equivalent for Holland, for the Austrian Netherlands, for the lower Germany, that is, for the whole ancient kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of regicide, to say nothing of almost all Italy under the same barbarous domination.  If we treat in the present situation of things, we have nothing in our hands that can redeem Europe.  Nor is the Emperor, as I have observed, more rich in the fund of equivalents.

If we look to our stock in the eastern world, our most valuable and systematic acquisitions are made in that quarter.  Is it from France they are made?  France has but one or two contemptible factories, subsisting by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support them, in any part of India.  I look on the taking of the Cape of Good Hope as the securing of a post of great moment.  It does honour to those who planned, and to those who executed, that enterprise:  but I speak of it always as comparatively good; as good as anything can be in a scheme of war that repels us from a centre, and employs all our forces where nothing can be finally decisive.  But giving, as I freely give, every possible credit to these eastern conquests, I ask one question,—­on whom are they made?  It is evident, that if we can keep our eastern conquests we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense of Holland our ally; of Holland, the immediate cause of the war, the nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and not of the republic which it was our business to destroy.  If we return the African and the Asiatic conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them; and which will virtually leave them under the direction of France.  If we withhold them, Holland declines still more as a state.  She loses so much carrying trade, and that means of keeping up the small degree of naval power she holds; for which policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she maintains the Cape, or any settlement beyond it.  In that case, resentment, faction, and even necessity, will throw her more and more into the power of the new, mischievous republic.  But on the probable state of Holland I shall say more, when in this correspondence I come to talk over with you the state in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe.

So far as to the East Indies.

As to the West Indies, indeed as to either, if we look for matter of exchange in order to ransom Europe, it is easy to show that we have taken a terribly roundabout road.  I cannot conceive, even if, for the sake of holding conquests there, we should refuse to redeem Holland, and the Austrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the regicide ambassador governs at Madrid,) will see, with perfect satisfaction, Great Britain sole mistress of the isles.  In truth it appears to me, that, when we come to balance our account, we shall find in the proposed peace only