It was justly observed, by the honourable gentleman, that a parallel may be properly drawn between a nation and a private man, and, by consequence, between a trading nation and a trader.  Let us, therefore, consider what must be the state of that trader who shall never inspect or state his accounts, who shall suffer his servants to traffick in the dark with his stock, and on his credit, and who shall permit them to transact bargains in his name, without inquiring whether they are advantageous, or whether they are performed.

Every man immediately marks out a trader thus infatuated, as on the brink of bankruptcy and ruin; every one will easily foresee, that his servants will take advantage of his credulity, and proceed hourly to grosser frauds; that they will grow rich by betraying his interest, that they will neglect his affairs to promote their own, that they will plunder him till he has nothing left, and seek then for employment among those to whom they have recommended themselves by selling their trust.  His neighbours, who easily foresee his approaching misery, retire from him by degrees, disunite their business from his, and leave him to fall, without involving others in his ruin.

Such must be the fate of a trader whom idleness, or a blind confidence in the integrity of others, hinders from attending to his own affairs, unless he rouses from his slumber, and recovers from his infatuation.  And what is to be done by the man who, having for more than twenty years neglected so necessary an employment, finds, what must necessarily be found in much less time, his accounts perplexed, his credit depressed, and his affairs disordered?  What remains, but that he suffer that disorder to proceed no farther, that he resolutely examine all the transactions which he has hitherto overlooked, that he repair those errours which are yet retrievable, and reduce his trade into method; that he doom those servants, by whom he has been robbed or deceived, to the punishment which they deserve, and recover from them that wealth which they have accumulated by rapacity and fraud.

By this method only can the credit of the trader or the nation be repaired, and this is the method which the motion recommends; a motion with which, therefore, every man may be expected to comply, who desires that his country should once more recover its influence and power, who wishes to see Britain again courted and feared, and her monarch considered as the arbiter of the world, the protector of the true religion, and the defender of the liberties of mankind.

Mr. Phillips spoke in substance as follows:—­Sir, I am so far from believing that there is danger of exposing the spies of the government to the resentment of foreign princes, by complying with this motion, that I suspect the opposition to be produced chiefly from a consciousness, that no spies will be discovered to have been employed, and that the secret service for which such large sums have been required, will appear to have been rather for the service of domestick than of foreign traitors, and to have been performed rather in this house than in foreign courts.