty of Aix la ckapelle; great numbers of their troops, with large quantities of military stores, clandestinely sent to their plantations; the Indians debauched and spirited up to the most shocking instances of barbarous cruelty against our Planters; and their intended chain of forts, from Canada to Louisiana, not only begun, but considerably advanced.
But Heaven supporting our just cause, and making our arms remarkably victorious both by sea and land, our insidious enemies, like the dog with the piece of flesh in the table [fable], have not only been entirely frustrated of this their design, but obliged to relinquish all their former encroachments, and cede to us all Canada, with whatever eise they possessed of North America to the river Mississippi.
Thus have the French, to their great mortification, been disappointed of a design they seem'd to have had much at heart; by the accomplishment of which, they would, [6] in all probability, not only have had Britain at their mercy within a few years, but been capable to give law to Europe.
Their passion for universal empire having been thus frustrate [sic], and their deep concerted scheme of American dominion rendered abortive, they will, no doubt, be filled with revenge, and with a strong desire to recover the power they have lost, and the territory they have been forced to cede. These and other considerations give us great reason to expect, that a Nation, whose humour is constitutionally ambitious and restless, and which keeps no treaty longer than they