abandon the Dutch war:  a war, next to the present, the most impolitic which we ever carried on.  The good people of England considered Holland as a sort of dependency on this kingdom; they dreaded to drive it to the protection or subject it to the power of France by their own inconsiderate hostility.  They paid but little respect to the court jargon of that day; nor were they inflamed by the pretended rivalship of the Dutch in trade,—­by the massacre at Amboyna, acted on the stage to provoke the public vengeance,—­nor by declamations against the ingratitude of the United Provinces for the benefits England had conferred upon them in their infant state.  They were not moved from their evident interest by all these arts; nor was it enough to tell them, they were at war, that they must go through with it, and that the cause of the dispute was lost in the consequences.  The people of England were then, as they are now, called upon to make government strong.  They thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest.

When I was amongst my constituents at the last summer assizes, I remember that men of all descriptions did then express a very strong desire for peace, and no slight hopes of attaining it from the commission sent out by my Lord Howe.  And it is not a little remarkable, that, in proportion as every person showed a zeal for the court measures, he was then earnest in circulating an opinion of the extent of the supposed powers of that commission.  When I told them that Lord Howe had no powers to treat, or to promise satisfaction on any point whatsoever of the controversy, I was hardly credited,—­so strong and general was the desire of terminating this war by the method of accommodation.  As far as I could discover, this was the temper then prevalent through the kingdom.  The king’s forces, it must be observed, had at that time been obliged to evacuate Boston.  The superiority of the former campaign rested wholly with the colonists.  If such powers of treaty were to be wished whilst success was very doubtful, how came they to be less so, since his Majesty’s arms have been crowned with many considerable advantages?  Have these successes induced us to alter our mind, as thinking the season of victory not the time for treating with honor or advantage?  Whatever changes have happened in the national character, it can scarcely be our wish that terms of accommodation never should be proposed to our enemy, except when they must be attributed solely to our fears.  It has happened, let me say unfortunately, that we read of his Majesty’s commission for making peace, and his troops evacuating his last town in the Thirteen Colonies, at the same hour and in the same gazette.  It was still more unfortunate that no commission went to America to settle the troubles there, until several months after an act had been passed to put the colonies out of the protection of this government, and to divide their trading property, without a possibility of restitution,