_But all this debate about the propriety or impropriety of keeping or restoring Canada_ is possibly too early. We have taken the capital indeed, but the country is yet far from being in our possession; and perhaps never will be: for if our m----rs are persuaded by such counsellors as the remarker, that the French there are "not the worst of neighbours," and that if we had conquered Canada, we ought, for our own sakes, to restore it, as a check to the growth of our colonies; I am then afraid we shall never take it. For there are many ways of avoiding the completion of the conquest, that will be less exceptionable and less odious than the giving it up.
[7. _Canada easily peopled_, without draining Great Britain _of any of its inhabitants_.]
_The objection I have often heard, that if we had Canada we could not people it, without draining Britain of its inhabitants, is founded on ignorance of the nature of population in new countries._ When we first began to colonize in America, it was necessary to send people, and to send seed-corn; but it is not now necessary that we should furnish, for a new colony, either one or the other. The annual increment alone of our present colonies, without diminishing their numbers, or requiring a man from hence, is sufficient in ten years to fill Canada with double the number of English that it now has of French inhabitants[50]. Those who are protestants among the French will probably choose to remain under the English government; many will choose to remove, if they can be allowed to sell their lands, improvements, and effects: the rest in that thin-settled country will in less than half a century, from the crowds of English settling round and among them, be blended and incorporated with our people both in language and manners.
[8. _The merits of Guadaloupe to Great Britain_ over-valued; _yet likely to be paid_ much dearer for, _than Canada_.]
_In Guadaloupe the case is somewhat different_; and though I am far from thinking[51] we have sugar-land enough[52], I cannot think Guadaloupe is so desirable an increase of it, as other objects the enemy would probably be infinitely more ready to part with. A country, _fully inhabited_ by any nation, is no proper possession for another of different languages, manners, and religion. It is hardly ever tenable at less expence than it is worth. But the isle of _Cayenne, and its appendix, Equinoctial-France_, having but very few inhabitants, and these therefore easily removed, would indeed be an acquisition every way suitable to our situation and desires. This would hold all that migrate from Barbadoes, the Leeward Islands, or Jamaica. It would certainly recal into an English government (in which there would be room for millions) all who have before settled or purchased in Martinico, Guadaloupe, Santa-Cruz, or St. John's; except such as know not the value of an English government, and such I am sure are not worth recalling.