That the event was such as might be expected from the means, your lordships need not to be informed, nor can it be questioned with what intentions these means were contrived.

I am very far, my lords, from charging our ministers with ignorance, or upbraiding them with mistakes on this occasion, for their whole conduct has been uniform, and all their schemes consistent with each other:  nor do I doubt their knowledge of the consequence of their measures, so far as it was to be foreseen by human prudence.

Whether they have carried on negotiations, or made war; whether they have conducted our own affairs, or those of our ally the queen of Hungary, they have still discovered the same intention, and promoted it by the same means.  They have suffered the Spanish fleets to sail first for supplies from one port to another, and then from the coasts of Spain to those of America.  They have permitted the Spaniards, without opposition, to land in Italy, when it was not necessary even to withhold them from it by any actual violence; for had the fleet, my lords, been under my command, I would have only sent the Spanish admiral a prohibition to sail, and am sure it would have been observed.

They have neglected to purchase the friendship of the king of Prussia, which might, perhaps, have been obtained upon easy terms, but which they ought to have gained at whatever rate; and, to conclude, we have been lately informed that the neutrality is signed.

Such, my lords, is the conduct of the ministry, by which it cannot be denied that we are involved in many difficulties, and exposed to great contempt; but from this contempt we may recover, and disentangle ourselves from these difficulties, by a vigorous prosecution of measures opposite to those by which we have been reduced to our present state.

If we consider, without that confusion which fear naturally produces, the circumstances of our affairs, it will appear that we have opportunities in our hands of recovering our losses, and reestablishing our reputation; those losses which have been suffered while we had two hundred ships of war at sea, which have permitted three hundred merchant-ships to be taken; and that reputation which has been destroyed when there was no temptation either to a compliance with our enemies, or to a desertion of our friends.

It is well known, my lords, that we make war at present rather with the queen than the people of Spain; and it is reasonable to conclude, that a war carried on contrary to the general good, and against the general opinion, cannot be lasting.

It is certain that the Spaniards, whenever they have been attacked by men acquainted with the science of war, and furnished with necessary stores for hostile attempts, have discovered either ignorance or cowardice, and have either fled meanly, or resisted unskilfully.

It is, therefore, probable, my lords, that either our enemies will desist from the prosecution of a war, which few of them approve; or that we shall, by vigorous descents upon their coasts, and their colonies, the interruption of their trade, and the diminution of their forces, soon compel them to receive peace upon our own terms.