A war could now no longer be avoided, it was not in the power of the ministry any longer to refuse to send out our fleets, and make an appearance of hostile measures; but they had still some expedients remaining to shelter the Spaniards from our resentment, and to make their country yet more contemptible: they could contrive such orders for their admirals as should prevent them from destroying their enemies with too little mercy; and if any one was suspected of intentions less pacifick, there were methods of equipping his fleet in such a manner as would effectually frustrate his schemes of revenge, reprisals, and destruction.
These, my lords, are not the murmurs of the disappointed, nor the insinuations of the factious; it is well known to our countrymen and to our enemies, how ill admiral Vernon was furnished with naval and military stores, and how little his importunate demands of a supply were regarded. What opportunities were lost, and what advantages neglected, may be conjectured from the success of his inconsiderable force. A very little reflection on the situation and state of those countries will easily satisfy your lordships, how far a small body of land-forces might have penetrated, what treasures they might have gained, and what consternation they might have spread over the whole Spanish America.
That our squadrons in the Mediterranean have been, at least, useless, that they have sailed from point to point, and from one coast to another, only to display the bulk of our ships, and to show the opulence of our nation, can require no proof: I wish, my lords, there was less reason for suspecting that they acted in concert with our enemies, that they retired from before their ports only to give them an opportunity of escaping, and that they, in reality, connived at some attempts which they were, in appearance, sent to prevent.
There are some miscarriages in war, my lords, which every reasonable man imputes to chance, or to causes of which the influence could not be foreseen; there are others that may justly be termed the consequences of misconduct, but of misconduct involuntary and pardonable, of a disregard, perhaps, of some circumstances of an affair produced by too close an attention to others. But there are miscarriages, too, for which candour itself can find no excuses, and of which no other causes can be assigned than cowardice or treachery. From the suspicion of one, the past actions of the admiral who commands our fleet in those seas will secure him, but I know not whether there are now any that will attempt to clear the minister's character from the imputation of the other.
All the insolence of the Spaniards, a nation by no means formidable, is the consequence of the reunion of the houses of Bourbon; a reunion which could not easily have been accomplished, but by the instrumental offices of our ministry, whom, therefore, the nation has a right to charge with the diminution of its honour, and the decay of its trade.
Nor has our trade, my lords, been only contracted and obstructed by the piracies of Spain, but has been suffered to languish and decline at home, either by criminal negligence, or by their complaisance for France, which has given rise to our other calamities. The state of our woollen manufactures is well known, and those whose indolence or love of pleasure keeps them strangers to the other misfortunes of their country, must yet have been acquainted with this, by the daily accounts of riots and insurrections, raised by those who, having been employed in that manufacture, can provide for their families by no other business, and are made desperate by the want of bread.
We are told, my lords, by all parties, and told with truth, that our manufactures decline, because the French have engrossed most of the foreign markets; and it is not denied even by those whose interest it might be to' deny it, that the cloth which they ruin us by vending, is made of our own wool, which they are suffered to procure either by the folly of an unskilful, or the connivance of a treacherous administration.
If our own manufactures, my lords, had been carefully promoted, if the whole influence of our government had been made to cooperate with the industry of our traders, there had always been such a demand for our wool, that they could not have afforded to purchase it at a price equivalent to the danger of exporting it: and if any means were now steadily practised to prevent the exportation, our trade must consequently revive, because cloth is one of the necessaries of life which other nations must have from Britain, when France can no longer supply them.
But, my lords, notwithstanding the decay of trade, our expenses have never been contracted; we have squandered millions in idle preparations, and ostentatious folly; we have equipped fleets which never left the harbour, and raised armies which were never to behold any other enemy than the honest traders and husbandmen that support them. We have, indeed, heard many reasons alleged for oppressing the empire with standing troops, which can have little effect upon those who have no interest to promote by admitting them: sometimes we are in danger of invasions, though it is not easy to imagine for what purpose any prince should invade a nation, which he may plunder at pleasure, without the least apprehension of resentment, and which will resign any of its rights whenever they shall be demanded: sometimes, as we have already heard, the pretender is to be set upon the throne by a sudden descent of armies from the clouds; and sometimes the licentiousness and disobedience of the common people requires the restraint of a standing army.
That the people are, to the last degree, exasperated and inflamed, I am far from intending to deny, but surely they have yet been guilty of no outrage so enormous as to justify so severe a punishment; they have generally confined themselves to harmless complaints, or, at least, to executions in effigy. The people, my lords, are enraged because they are impoverished, and, to prevent the consequences of their anger, their poverty is increased by new burdens, and aggravated by the sight of an useless, despicable herd, supported by their industry, for no other purpose than to insult them.