No accusation against the late ministry was more general, more atrocious, or more adapted to incense the people, than that of neglecting the war against Spain: this was the subject of all the invectives which were vented against them in the senate, or dispersed among the people; for this they were charged with a secret confederacy against their country, with disregard of its commerce and its arms, and with a design to ruin the nation for no other end than to punish the merchants. To this accusation, my lords, diligently propagated, willingly received, and, to confess the truth, confirmed by some appearances, do those owe their power, who now preside over the affairs of the nation; and it might, therefore, have been hoped, that by their promotion, one of our grievances would have been taken away, and that at least the war against Spain would have been vigorously prosecuted. But this ministry, my lords, have only furnished a new instance of the credulity of mankind, of the delusion of outward appearances, and of the folly of hoping with too great ardour for any event, and of trusting any man with too great confidence. No sooner were they possessed of the power to which their ambition had so long aspired, and of the salaries which had with so much eagerness been coveted by their avarice, than they forgot the complaints of the merchants, the value of commerce, the honour of the British flag, the danger of our American territories, and the great importance of the war with Spain, and contented themselves with ordering convoys for our merchants, instead of destroying the enemy by whom they are molested. The fleets which are floating from one coast to another in the Mediterranean, and which sometimes strike terrour into the harmless inhabitants of an open coast, or threaten, but only threaten, destruction to an unfortified town, I am very far from considering as armaments fitted out against the Spaniards, who neither feel nor fear any great injury from them: their trade may be, indeed, somewhat impeded; but that inconvenience is amply compensated by their depredations upon our merchants: their navies may be confined to their own ports, or to those of France; but these navies are not very necessary to them, since they are not sufficiently powerful to oppose us on the ocean; and therefore they who are thus confined, suffer less than those who confine them. We have, indeed, the empty pleasure of seeing ourselves lords of the sea, and of shaking the coasts with volleys of our cannon; but we purchase the triumph at a very high price, and shall find ourselves in time weakened by a useless ostentation of superiority.