THE great domestic event by which the reign of Anne was distinguished was the union of the two kingdoms of England. and Scotland. I am very desirous to recommend this subject to your diligence and reflection.

I will make a few observations, and endeavour to convey to you some general idea of the interest which belongs to it.

England has been connected with Scotland, with Ireland, with America. In each of these relations a sort of termination and crisis has at last taken place. In Scotland we adopted the measure of a union under the immediate apprehension of a rebellion; in Ireland, after a rebellion, which had but too nearly torn the two countries asunder; in America the rebellion was successful, and we lost the country for ever. We have still another country with which we are connected on the other side of the globe, the immense continent of India.

The political questions that arise from the connexion of nations with each other seem to me among the greatest that history or that human affairs can ever present to you. Such connexions of different nations have often occurred, and will never cease to occur, in the annals of mankind. Spain has been connected with Portugal; both kingdoms with South America; France with America and the West Indies; the House of Austria with the Netherlands and Italy. By proximity of situation or by colonization, kingdoms have been, and always will be, vitally dependent on the conduct of each other. The duties that hence arise are often very difficult, the best systems of policy not obvious. Happy would it have been, and would it still be for mankind, if something more of good sense and good feeling either had been or could yet be

introduced into the cabinets of their rulers, and into their own misguided understandings and selfish minds.

It is very true, that when philosophy has exhibited all its reasonings and exhausted all its efforts, it is very true, that the most serious difficulties will still remain on subjects like these; that the interests of connected nations cannot be entirely reconciled, nor their separate wishes be gratified. Nations must often be reduced to compound with evils, and at last to make such sacrifices as are necessarily accompanied with mortification and regret; but it is for political wisdom to encounter and reconcile men to these evils, to proclaim aloud, that on these occasions nothing has happened at variance with the common necessities of our imperfect state.

The misfortune is, that nations can never submit to the circumstances of their situation in time, or with any grace or good humor. Human life, however, at every turn, and in every stage of it, is continually requiring from us a wisdom of this melancholy cast. It is the great discipline to which the Almighty Ruler of the world has subjected us through all the successive changes of our state, and all the affecting relations of our domestic feelings, from infancy to the grave. On all such occasions, on the small scale of our social connexions, and in what relates to ourselves, we submit to necessity; we compound, we balance, we understand what is our best wisdom, and we endeavour to practise it; the father expects not that the son shall for ever remain dependent on his kindness, and moulded by his directions; men with their inferiors, neighbours with each other, act always on a system of mutual sacrifices, reciprocal duties, and interchanged offices of sympathy and good will.

But on the larger scale of the intercourse of nations, particularly of connected nations, the same moral truths, though equally existing, are not so obvious, and when apparent, not so impressive. We are, therefore, fretful, ill-humored, outrageous; we contend against reason, philosophy, and nature itself; forget the great rule of doing to others as we would they should do unto us; and, after wasting our blood and treasure to no purpose, we at last sit down faint and exhausted, abandon our vain projects only because it is impossible to pursue them, and then leave it to the reasoners of a succeeding

age to show how egregious has been our folly, and how blind our fury.

The leading principles that belong to subjects of this nature have been introduced to the notice and to the assent of the more intelligent part of mankind in two different modes, by experience and by the reasonings of philosophers.

When nations are connected with each other, they can find causes of offence and hostility in three different points: in their religion, their laws and customs, their trade and manufactures.

Now experience has tolerably well taught mankind (however slowly), that with respect to the two former, toleration is the best and only policy; that it is best to suffer colonies or inferior nations to retain their own particular creeds and rites and ceremonies in religion, and their own particular modes of administering justice in civil or criminal matters; that improvements may be proposed to them, but not enforced; that till they can be properly enlightened, they must be left to indulge their own particular notions.

But on the last question, of trade and manufactures, the world is entirely indebted to the labors of the French writers on political economy, and to the works of Hume and Adam Smith. It is from these two last distinguished masters of political science that this country more particularly has acquired any enlarged views which it possesses on such extensive and difficult subjects; and an acquaintance with their doctrines is indispensably necessary before we can approach any such questions, as the unions of kingdoms or the management of colonies.

To illustrate this part of my subject: a reader of history will see all the statesmen of Europe, from the first period of the existence of statesmen, proceed upon the supposition that nations could only be enriched by what is called the balance of trade; i. e. if England has sent to Portugal a greater value of manufactures than she received of wine, that Portugal must pay the difference in bullion, and that this bullion was the measure of the advantage which England derived from this trade. Mr. Hume has an essay on the balance of trade, and another on the jealousy of trade; and, after successfully combating the natural reasonings of mankind on these sub

jects, he concludes thus: "I shall, therefore, venture to acknowledge that not only as a man, but as a British subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany, Spain, Italy, and even France itself. I am at least certain that Great Britain and all those nations would flourish more did their sovereigns and ministers adopt such enlarged and benevolent sentiments towards each other."

Now it is to be observed, that no reasoner would at this time of day think it necessary to say that "he would venture to acknowledge" the labors of Hume and Smith have been so far successful; and he would not "venture to acknowledge," but he would affirm without hesitation. It is now admitted that the whole doctrine of the balance of trade is a mistake, and that nations are necessarily benefited by any commercial intercourse, of whatever kind, provided it is not artificially produced by the mere operation of laws or any species of extraneous necessity and force.

We have now, then, an adjustment of the whole of the case. What difficulty, it might be said, can remain? If nations are to be connected together, let the one allow to the other its own religion, its own laws, and the most free and unrestrained imports and exports; what cause of contention can remain ? Let the supreme legislature be the same; and the countries being thus in every respect identified, the interests of both will be entirely served and secured, and every thing that philosophy can prescribe, or human affairs admit of, be at once accomplished.

But the conduct and even the reasonings of mankind have on all such occasions been widely different, and the result has been at all times fatal to their happiness.

We will take the simplest case, that of a mother country and her colonies. The religion has been here generally the same, and laws and customs similar; in these points there was little room for mistakes. But in questions of trade and commerce greater opportunity for errors was afforded, and the mistakes committed have in fact been very numerous and important. The most narrow jealousy, the most blighting systems of superintendence and control, have been continually exercised; no market allowed to the colonies till the supposed interests of the mother country were first secured; no manu

factures to be imported, nor even to be used, but those that came from the land and labor of the parent state; and if illhumor in the colonies was the consequence, troops were to be sent, and a policy, ultimately injurious to both countries, was to be supported by force.

In other cases that have occurred, cases of connected nations, as the real difficulties have been greater, the mistakes have been still more multiplied and fatal. For instance :

Two nations may be completely connected together by proximity of situation, and yet be, by fortune, placed under different governments; England and Scotland, for instance: each kingdom possessing an independent sovereignty, and therefore each strongly affected by all those associations of national dignity and ancient renown which are so immediately derived from the noblest and best feelings of our nature. This is the most difficult case of all. Nations thus situated are of all others the most unfortunately situated, particularly the inferior nation; and what a reasoner would even now, at the present day, propose, would, in a case like this, be accompanied with the most intolerable difficulties, difficulties such as the worst passions and the best passions of our nature would equally conspire to render almost insurmountable.

In the first place, nations so situated will be in a state of eternal hostility with each other; not only of hostility, but of petty warfare; and they will not only have their own quarrels to adjust, but the inferior state will attach itself to some third state for the benefit of its assistance; and thus become the tool of the one, and the victim of the other.

For evils like these, the first remedy that might be attempted would be a federal union; that is, each country to retain its own legislature, but both to have the same king or executive power. This sort of federal union took place by the union of the two crowns of England and Scotland under our James the First. The same was in later years understood to be the situation of England and Ireland, but admitted by our government only at a very late period. Now this alteration, this federal union, will be on the whole beneficial, but not a remedy. In the first place, the two legislatures may disagree, and it will always be, therefore, the labor of the superior or more powerful country to influence by bribes the legislature of the