r enemies by one fatal blow,
and re-establishing our naval dominion by a single effort.

And justly, sir, might they indulge this pleasing imagination; with
reason might they anticipate a triumph over an enemy whose strength
bears no proportion to the force that was fitted out against them, and
expect that in a few months they should see the ambassadors of Spain
supplicating for peace.

To raise their expectations yet higher, their trade was suspended by an
embargo, long continued, and in the strictest manner enforced, and the
impresses were let loose upon the sailors; they saw nothing omitted,
however grievous to the nation, that could contribute to make it
formidable, and bore part of the miseries of war without impatience, in
hopes of being rewarded by military glory, and repaid by the plunder of
Spain.

But, sir, when so long a time has elapsed, and no account is brought of
either a victory or a battle, when they hear nothing but that our fleets
have visited several neutral ports, and those of the enemy sailed
unmolested from coast to coast, and when they are every day told of the
losses of our merchants, are insulted in our own channel by the Spanish
privateers, and receive no relations of our success upon the shores of
our enemies, can it be wondered that they suspect the reality of our
designs, or inquire whence it proceeds that their money has been wasted,
their trade interrupted, and the liberty of their fellow-subjects
invaded to no purpose?

But how much more justly, sir, are they inflamed when they hear of the
lucky stratagems, or daring enterprises of those enemies, which a just
sense of their own superiority, had induced them to consider as
vanquished before the battle, and of whom they had no apprehensions but
that their cowardice would always secure them from vengeance? How
justly may they murmur when they read, that our fleets leave every part
of the enemy's coast where their presence is necessary, and have
afforded the Spaniards an opportunity of changing one port for another,
as it is most convenient, and at length of joining the French squadrons,
and sailing to the defence of their American dominions?

May they not justly, sir, require of their representatives some reason
for such inexplicable conduct? May they not reasonably demand an account
of the arguments which procured their approbation of measures, which, so
far as they can be examined by those who have no opportunity of perusing
the nec