usly neglected, or ignorantly omitted, the
accounts of every day have long informed us. Not a week passes in which
our ships are not seized, and our sailors carried into a state of
slavery. Nor does this happen only on the wide ocean, which is too
spacious to be garrisoned, or upon our enemies' coasts, where they may
have, sometimes, insuperable advantages, but on our own shores, within
sight of our harbours, and in those seas of which we vainly style our
nation the sovereign.

Who is there, my lords, whose indignation is not raised at such
ignominy? Who is there by whom such negligence will not be resented? It
cannot be alleged that we had not time to make better preparations; we
had expected war long before we declared it, and if the minister was the
only man by whom it was not expected, it will make another head of
accusation.

Nor was his disregard of our dominions less flagrant than that of our
trade: it was publickly declared by don Geraldino, that his master would
never give up his claim to part of our American colonies, which yet were
neither fortified on the frontiers, nor supplied with arms, nor enabled
to oppose an enemy, nor protected against him.

One man there is, my lords, whose natural generosity, contempt of
danger, and regard for the publick, prompted him to obviate the designs
of the Spaniards, and to attack them in their own territories; a man,
whom by long acquaintance I can confidently affirm to have been equal to
his undertaking, and to have learned the art of war by a regular
education, who yet miscarried in his design, only for want of supplies
necessary to a possibility of success.

Nor is there, my lords, much probability that the forces sent lately to
Vernon will be more successful; for this is not a war to be carried on
by boys: the state of the enemy's dominions is such, partly by
situation, and partly by the neglect of that man whose conduct we are
examining, that to attack them with any prospect of advantage, will
require the judgment of an experienced commander; of one who had learned
his trade, not in Hyde-park, but in the field of battle; of one that has
been accustomed to sudden exigencies and unsuspected difficulties, and
has learned cautiously to form, and readily to vary his schemes.

An officer, my lords, an officer qualified to invade kingdoms is not
formed by blustering in his quarters, by drinking on birth-nights, or
dancing at assemblies; nor even by the more important se