sily reconciled with my own assertions; for cowardice abroad produces
treachery at home, and they become traitors to their country who are
hindered by cowardice from the prosecution of her interest, and the
opposition of her enemies.

It may however be proper to declare, my lords, that I do not impute this
fatal cowardice to those who are intrusted with the command of our
navies, but to those from whom they are obliged to receive their
instructions, and upon whom they unhappily depend for the advancement of
their fortunes.

It is at least reasonable to impute miscarriages rather to those, who
are known to have given, formerly, such orders as a brave admiral
perished under the ignominious necessity of observing, than to those of
whom it cannot be said that any former part of their lives has been
stained with the reproach of cowardice; at least it is necessary to
suspend our judgment, till the truth shall be made apparent by a rigid
inquiry; and it is, therefore, proper to offer an address in general
terms, by which neither the actions or counsels of any man shall be
condemned nor approved.

It would be more unreasonable to charge our soldiers or our sailors with
cowardice, because they have shown, even in those actions which have
failed of success, that they miscarried rather through temerity than
fear; and that whenever they are suffered to attack their enemies, they
are ready to march forward even where there is no possibility of
returning, and that they are only to be withheld from conquest by
obstacles which human prowess cannot surmount.

Such, my lords, was the state of those heroes who died under the walls
of Carthagena; that died in an enterprise so ill concerted, that I
ventured, with no great skill in war, and without the least pretence to
prescience, to foretell in this house that it would miscarry.

That it would, that it must miscarry; that it was even intended only to
amuse the nation with the appearance of an expedition, without any
design of weakening our enemies, was easily discovered; for why else, my
lords, was the army composed of men newly drawn from the shop, and from
the plough, unacquainted with the use of arms, and ignorant of the very
terms of military discipline, when we had among us large bodies of
troops long kept up under the appearance of a regular establishment;
troops of whom we have long felt the expense, but of which the time is
not, it seems, yet come, that we are to know the use.