is amply compensated by their depredations upon our merchants:  their navies may be confined to their own ports, or to those of France; but these navies are not very necessary to them, since they are not sufficiently powerful to oppose us on the ocean; and therefore they who are thus confined, suffer less than those who confine them.  We have, indeed, the empty pleasure of seeing ourselves lords of the sea, and of shaking the coasts with volleys of our cannon; but we purchase the triumph at a very high price, and shall find ourselves in time weakened by a useless ostentation of superiority.

The only parts of the Spanish dominions in which they can receive any hurt from our forces, are those countries which they possess in America, and from which they receive the gold and silver which inflame their pride, and incite them to insult nations more powerful than themselves.  By seizing any part of those wealthy regions, we shall stop the fountain of their treasure, reduce them to immediate penury, and compel them to solicit peace upon any conditions that we shall condescend to offer them.

The necessity of invading these countries, my lords, was perfectly understood, and very distinctly explained, when the forces destined for that expedition were delayed, and when the attempt at Carthagena miscarried; nothing was more pathetical than the complaints of the patriots, who spared no labour to inform either the senate or the nation of the advantages which success would have procured.  But what measures have been taken to repair our losses, or to regain our honour; or what new schemes have been formed for making an attack more forcible upon some weaker part?

Every one can remember, that the miscarriage of that enterprise was imputed, not to its difficulty, nor to the courage of the Spaniards, nor to the strength of their works, but to the unskilfulness of our officers, and the impropriety of the season; and it was, therefore, without doubt thought not impossible to attack the Spanish colonies with success; but why then, my lords, have they hitherto suffered the Spaniards to discipline their troops, and strengthen their works at. leisure, that at length they may securely set us at defiance, and plunder our merchants without fear of vengeance?

Thus, my lords, has our real interest been neglected in pursuit not of any other scheme of equal advantage, but of the empty title of the arbiters of Europe; we have suffered our trade to be destroyed, and our country impoverished for the sake of holding the balance of power; that variable balance, in which folly and ambition are perpetually changing the weights, and which neither policy nor strength could yet preserve steady for a single year.

In the prosecution of this idle scheme, we are about to violate all the maxims of wisdom, and perhaps of justice; we are about to destroy the end by the means which we make use of to promote it, to endanger our country more by attempting to hinder the changes which are projected in Europe, than their accomplishment will endanger it, and to deliver up ourselves to France before she makes any demand of submission from us.