That we have much to dread from the connections into which Spain may be forced.

From the circumstances of her territorial possessions, of her resources, and the whole of her civil and political state, we may be authorized safely and with undoubted confidence to affirm that

Spain is not a substantive power.

That she must lean on France or on England.

That it is as much for the interest of Great Britain to prevent the predominancy of a French interest in that kingdom as if Spain were a province of the crown of Great Britain, or a state actually dependent on it,—­full as much so as ever Portugal was reputed to be.  This is a dependency of much greater value; and its destruction, or its being carried to any other dependency, of much more serious misfortune.

One of these two things must happen:  either Spain must submit to circumstances and take such conditions as France will impose, or she must engage in hostilities along with the Emperor and the king of Sardinia.

If Spain should be forced or awed into a treaty with the republic of France, she must open her ports and her commerce, as well as the land communication for the French laborers, who were accustomed annually to gather in the harvest in Spain.  Indeed, she must grant a free communication for travellers and traders through her whole country.  In that case it is not conjectural, it is certain, the clubs will give law in the provinces; Bourgoing, or some such miscreant, will give law at Madrid.

In this England may acquiesce, if she pleases; and France will conclude a triumphant peace with Spain under her absolute dependence, with a broad highway into that, and into every state of Europe.  She actually invites Great Britain to divide with her the spoils of the New World, and to make a partition of the Spanish monarchy.  Clearly, it is better to do so than to suffer France to possess those spoils and that territory alone; which, without doubt, unresisted by us, she is altogether as able as she is willing to do.

This plan is proposed by the French in the way in which they propose all their plans,—­and in the only way in which, indeed, they can propose them, where there is no regular communication between his Majesty and their republic.

What they propose is a plan.  It is a plan also to resist their predatory project.  To remain quiet, and to suffer them to make their own use of a naval power before our face, so as to awe and bully Spain into a submissive peace, or to drive them into a ruinous war, without any measure on our part, I fear is no plan at all.

However, if the plan of cooeperation which France desires, and which her affiliated societies here ardently wish and are constantly writing up, should not be adopted, and the war between the Emperor and France should continue, I think it not at all likely that Spain should not be drawn into the quarrel.  In that case, the neutrality of England will be a thing absolutely impossible.  The time only is the subject of deliberation.