ever again recurring to thofe antient principles of government, under which our commerce and our fame had been extended to every part of the globe, our interefts became connected with thofe of the remoteft nations, and we had risen to that extraordinary pitch of power, glory, and domeftic happiness, which alternately excited the admiration, and the envy of mankind.

From a general view of the fuppofed fyftem, they entered into a detail of its imputed effects on the executive and fubordinate parts of government. Thofe officers, they faid, civil and military, who were in great truft or in high command, particularly if their merit had placed them high in the opinion and confidence of their country, were the marked objects of its pernicious influence. Thus, while knowledge and integrity were profcribed in our councils, diftinguished valour and ability were equally profcribed in our fleets and armies.-Our great naval commanders were driven from the fervice; nor were atrocious and dangerous attempts left untried; the military commanders were no better treated; and in the moment of difficulty and danger, the ftate was rob. bed of its beft and fureft defence. Thus our fleets and armies were either languishing in difcontent, or torn to pieces by diffenfion; and the fpirit of enterprize funk under the benumbing conviction, that whatever honour or advantage might be atchieved by brave and hardy fervice abroad, muft inevitably perish under the fatal blafts of that malignant influence which prevailed at home.

As

The public measures and tranfactions of the current year at home and abroad, whether with refpect to the actual operations of war, the difpofition of our fleets and armies, or the adopted system of home defence, opened a wide field for animadverfion, which was occupied with no fmall degree of vigour by the oppofition. the alledged criminal neglect, and confequent fatal decline of our navy, had held a principal place in the general charge of paft mifconduct, fo the fuppofed exemplification of that unhappy decline and weakness, which, they faid, had been recently exhibited in the channel, afforded an opportunity for the most direct application of particular cenfure.

The powers of language feemed accordingly exhaufted, in the various expreffions of grief, fhame, indignation, and refentment, difplayed upon this fubject. They faid it was referved for the prefent inaufpicious and difgraceful æra, for the administration of those men who had fevered the empire, and who had plunged the English nation in all the guilt and calamity of a cruel and inextinguishable civil war, to brand this country with the indelible difgrace of the preceding fummer; to exhibit the unthought of and unheard of fpectacle, of a British fleet flying, in fight of their own coaft, before that of Bourbon. Thus, faid they, refigning all at once, that empire of the ocean, the incxhauftible fource of all our power and greatnefs; the prize of paft valour, and the reward of antient virtue; thus giving up, without a blow, even the dominion of the narrow feas, our hereditary, and

hitherto

hitherto undifputed patrimony; and thus, while all Europe was loft in aftonifhment, was that name, national character, and general opinion, which bear fo great a fway in the affairs of mankind, in a moment annihilated.

Without enquiring at prefent, they faid, into the caufes of that lamentable naval inferiority, through which our naked and aftonished coafts were abandoned to the outrage of the enemy, and the triumphant flag of the infulting foe fo long domineered on our native feas, it was fitting to afk minifters, what defence they could make, or what apology to the nation, for the unguarded and defenceless state, in which Plymouth, the second of our great naval arfenals, and the depofitary of a treafure, which no money, nor perhaps time, could replace, was, in that feafon of difgrace and danger, not only expofed to his infult, but to abfolute deftruction? The infufficiency of the fleet, they faid, afforded no cover of defence or excufe; as that great maritime key of the kingdom, was poffeffed of fufficient ftrength, to require nothing more than a proper garrifon, and the neceffary military provifion, for its effectual protection.

Another queftion, they faid, naturally arofe from the flightest view of the tranfactions of that fhameful period, to which it behoved thofe who affumed the conduct of our public affairs, to give a clear and fatisfactory answer.If minifters are not really chargeable with wilfully bringing on our late difgrace and danger, how can they pretend to account for not preventing the junction of the

7

French and Spanish fleet?-This, they faid, was a measure fully within their reach. They well know, that the Breft fleet was far more backward in point of preparation than the British; and it is a matter of public notoriety, that the latter loitered for a fortnight, without any object, at Torbay, or on the coaft, when its proceeding to fea would have prevented the junction, or what would have been ftill more important, might have afforded an opportunity of intercepting the French fleet; and that, under fuch cir cumftances of advantage, as muft have produced effects decifive of the fortune of the campaign, if not of the war.

The minifters, faid they, will not venture to tell us, that they were ignorant of the great fuperiority which the junction of the Bourbon fleets would produce. Their line of conduct was marked out by long established and repeated precedent. They know, or ought to know, that this measure of prudence had not only been conftantly adopted and ftrictly at tended to in all former wars with thofe powers united, but that in the contefts with France alone, the junction of her Mediterranean fleet with that of the Ocean, had been uniformly guarded against with the most unremitting care and induftry. Yet thefe precautions were used in the most flourishing fate of our navy; in those happy feasons of power and fortune, when fome inattention to the rules of prudence might feem not altogether inexcufable. But can, faid they, in the prefent ftate of things, any prefumed ftock of ignorance, any fuppofed portion of

negli.

The neglect of the inland of Jerfey, was no lefs an object of cenfure. Through the want, they faid, of two or three frigates, of that fmall marine force, which would have been fufficient to repel the defultory attempts, that were at that feafon to be expected from St. Maloes, Admiral Arbuthnot, in his laudable zeal for the relief or recovery of the illand, was obliged to abandon his convoy, and to defer his voyage to New York. By that means, a fleet of three hundred merchantmen and transports, were exposed to the dangers of the fea and the enemy in the open road of Torbay, the trade was detained a full month at home, and fuffered, at least, an equal delay on the voyage, to the immenfe lofs and expence of the merchants; and the reinforcements for Sir Henry Clinton, which, to answer any effectual purpose, fhould have been landed at New York before the time of their departure from England, did not arrive at the place of their deftination until the end of Auguft, when the feafon for action was nearly over, and the troops had fuffered fo much from the unufual length of their confinement on fhipboard, that they were incapable of any immediate fervice. Thus, faid they, were all the views and hopes of the campaign fruftrated in the outfet; and thus, year after year, is the blood and treasure of the nation confumed, and its ftrength exhaufted, in that fatal conteft; while the unequalled misconduct

all the exertions of valour and ability fruitless, and predeftinates the ill fuccefs that follows.

The

The difpofal, the amount, and the government of the military force kept within the kingdom, afforded a copious fubject of animadverfion and cenfure. This was ftated, including the militia, and the various corps of new raifed troops, as exceeding a hundred thoufand men actually in arms, Yet this vaft force, which, they faid, under former wife and happy adminiftrations, would have conveyed terror and destruction home to our enemies, and spread alarm and danger through their remoteft poffeffions, was kept fupine and idle at home. enormous and cumbersome machine, which was framed and fupported at fo immenfe an expence to the public, was kept inert without life or action, through the ignorance and incapacity of thofe who were intrufted with its movements.-Nothing, they faid, could more clearly point out, either the atrocious defigns, or the confummate folly of adminiftration. It was either intended that this prodigious force fhould act against the people, or it was unneceffary and had no object-they might chufe the alternative. we had no fleet, it was more than competent to internal defence; if we had a fleet, and could trust to it, we had no occafion for fo vaft a land force. A vaft fleet, and a vaft military force, were incompatible; if the ftrength of the nation was to be equally divided be tween the land and the naval fervices, neither fervice could be rendered effectual. Independent

If

of

of experience or precedent, our fituation pointed out the true policy.

But minifters boafted loudly of the wisdom of their conduct in this respect, and of the effential benefits which it had produced;we had escaped from danger-and they had fruftrated the defigns of the Utterly incapable, they faid, through a total want of ge nius and ability, of conducting the war upon an extenfive fcale, or of forming any bold and comprehenfive fcheme of action, they narrowed its objects to the measure of their own ideas, and reft their merits upon a mean and daftardly fyftem of local defence, confined merely to the feat of empire. Such has been the wretched application of all the joint power during the prefent year, of three hundred thoufand men in arms, of three hundred thips of war, and of twenty millions of pounds fterling. Yet it will be found, faid they, that their domeftic merits are upon the fame scale with their foreign; and that all their measures at home and abroad, are marked by the fame peculiar fatality. Although they facrificed every other object to the home defence, the meafures which they adopted for that pur. pofe were as thamefully defective, as thofe which they had purfued in the active operations of the war. Thus, with a force lying dormant within the kingdom, fufficient to have carried terror and hoftility in to the heart of the most powerful ftates, the difpofition of this great force, under the incapacity of its direction, was fo fuperlatively wretched, as to render it totally inadequate to its defign; our western coafts were in a manner abandoned to the enemy; we were

our

expofed in the moft tender and 'valuable parts to the moft imminent danger; Plymouth feemed doomed to inevitable deftruction; nor was the fecurity of Portsmouth much better established. So vaft an army, under fuch a guidance, could not afford protection to thofe invaluable repofitories of our naval ftrength; and we were expofed to a lofs, which no human means could have fupplied or remedied.

Minifters, they faid, might well boaft in the fpeech, of their new and only ally, Providence; whofe folly and mifcondu&t had rendered them fo univerfally contemptible or odious, as to be abandoned by all mankind; and who having interdicted all wisdom and ability from their counfels, had also, in the midft of a most ruinous and dangerous warfare, and finking under the preffure of a greatly fuperior combination of force, driven every commander by fea and land from their fervice, who was capa ble of giving efficacy to their military exertions. In fuch circumftances, with an inferior fleet, a defenceless coaft, a treafury exhaufted by folly and prodigality, with an adminiftration fupine, divided, and incapable, we must have fallen a prey to our combined enemies, if they had feized the critical opportunity of making the attack. But this miraculous interpofition of providence, in blinding the enemy at one feafon, and ftriking them with contagious diftemper at another, only went to our prefervation. Providence left the unparalleled difgrace, and the caufes of the danger, to be anfwered for by minifters.

Nor was the internal government of our military force lefs auimadverted