From Spain, therefore, unassisted, we have nothing to apprehend, and yet from thence we have been threatened with insults and invasions.

That the condition of the French is far different, cannot be denied; their commerce flourishes, their dominions are connected, their wealth increases, and their government operates with full vigour:  their influence is great, and their name formidable.  But I cannot allow, sir, that they have yet attained such a height of power as should alarm us with constant apprehensions, or that we ought to secure ourselves against them by the violation of our liberties.  Not to urge that the loss of freedom, and the destruction of our constitution, are the worst consequences that can be apprehended from a conquest, and that to a slave the change of his master is of no great importance, it is evident, that the power of the French is of such kind as can only affect us remotely, and consequentially.  They may fill the continent with alarms, and ravage the territories of Germany, by their numerous armies, but can only injure us by means of their fleets.  We may wait, sir, without a panick terrour, though not without some degree of anxiety, the event of their attempts upon the neighbouring princes, and cannot be reduced to fight for our altars and our houses, but by a second armada, which, even then, the winds must favour, and a thousand circumstances concur to expedite.

But that no such fleet can be fitted out by the united endeavours of the whole world; that our navy, in its present state, is superiour to any that can be brought against us, our ministers ought not to be ignorant:  and, therefore, to dispirit the nation with apprehensions of armies hovering in the air, and of conquerors to be wafted over by supernatural means, is to destroy that happiness which government was ordained to preserve; to sink us to tameness and cowardice; and to betray us to insults and to robberies.

If our danger, sir, be such as has been represented, to whom must we impute it?  Upon whom are our weakness, our poverty, and our miseries to be charged?  Upon whom, but those who have usurped the direction of affairs which they did not understand, or to which their solicitude for the preservation of their own power hindered them from attending?

That the Spaniards, sir, are now enabled to make resistance, and, perhaps, to insult and depopulate our colonies; that the French have despatched a fleet into the American seas, to obstruct, as may be conjectured, the progress of our arms, and that we are in danger of meeting opposition which we did not expect, is too evident to be concealed.

But, sir, is not the spirit of our enemies the consequence rather of our cowardice than of their own strength?  Does not the opposition to our designs, by whatever nation it shall be made, arise from the contempt which has been brought upon us by our irresolution, forbearance, and delays?  Had we resented the first insult, and repaired our earliest losses by vigorous reprisals, our merchants had long ago carried on their traffick with security, our enemies would have courted us with respect, and our allies supported us with confidence.