obable that
they would have sent an army, in defenceless transports, into the jaws
of the British fleet? and it was well known that they had no ships of
war to protect them. It was not very agreeable to common policy to land
an army upon an island, an island wholly destitute of provisions for
their support, while an hostile navy was in possession of the sea, by
which the fortress which their troops were destined to besiege might be
daily supplied with necessaries, and the garrison augmented with new
forces, while their army would be itself besieged in a barren island,
without provisions, without recruits, without hope of succour, or
possibility of success.

But such was the solicitude of our admiral for the preservation of
Minorca, that he abandoned his station, and suffered the Spaniards to
join their confederates of France, and prosecute their voyage to America
without hinderance or pursuit.

In America they remained for some time masters of the sea, and confined
Vernon to the ports; but want of provisions obliging the French to
return, no invasion of our colonies was attempted, nor any of those
destructive measures pursued which we had reason to fear, and of which
our minister, notwithstanding his wonderful sagacity, could not have
foretold that they would have been defeated by an unexpected scarcity of
victuals.

The Spaniards, however, gained, by this expedient, time to repair their
fortifications, strengthen their garrisons, and dispose their forces in
the most advantageous manner; and therefore, though they were not
enabled to attack our dominions, had at least an opportunity of securing
their own.

At length, sir, lest it should be indisputably evident that our minister
was in confederacy with the Spaniards, it was determined, that their
American territories should be invaded; but care was taken to disappoint
the success of the expedition by employing new-raised troops, and
officers without experience, and to make it burdensome to the nation by
a double number of officers, of which no use could be discovered, but
that of increasing the influence, and multiplying the dependants of the
ministry.

It was not thought sufficient, sir, to favour the designs of the
Spaniards by the delay which the levy of new troops necessarily
produced, and to encourage them by the probability of an easy resistance
against raw forces; nor was the nation, in the opinion of the minister,
punished for its rebellion against him wit