no sober man would continue the war to thwart a fancy so little detrimental. The cession of Senegal, he observed, had been declared to be as fatal to the gum trade as that of Tobago to the cotton trade. The objection breathed the spirit of the old colonial system: "By this article of the treaty," he said, "we secure as much as we ever had secured, a share in the gum trade, and we are not under the necessity we formerly were of making that coast a grave for our fellow-subjects, thousands of whom were annually devoted to destruction from the unhealthiness of the climate, by means of our jealousy, which sent them there to watch an article of trade which in vain we endeavoured to monopolise."
The distracted state of the British dominions in India, and the condition of the affairs of the Company, were the justification for the concessions made in that quarter of the globe. The troops were four months in arrear of their pay; the credit of the Company was at the lowest ebb; there were drafts unpaid to the amount of £1,400,000, and there were others to the amount of £240,000 coming home. The ancient enemy of England, M. de Bussy, was leaving France in the decline of life almost at the age of eighty for the sole purpose of forming alliances. The Mahrattas were still hostile; the forces sent out against Hyder Ali were in daily dread of being starved to death. In such a condition of affairs concession was unavoidable, and neither in India nor elsewhere did he deny that concessions had been made; the question however was whether those concessions could have been avoided, and the answer depended on the condition of the finances, and of the naval and military resources of the country. In his opinion peace even at the cost of some sacrifices was necessary. "On an entire view of our affairs," he said summing up his argument, "is there any sensible man in the kingdom that will not say that the powerful confederacy with which we had to contend had not the most decided superiority over us? Had we one taxable article that was not already taxed to the utmost extent? Were we not 197 millions in debt? and had we
