produced? What but poverty
and distractions at home, and the contempt and insults of foreign
powers? What but the necessity of retrieving by war the losses sustained
by timorous and dilatory negotiations; and the miscarriages of a war, in
which only folly and cowardice have involved us?

Nothing, my lords, is more astonishing, than that it should be asserted
in this assembly that we have no ill success to complain of. Might we
not hope for success, if we have calculated the events of war, and made
a suitable preparation? And how is this to be done, but by comparing our
forces with that of our enemy, who must, undoubtedly, be more or less
formidable according to the proportion which his treasures and his
troops bear to our own?

Upon the assurance of the certainty of this practice, upon the evidence,
my lords, of arithmetical demonstration, we were inclined to believe,
that the power of Britain was not to be resisted by Spain, and therefore
demanded that our merchants should be no longer plundered, insulted,
imprisoned, and tortured by so despicable an enemy.

That we did not foresee all the consequences of this demand, we are now
ready to confess; we did not conjecture that new troops would be raised
for the invasion of the Spanish dominions, only that we might be reduced
to the level with our enemies. We did not imagine that the superiority
of our naval force would produce no other consequence than an inequality
of expense, and that the royal navies of Britain would be equipped only
for show, only to harass the sailors with the hateful molestation of an
impress, and to weaken the crews of our mercantile vessels, that they
might be more easily taken by the privateers of Spain.

We did not expect, my lords, that our navies would sail out under the
command of admirals renowned for bravery, knowledge, and vigilance, and
float upon the ocean without design, or enter ports and leave them,
equally inoffensive as a packet-boat, or petty trader.

But not to speak any longer, my lords, in terms so little suited to the
importance of the question which I am endeavouring to clear, or to the
enormity of the conduct which I attempt to expose; the success of war is
only to be estimated by the advantages which are gained, in proportion
to the loss which is suffered; of which loss the expenses occasioned by
the war are always the chief part, and of which it is, therefore, usual,
at the conclusion of a peace, for the conquered power