This
instantly suspended their design: not another went on board, and the
vessel returned to Halifax with only the two families.
In fact the French government had not been inattentive to the views
of the British, nor insensible to the crisis. They saw the danger of
permitting five or six thousand of the best seamen existing, to be
transferred by a single stroke to the marine strength of their
enemy, and to carry over with them an art which they possessed almost
exclusively. The counterplan which they set on foot was to tempt the
_Nantuckois_, by high offers, to come and settle in France. This was in
the year 1785. The British, however, had in their favor, a sameness of
language, religion, laws, habits, and kindred. Nine families only, of
thirty-three persons in the whole, came to Dunkirk; so that this
project was not likely to prevent their emigration to the English
establishments, if nothing else had happened.
France had effectually aided in detaching the United States of America
from the force of Great Britain: but as yet they seemed to have indulged
only a silent wish to detach them from her commerce.
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