No efforts were, however, to be left untried by the parliamentary opponents of Walpole to force him into a war; and while they incessantly inveighed against the pusillanimity of the minister, they did not scruple to give their sanction to the most exaggerated accounts of the insults permitted and exercised by the Spaniards, and indeed to the most incredible tales of horror. A transaction which had occurred seven years before, and which was now worked up into “the fable of Jenkins’ ear,” as Burke justly calls it, was made the vehicle of popular frenzy; and it required the full exertion of ministerial sagacity and influence to elude an immediate rupture. The pacific overtures of Sir R. Walpole were most ably seconded by Mr. Keene, whose address overcame the dilatoriness, the punctilios, and the repugnance of the Spanish Court; and a convention was signed at Madrid, which promised all the advantages which the most successful warfare could have procured. But no reasonable concession could satisfy the people of England: their haughty and insulting language at length disgusted and provoked the Spanish nation. The terms of the convention were, in consequence, not fulfilled; Mr. Keene was recalled, and the declaration of War against Spain was hailed in England with a frantic enthusiasm. “They now _ring_ the bells,” was Sir Robert’s observation, “but they will soon _wring_ their hands.” Burke, whose veracity will not be doubted, declares that he had seen and examined the original documents concerning these important transactions, and that they had perfectly satisfied him of the extreme injustice of this war with Spain. He even says, “some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that minister, and with those who principally excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their conduct, which they as freely condemned as they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding in history, in which they were totally unconcerned.” It is sufficient to add, that after a disgraceful period of seven years’ hostility, after a dreadful expense of blood and treasure, the right of English Subjects to navigate in the American Seas, the original source of the differences between us and Spain, were not even mentioned in the articles of the ensuing peace!!