g officers to
betray the people, and taxing the people to support their oppressors;
but have with equal policy, diligence, and success, recovered the
losses which they then sustained, and enabled themselves to make
another stand against a general confederacy.

Against this empire, my lords, are we now to be engaged in a war,
without trade, and without money, loaded with debts, and harassed with
exactions; for what consequences can be expected from sending our
troops into the frontier towns, but that the French will charge us
with beginning hostilities, and declare war against us, or attack us
without a declaration; and that we shall be obliged to stand alone
against the whole power of the house of Bourbon, while all our ancient
allies stand at a distance spiritless and intimidated, or, perhaps,
secretly incite our enemies against us, in hopes of sharing our
plunder, or of rising on our ruin.

I know it has been alleged, and alleged with such a degree of
confidence, as it is reasonable to hope nothing could produce but a
consciousness of truth, that the Dutch have already consented to
assist us; nor is it without regret, that I find myself obliged to
declare, that this assertion is nothing more than one of those
transient visions with which it has been for a long time the custom of
British ministers to delude the people, to pacify their clamours, and
lull them in security; one of those artifices from which nothing more
is expected, than that it shall operate upon the nation, till the
circumstances of our affairs furnish out another, which is likewise,
in a short time, to be exploded only to make way for new falsehoods in
a perpetual succession.

Such, my lords, is the art of government discovered by the wonderful
sagacity of modern statesmen; who have found out, that it is easier to
palliate than to cure; and that the people maybe quieted by political
soporificks, while diseases are preying upon them, while their
strength decays, and their vitals are consumed.

That these falsehoods prevail upon mankind, and that after the
discovery of one cheat, another equally gross is patiently borne,
cannot but raise the wonder of a man who views the world at a
distance, and who has not opportunities of inquiring into the various
motives of action or belief. Such an one would be inclined to think us
a nation of fools, that must be stilled with rattles, or amused with
baubles; and would readily conclude, that our ministers were o