As to the third requisite, alliance, there too the author is silent.  What strength of that kind did they acquire?  They got no one new ally; they stript the enemy of not a single old one.  They disgusted (how justly, or unjustly, matters not) every ally we had; and from that time to this we stand friendless in Europe.  But of this naked condition of their country I know some people are not ashamed.  They have their system of politics; our ancestors grew great by another.  In this manner these virtuous men concluded the peace; and their practice is only consonant to their theory.

Many things more might be observed on this curious head of our author’s speculations.  But, taking leave of what the writer says in his serious part, if he be serious in any part, I shall only just point out a piece of his pleasantry.  No man, I believe, ever denied that the time for making peace is that in which the best terms maybe obtained.  But what that time is, together with the use that has been made of it, we are to judge by seeing whether terms adequate to our advantages, and to our necessities, have been actually obtained.  Here is the pinch of the question, to which the author ought to have set his shoulders in earnest.  Instead of doing this, he slips out of the harness by a jest; and sneeringly tells us, that, to determine this point, we must know the secrets of the French and Spanish cabinets[55], and that Parliament was pleased to approve the treaty of peace without calling for the correspondence concerning it.  How just this sarcasm on that Parliament may be, I say not; but how becoming in the author, I leave it to his friends to determine.

Having thus gone through the questions of war and peace, the author proceeds to state our debt, and the interest which it carried, at the time of the treaty, with the unfairness and inaccuracy, however, which distinguish all his assertions, and all his calculations.  To detect every fallacy, and rectify every mistake, would be endless.  It will be enough to point out a few of them, in order to show how unsafe it is to place anything like an implicit trust in such a writer.

The interest of debt contracted during the war is stated by the author at 2,614,892_l._ The particulars appear in pp. 14 and 15.  Among them is stated the unfunded debt, 9,975,017_l._, supposed to carry interest on a medium at 3 per cent, which amounts to 299,250_l._ We are referred to the “Considerations on the Trade and Finances of the Kingdom,” p. 22, for the particulars of that unfunded debt.  Turn to the work, and to the place referred to by the author himself, if you have a mind to see a clear detection of a capital fallacy of this article in his account.  You will there see that this unfunded debt consists of the nine following articles:  the remaining subsidy to the Duke of Brunswick; the remaining dedommagement to the Landgrave of Hesse; the German demands; the army and ordnance extraordinaries;