t from those who are supposed to be most acquainted
with the state of Europe, and the scheme of British policy which is at
present pursued, the arguments which can be offered in favour of these
new engagements; and have compared them with the conduct of former
ages upon the like occasions; but the result of all my searches into
history, all my conversation with politicians of every party, and all
my private meditations, has been only, that I am every hour confirmed,
by some new evidence, in the opinion which I had first formed; and now
imagined myself to know what I at first believed, that we are
entangled in a labyrinth of which no end is to be seen, and in which
no certain path has yet been discovered; that we are pursuing schemes
which are in no degree necessary to the prosperity of our country, by
means which are apparently contrary to law, to policy, and to justice;
and that we are involved in a foreign quarrel only to waste that
blood, and exhaust that treasure, which might be employed in
recovering the rights of commerce, and regaining the dominion of the
sea.

To prosecute the war against Spain with that vigour which interest and
resentment might be expected to produce, to repress that insolence by
which our navigation has been confined, and to punish that rapacity by
which our merchants have been plundered, and that cruelty by which our
fellow-subjects have been enslaved, tortured, and murdered, had been
an attempt in which every honest man would readily have concurred, and
to which all those who had sense to discern their own interest, or
virtue to promote the publick happiness, would cheerfully have
contributed, however loaded with taxes, oppressed with a standing
army, and plundered by the vultures of a court: nor is the ancient
spirit of the British nation so much depressed, but that when Spain
had been subdued, when our rights had been publickly acknowledged, our
losses repaired, and our colonies secured; when our ships had again
sailed in security, and our flag awed the ocean of America, we might
then have extended our views to foreign countries, might have assumed,
once more, the guardianship of the liberties of Europe, have given law
to the powers of the continent, and superintended the happiness of
mankind. But in the present situation of our affairs, when we have
made war for years without advantage, while our most important rights
are yet subject to the chance of battle, why we should engage in the