The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Four Tracts, On Political and Commercial Subjects.
• Tract I.
• Case I.
• Case II.
• Postscript.
• Tract II.
• Tract III.: A Letter From a Merchant In London to His Nephew In America.
• Tract IV.
• First Scheme.
• Scheme II.
• Third Scheme.
• Fourth Scheme.
• Fifth Scheme.
• The Manifold Advantages Attendant On Such a Scheme.

FOURTH SCHEME.

To consent that America should become the general Seat of Empire, and that Great-Britain and Ireland should be governed by Vice-Roys sent over from the Court Residencies either at Philadelphia, or New-York, or at some other American Imperial City.

Now, wild as such a Scheme may appear, there are certainly some Americans who seriously embrace it: And the late prodigious Swarms of Emigrants encourage them to suppose, that a Time is approaching, when the Seat of Empire must be changed. But whatever Events may be in the Womb of Time, or whatever Revolutions may happen in the Rise and Fall of Empires, there is not the least Probability, that this Country should ever become a Province to North-America. For granting even, that it would be so weakened and enfeebled by these Colony-Drains, as not to be able to defend itself from Invaders, yet America is at too great a Distance to invade it at first, much less to defend the Conquest of it afterwards, against the neighbouring Powers of Europe. And as to any Notion that we ourselves should prefer an American Yoke to any other,—this Supposition is chimerical indeed: Because it is much more probable, were Things to come to such a dreadful Crisis, that the English would rather submit to a French Yoke, than to an American; as being the lesser Indignity of the two. So that in short, if we must reason in Politics according to the Newtonian Principles in Philosophy,—the Idea of the lesser Country gravitating towards the greater, must lead us to conclude, that this Island would rather gravitate towards the Continent of Europe, than towards the Continent of America; unless indeed we should add one Extravagance to another, by supposing that these American Heroes are to conquer all the World. And in that Case I do allow, that England must become a Province to America. But

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.

Dismissing therefore, this Idea, as an idle Dream, we come now lastly to consider the