In vain does the author declaim on the high premiums given for the loans during the war.  His long note swelled with calculations on that subject (even supposing the most inaccurate of all calculations to be just) would be entirety thrown away, did it not serve to raise a wonderful opinion of his financial skill in those who are not less surprised than edified, when, with a solemn face and mysterious air, they are told that two and two make four.  For what else do we learn from this note?  That the more expense is incurred by a nation, the more money will be required to defray it; that in proportion to the continuance of that expense, will be the continuance of borrowing; that the increase of borrowing and the increase of debt will go hand in hand; and lastly, that the more money you want, the harder it will be to get it; and that the scarcity of the commodity will enhance the price.  Who ever doubted the truth, or the insignificance, of these propositions? what do they prove? that war is expensive, and peace desirable.  They contain nothing more than a commonplace against war; the easiest of all topics.  To bring them home to his purpose, he ought to have shown that our enemies had money upon better terms; which he has not shown, neither can he.  I shall speak more fully to this point in another place.  He ought to have shown that the money they raised, upon whatever terms, had procured them a more lucrative return.  He knows that our expenditure purchased commerce and conquest:  theirs acquired nothing but defeat and bankruptcy.

Thus the author has laid down his ideas on the subject of war.  Next follow those he entertains on that of peace.  The treaty of Paris upon the whole has his approbation.  Indeed, if his account of the war be just, he might have spared himself all further trouble.  The rest is drawn on as an inevitable conclusion.[49] If the House of Bourbon had the advantage, she must give the law; and the peace, though it were much worse than it is, had still been a good one.  But as the world is yet deluded on the state of that war, other arguments are necessary; and the author has in my opinion very ill supplied them.  He tells of many things we have got, and of which he has made out a kind of bill.  This matter may be brought within a very narrow compass, if we come to consider the requisites of a good peace under some plain distinct heads.  I apprehend they may be reduced to these:  1.  Stability; 2.  Indemnification; 3.  Alliance.

As to the first, the author more than obscurely hints in several places, that he thinks the peace not likely to last.  However, he does furnish a security; a security, in any light, I fear, but insufficient; on his hypothesis, surely a very odd one.  “By stipulating for the entire possession of the Continent (says he) the restored French islands are become in some measure dependent on the British empire; and the good faith of France in observing the treaty guaranteed by the value at which she estimates their possession."[50]