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for them to fit out their navy; but this deficiency will be easily supplied by the alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.

It is unpleafing to reprefent our affairs to our own difadvantage; yet it is neceffary to fhew the evils which we define to be removed; and, therefore, fome account may very properly be given of the measures which have given them their prefent fuperiority.

They are faid to be fupplied from France with better governors than our colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governor is feldom chofen for any other reason than his qualifications for his truft. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be fo infamously vicious that he cannot be decently protected in his own country, feldom recommends any man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly fkilful either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no expectation of honour or preferment, but from the justice and vigour of their administration.

Their great fecurity is the friendship of the natives, and to this advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the confequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and kept but by kind treatment; and furely they who intrude, uncalled, upon the country of a diftant people, ought to confider the natives as worthy of common kindness, and content themfelves to rob without infulting them. The French, as has been already obferved, admit the Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themfelves; and those nations,

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nations, with which they have no fuch near intercourfe, they gain over to their intereft by honesty in their dealings. Our factors and traders having no other purpose in view than immediate profit, ufe all the arts of an European counting-house, to defraud the fimple hunter of his furs.

Thefe are fome of the causes of our present weaknefs; our planters are always quarrelling with their governor, whom they confider as lefs to be trufted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians by their tricks and oppreffions, and we continue every day to fhew by new proofs, that no people can be great who have ceafed to be vir

tuous,

MISCELLANEOUS

ESSAY ́S.

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REVIEW

O F

Memoirs of the Court of Augufius;

By THOMAS BLACKWELL, J.U.D. Principal of Marishal-College in the University of Aberdeen.

TH

HE firft effect which this book has upon the reader is that of difgufting him with the author's vanity. He endeavours to perfuade the world, that here are fome new treasures of literature spread before his eyes; that fomething is discovered, which to this happy day had been concealed in darknefs; that by his diligence time had been robbed of some valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that names and facts doomed to oblivion are now reftored to fame.

How must the unlearned reader be furprifed, when he fhall be told that Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city, nor found out the way to the library of Fez; nor had a fingle book in his hands, that has not been in the poffeffion of every man that was inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a people who above all others have furnished employment to the ftudious, and amusements to the idle; who have scarcely left behind them a coin or a stone,

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