ary appearances of
publick danger the noble lord is so much alarmed, nor what fears they
are which he endeavours with so much art and zeal to communicate to
this assembly. For my part, I can upon the most attentive survey of
our affairs, discover nothing to be feared but calumnies and
misrepresentations; and these I shall henceforward think more
formidable, since they have been able to impose upon an understanding
so penetrating as that of his lordship, and have prevailed upon him to
believe what is not only false, but without the appearance of truth,
and to believe it so firmly, as to assert it to your lordships.

One of the facts which he has thus implicitly received, and thus
publickly mentioned, is the neutrality supposed to have been granted
to the king of Sicily, from which he has amused himself and your
lordships with deducing very destructive consequences, that perhaps
need not to be allowed him, even upon supposition of the neutrality;
but which need not now be disputed, because no neutrality has been
granted. Captain Martin, when he treated with the king, very
cautiously declined any declarations of the intentions of the British
court on that particular, and confined himself to the subject of his
message, without giving any reason for hope, or despair of a
neutrality. So that if it shall be thought necessary, we are this hour
at liberty to declare war against the king of Sicily, and may pursue
the Spaniards with the same freedom on his coasts as on those of any
other power, and prohibit any assistance from being given by him to
their armies in Italy.

His lordship's notion of the interposition of the king of Prussia in
the king's favour, is another phantom raised by calumny to terrify
credulity; a phantom which will, I hope, be entirely dissipated, when
I have informed the house, that the whole suspicion is without
foundation, and that the king of Prussia has made no declaration of
any design to support the king, or of opposing us in the performance
of our treaties. This prince, my lords, however powerful, active, or
ambitious, appears to be satisfied with his acquisitions, and willing
to rest in an inoffensive neutrality.

Such, my lords, and so remote from truth are the representations which
the enemies of the government have with great zeal and industry
scattered over the nation, and by which they have endeavoured to
obviate those schemes which they would seem to favour; for by sinking
the nation to a d