ich she was once enabled to threaten
slavery to all the neighbouring nations, and incited to begin, with
the subjection of this island, her mighty scheme of universal
monarchy, and by which she has still continued to exalt herself to an
equality with the most powerful nations, to erect new kingdoms, and
set at defiance the Austrian power.

These supplies, my lords, are now, if not wholly, yet in a great
measure, withheld; and by all the efforts which the Spaniards now
make, they are exhausting their vitals, and wasting the natural
strength of their native country. While they made war with
adventitious treasures, and only squandered one year what another
would repay them, it was not easy to foresee how long their pride
would incline them to hold out against superiour strength. While they
were only engaged in a naval war, they might have persisted for a long
time in a kind of passive obstinacy; and while they were engaged in no
foreign enterprises, might have supported that trade with each other
which is necessary for the support of life, upon the credit of those
treasures which are annually heaped up in their storehouses, though
they are not received; and by which, upon the termination of the war,
all their debts might at once be paid, and all their funds be
reestablished.

But at present, my lords, their condition is far different; they have
been tempted by the prospect of enlarging their dominions to raise
armies for distant expeditions, which must be supported in a foreign
country, and can be supported only by regular remittances of treasure,
and have formed these projects at a time when the means of pursuing
them are cut off. They have by one war increased their expenses, when
their receipts are obstructed by another.

In this state, my lords, I am certain the Spaniards are very far from
thinking the hostility of Britain merely nominal, and from inquiring
in what part of the world their enemies are to be found. The troops in
Italy see them sailing in triumph over the Mediterranean, intercepting
their provisions, and prohibiting those succours which they expected
from their confederate of Sicily. In Spain their taxes and their
poverty, poverty which every day increases, inform them that the seas
of America are possessed by the fleets of Britain, by whom their mines
are made useless, and their wealthy dominions reduced to an empty
sound. They may, indeed, comfort themselves in their distresses with
the advantages w