t they might not appear, sir, to have made this promise only to free
themselves from present importunity, they set negotiations on foot,
despatched memorials, remonstrances, propositions, and computations, and
with an air of gravity and importance, assembled at proper times to
peruse the intelligence which they received, and to concert new
instructions for their ministers.

While this farce was acted, sir, innumerable artifices were made use of
to reconcile the nation to suspense and delay. Sometimes the distance of
the Spanish dominions in America retarded the decision of our claims.
Sometimes the dilatory disposition of the Spaniards, and the established
methods of their courts, made it impossible to procure a more speedy
determination. Sometimes orders were despatched to America in favour of
our trade, and sometimes those orders were neglected by the captains of
the Spanish ships, and the governours of their provinces; and when it
was inquired why those captains and governours were not punished or
recalled, we were treated with contempt, for not knowing what had been
so lately told us of the dilatory proceedings of the Spanish courts.

In the mean time our merchants were plundered, and our sailors thrown
into dungeons; our flag was insulted, and our navigation restrained, by
men acting under the commission of the king of Spain; we perceived no
effect of our negotiations but the expense, and our enemies not only
insisted on their former claims, but prosecuted them with the utmost
rigour, insolence, and cruelty.

It must, indeed, sir, be urged in favour of our minister, that he did
not refuse any act of submission, or omit any method of supplication by
which he might hope to soften the Spaniards; he solicited their favour
at their own court, he sent commissaries into their country, he assisted
them in taking possession of dominions, to which neither we nor they
have proved a right; and he employed the navies of Britain to transport
into Italy the prince on whom the new-erected kingdom was to be
conferred.

Well might he expect that the Spaniards would be softened by so much
kindness and forbearance, and that gratitude would at length induce them
to spare those whom no injuries or contempt had been able to alienate
from them, and to allow those a free course through the seas of America,
to whom they had been indebted for an uninterrupted passage to the
possession of a kingdom.

He might likewise urge, sir, that whe