n the distant branches of their empire the government
languishes, as the vital motion in an expiring body; and the struggles
which they now make, may be termed rather agonies than efforts.

From Spain, therefore, unassisted, we have nothing to apprehend, and yet
from thence we have been threatened with insults and invasions.

That the condition of the French is far different, cannot be denied;
their commerce flourishes, their dominions are connected, their wealth
increases, and their government operates with full vigour: their
influence is great, and their name formidable. But I cannot allow, sir,
that they have yet attained such a height of power as should alarm us
with constant apprehensions, or that we ought to secure ourselves
against them by the violation of our liberties. Not to urge that the
loss of freedom, and the destruction of our constitution, are the worst
consequences that can be apprehended from a conquest, and that to a
slave the change of his master is of no great importance, it is evident,
that the power of the French is of such kind as can only affect us
remotely, and consequentially. They may fill the continent with alarms,
and ravage the territories of Germany, by their numerous armies, but can
only injure us by means of their fleets. We may wait, sir, without a
panick terrour, though not without some degree of anxiety, the event of
their attempts upon the neighbouring princes, and cannot be reduced to
fight for our altars and our houses, but by a second armada, which, even
then, the winds must favour, and a thousand circumstances concur to
expedite.

But that no such fleet can be fitted out by the united endeavours of the
whole world; that our navy, in its present state, is superiour to any
that can be brought against us, our ministers ought not to be ignorant:
and, therefore, to dispirit the nation with apprehensions of armies
hovering in the air, and of conquerors to be wafted over by supernatural
means, is to destroy that happiness which government was ordained to
preserve; to sink us to tameness and cowardice; and to betray us to
insults and to robberies.

If our danger, sir, be such as has been represented, to whom must we
impute it? Upon whom are our weakness, our poverty, and our miseries to
be charged? Upon whom, but those who have usurped the direction of
affairs which they did not understand, or to which their solicitude for
the preservation of their own power hindered them from attend