contested titles: we promise only the preservation of quiet, and the
establishment of safety.

But the French, my lords, oppose us with other arguments, arguments
which, indeed, receive their force from folly and credulity; but what
more powerful assistance can be desired? They promise not mere negative
advantages, not an exemption from remote oppression, or an escape from
slavery, which, as it was yet never felt, is very little dreaded; they
offer an immediate augmentation of dominion, and an extension of power;
they propose new tracts of commerce, and open new sources of wealth;
they invite confederacies, not for defence, but for conquests; for
conquests to be divided among the powers by whose union they shall be
made.

Let it not, therefore, be objected, my lords, to our ministers, or our
negotiators, that the French obtain more influence than they; that they
are more easily listened to, or more readily believed: for while such is
the condition of mankind, that what is desired is easily credited, while
profit is more powerful than reason, the French eloquence will
frequently prevail.

Whether, my lords, our seeming want of success in the war with Spain
admits of as easy a solution, my degree of knowledge in military
affairs, does not enable me to determine. An account of this part of our
conduct is to be expected from the commissioners of the admiralty, by
whom, I doubt not, but such reasons will be assigned for all the
operations of our naval forces, and such vindications offered of all
those measures, which have been hitherto imputed too precipitately to
negligence, cowardice, or treachery, as will satisfy those who have been
most vehement in their censures.

But because it does not seem to me very difficult to apologize for those
miscarriages which have occasioned the loudest complaints, I will lay
before your lordships what I have been able to collect from inquiry, or
to conjecture from observation; and doubt not but it will easily appear,
that nothing has been omitted from any apparent design of betraying our
country, and that our ministers and commanders will deserve, at least,
to be heard before they are condemned.

That great numbers of our trading vessels have been seized by the
Spaniards, and that our commerce has, therefore, been very much
embarrassed and interrupted, is sufficiently manifest; but to me, my
lords, this appears one of the certain and necessary consequences of
war, which are always to