not yet appear that the gentlemen who have engaged in this debate, have
sufficiently attended to the exigence of our affairs, and the importance
of the question. They have lavished their oratory in declaiming upon the
absurdity of the methods proposed, and discovered their sagacity, by
showing how future navies may be supplied from charity schools, but have
substituted no expedients in the place of those which they so warmly
condemn, nor have condescended to inform us, how we may now guard our
coasts, or man our fleets for immediate service.

There are some circumstances, sir, of the present war, which make our
necessity of raising sea forces greater than in those of William, and
Anne that succeeded him. The chief advantages that we gained over the
French, in their wars, were the consequences of our victories by land.

At sea, sir, the balance was almost equal, though the Dutch fleet and
ours were united; nor did they quit the sea because their fleets were
destroyed, but because they were obliged to recruit their land forces
with their sailors. Should they now declare war against us, they would
be under no such necessity of defrauding the sea service, for they have
now on foot an army of one hundred and sixty thousand men, which are
maintained at no greater expense than forty thousand, by the British
government; as they are, therefore, sir, so formidable by land, we have
no way of opposing them but by our sea forces.

Nor is their navy so contemptible as some have, either by conjecture or
misinformation, represented it. The fleet which they have despatched to
America, consists not of fewer than twenty ships, of which the least
carry sixty guns, and they are fitting out now an equal number in their
own ports; besides, their East India company is obliged to furnish ten
ships of the line, at the demand of the government.

Thus it appears that we have neighbours sufficiently powerful to alarm
us with the sense of immediate danger; danger which is made more
imminent by the expeditious methods by which the French man their
fleets, and which we must imitate if we hope to oppose them with
success.

I need not say how little we can depend upon any professions of
neutrality, which will be best observed when they cannot be securely
violated; or upon the pacifick inclination of their minister, which
interest, persuasion, or caprice, may alter, and to which it is not very
honourable to trust for safety. How can that nation sin