To search far backward for past errors, and to take advantage of later discoveries in censuring the conduct of any minister, is in a high degree disingenuous and cruel; it is an art which may be easily practised, of perplexing any question, by connecting distant facts, and entangling one period of time with another. The only candid method of inquiry is to recur back to the state of affairs, as it then appeared, to consider what was openly declared, and what was kept impenetrably secret, what was discoverable by human sagacity, and what was beyond the reach of the most piercing politician. With regard to the Hanover treaty, it is not, my lords, requisite that we should engage ourselves in a very minute examination; for it was not only not transacted by the right honourable gentleman whose behaviour is the subject of this debate, but cannot be proved to have been known by him till it was formally ratified. If he afterwards approved it either in the council or the senate, he cannot justly, how destructive or ridiculous soever that treaty may be thought, be charged with more than his share of the guilt, the bare guilt of a single vote. But there is one accusation yet more malicious, an accusation not only of crimes which this gentleman did not commit, but which have not yet been committed, an accusation formed by prying into futurity, and exaggerating misfortunes which are yet to come, and which may probably be prevented. Well may any man, my lords, think himself in danger, when he hears himself charged not with high crimes and misdemeanours, not with accumulative treason, but with misconduct of publick affairs, past, present, and future. The only charge against this gentleman, which seems to relate more to him than to any other man engaged in the administration, is the continuance of the harbour of Dunkirk, which, says the noble duke, he must be acquainted with as commissioner of the treasury; but if the title of first commissioner be denied, if his authority be but the same with that of his associates, whence comes it, my lords, that he is more particularly accused than they? Why is his guilt supposed greater if his power is only equal? But, my lords, I believe it will appear, that no guilt has been contracted on this account, and that Dunkirk was always intended, even by those that demanded the demolition of it, to continue a harbour for small trading vessels, and that if larger ever arrived from thence, they lay at a distance from the shore, and were loaded by small vessels from the town. With regard to other affairs, my lords, they were all transacted by the council, not by his direction, but with his concurrence; and how it is consistent with justice to single him out for censure, I must desire the noble lords to show who approve the motion.