That the war against Spain has not hitherto been remarkably successful, must be confessed; and though the Spaniards cannot boast of any other advantages than the defence of their own dominions, yet they may, perhaps, be somewhat elated, as they have been able to hold out against an enemy superiour to themselves.  But, my lords, I am far from believing, that they consider the war against us as an advantage, or that they do not lament it as one of the heaviest calamities that could fall upon them.  If it be asked, in what part of their dominions they feel any effects of our hostility, I shall answer with great confidence, that they feel them in every part which is exposed to the evils of a naval war; that they are in pain wherever they are sensible; that they are wounded wherever they are not sheltered from our blows, by the interposition of the nations of the continent.

If we examine, my lords, the influence of our European armaments, we shall find that their ships of war are shut up in the harbour of France, and that the fleets of both nations are happily blocked up together, so that they can neither extricate each other by concerted motions, in which our attention might be distracted, and our force divided, nor by their united force break through the bars by which they are shut up from the use of the ocean.

But this, my lords, however important with respect to us, is perhaps the smallest inconvenience which the Spaniards feel from our naval superiority.  They have an army, my lords, in Italy, exposed to all the miseries of famine, while our fleet prohibits the transportation of those provisions which have been stored in vessels for their supply, and which must be probably soon made defenceless by the want of ammunition, and fall into the hands of their enemies without the honour of a battle.

But what to the pride of a Spaniard must be yet a more severe affliction, they have on the same continent a natural confederate, who is yet so intimidated by the British fleets, that he dares neither afford them refuge in his dominions, nor send his troops to their assistance.  The queen, amidst all the schemes which her unbounded ambition forms for the exaltation of her family, finds her own son, after having received a kingdom from her kindness, restrained from supporting her, and reduced to preserve those territories which she has bestowed upon him, by abandoning her from whom he received them.

These, my lords, are the inconveniencies which the Spaniards feel from our fleets in the Mediterranean; and even these, however embarrassing, however depressing, are lighter than those which our American navy produces.  It is apparent, that money is equivalent to strength, a proposition of which, if it could be doubted, the Spanish monarchy would afford sufficient proof, as it has been for a long time supported only by the power of riches.  It is, therefore, impossible to weaken Spain more speedily or more certainly, than