thing
omitted, which an experienced and candid inquirer will think useful to
the increase of our naval strength, or necessary to the protection of
our commerce.

In considering this bill, I shall not trouble your lordships with a
minute consideration of every single paragraph, though every paragraph
might furnish opportunity for animadversions; but shall content myself
with endeavouring to evince the reasonableness of some of the objections
made by the noble lord who spoke first, and enforcing his opinion with
such arguments as have occurred to me, though, indeed, it requires no
uncommon sagacity to discover, or superiour skill in ratiocination to
prove, that where this bill will produce any alteration in our present
scheme, it will manifestly change it for the worse.

For surely, my lords, it will not be necessary to show, by any elaborate
and refined reasoning, the absurdity of confining cruisers to particular
stations, with an absolute prohibition to depart from them, whatever may
be the certainty of destruction, or prospect of advantage.

If the intention of cruising ships is to annoy the enemies of the
nation, ought they to be deprived of the liberty of pursuing them? If
they are designed for the protection of our merchants, must they not be
allowed to attend them till they are out of danger.

Every one, my lords, has had opportunities of observing, that there are
men who are wholly engrossed by the present moment, and who, if they can
procure immoderate profit, or escape any impending danger, are without
the least solicitude with regard to futurity, and who, therefore, live
only by the hour, without any general scheme of conduct, or solid
foundation of lasting happiness, and who, consequently, are for ever
obliged to vary their measures, and obviate every new accident by some
new contrivance.

By men of this disposition, my lords, a temper by which they are
certainly very little qualified for legislators, the bill now before us
seems to have been drawn up; for their attention is evidently so engaged
by the present occurrences, that there is no place left for any regard
to distant contingencies. The conclusion of this war is to them the
period of human existence, the end of all discord and all policy. They
consider Spain as the only enemy with whom we can ever be at variance,
and have, therefore, drawn up a law, a law without any limitation of
time, to enable us to oppose her. They have with great industry and