John Adams 1755 Letter

I am reading the John Adams biography by David McCullough and just came across the part that describes a letter that John Adams wrote to a friend on October 12, 1755 regarding the future of the colonies. Here is an excerpt:

"Soon after the reformation, a few people came over into this new world for conscience sake: perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me; for, if we can remove the turbulent Gallicks, our people according to the exactest[sic] computations, will in another century become more numerous than England itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval shores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain a mastery of the seas; and the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us."

I'm not sure how common this perspective was at the time, but for a 20-year old to summarize it so succinctly and eloquently is pretty awesome.