umiliation. Such I call the ransom of
Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But
these powers put a just confidence in their resource of the double
Cabinet. These demands (one of them, at least) are hastening fast
towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her
cobwebs over all our spirited remonstrances. Some of the most valuable
branches of our trade are also on the point of perishing from the same
cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the
vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly
secured to us; I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Portugal, the
loss of which, and the power of the Cabal, have one and the same era.

If, by any chance, the Ministers who stand before the curtain possess or
affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign Courts and
Ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this
invention of the _double Cabinet_, attended very little to their
remonstrances. They know that those shadows of Ministers have nothing to
do in the ultimate disposal of things. Jealousies and animosities are
sedulously nourished in the outward Administration, and have been even
considered as a _causa sine qua non_ in its constitution: thence foreign
Courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common counsel in
this nation. If one of those Ministers officially takes up a business
with spirit, it serves only the better to signalise the meanness of the
rest, and the discord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste
to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this
nature was that astonishing transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our
Ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Corsica, in
consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance
the French Minister treated with the contempt that was natural; as he was
assured, from the Ambassador of his Court to ours, that these orders of
Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have
said British) Administration. Lord Rochford, a man of spirit, could not
endure this situation. The consequences were, however, curious. He
returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shelburne, who
gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who
obeyed these orders, receives them. He goes, however, into another
department