ten thousand persons, different in their ages, their conditions, and
religious opinions, in every thing that produces contrariety of
dispositions and affections, he will yet find them unanimous in
complaining of publick misconduct, and in censuring one gentleman as the
author of it.

Let us not imagine, my lords, that these accusations and murmurs are
confined to the lowest class of the people, to men whose constant
attention to more immediate distresses, hinder them from making
excursions beyond their own employments. For though, perhaps, it might
be made evident from the accounts of past times, that no general
dissatisfaction, even among men of this rank, was ever groundless;
though it might be urged that those who see little can only clamour,
because they feel themselves oppressed; and though it might not
unseasonably be hinted that they are at least formidable for their
numbers, and have, sometimes, executed that justice which they had not
interest to procure, and trampled upon that insolence that has dared to
defy them; yet I shall not insist upon such motives, because it is
notorious that discontent is epidemical in all ranks, and that condition
and observation are far from appeasing it.

Whether the discontent, thus general, is groundless, whether it is
raised only by the false insinuations of the disappointed, and the
wicked arts of the envious, whether it is, in exception to all the
maxims of government, the first dislike of an administration that ever
overspread a nation without just reasons, deserves to be inquired into.

In this inquiry, my lords, it will be necessary to consider not only the
state of domestick affairs, increase or diminution of our debts, the
security or violation of our liberties, the freedom or dependence of our
senates, and the prosperity or declension of our trade, but to examine
the state of this nation, with regard to foreign powers; to inquire,
whether we are equally feared and equally trusted now as in former
administrations; whether our alliances have contributed to secure us
from our inveterate and habitual enemies, or to expose us to them;
whether the balance of Europe be still in our hands; and whether, during
this long interval of peace, our power has increased in the same
proportion with that of our neighbours. France, my lords, is the
constant and hereditary enemy of Britons, so much divided from her in
religion, government, and interest, that they cannot both be prosperous