of a nature and degree never heard of by us or our ancestors; the bulk of the gentry and people heartily tired of the war, and glad of a peace, although it brought no other advantage but it

- felf; no fudden prospect of leffening our taxes, which were grown as neceffary to pay our debts as to raife armies; a fort of artificial wealth of funds and stocks in the hands of those who, for ten years before, had been plundering the public; many corruptions, in every branch of our government, that needed reformation. Under these difficulties, from which twenty years peace, and the wifest management, could hardly recover us, we declared war against France, fortified by the acceffion and alliance of those powers I mentioned before, and which, in the former war, had been parties in our confederacy. It is very obvious, what a change must be made in the balance, by fuch weights taken out of our fcale, and put into theirs; since it was manifest, by ten years experience, that France, without those additions of strength, was able to maintain itself against us. So that human probability ran, with mighty odds, on the other fide; and, in this cafe, nothing under the most extreme necessity, should force any state to engage in a war. We had already acknowledged Philip for king of Spain; neither does the Queen's declaration of war take notice of the duke of Anjou's succession to that monarchy, as a subject of quarrel, but the French King's governing it as if it were his own; his feizing Cadiz, Milan, and the Spanish Low

VOL. II.

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Countries, Countries, with the indignity of proclaiming the pretender. In all which, we charge that prince with nothing directly relating to us, excepting the laft: and this, although, indeed, a great affront, might easily have been redreffed, without a war; for the French court declared, they did not acknowledge the pretender, but only gave him the title of king, which was allowed to Augustus by his enemy of Sweden, who had driven him out of Poland, and forced him to acknowledge Stanislaus.

It is true, indeed, the danger of the Dutch, by fo ill a neighbourhood in Flanders, might affect us very much, in the consequences of it; and the lofs of Spain to the house of Austria, if it should be governed by French influence, and French politics, might, in time, be very pernicious to our trade. It would, therefore, have been prudent, as well as generous and charitable, to help our neighbour; and so we might have done, without injuring ourselves; for, by an old treaty with Holland, we were bound to assist that republic with ten thousand men, whenever they were attacked by the French; whose troops, upon the king of Spain's death, taking poffeffion of of Flanders, in right of Philip, and fecuring the Dutch garrifons till they would acknowledge him, the States-General, by memorials from their envoy here, demanded only the ten thousand men we were obliged to give them, by virtue of that treaty.. And I make no doubt, but the Dutch would have exerted themselves so vigoroufly, as to be able, with that assistance alone,

Ione, to defend their frontiers; or, if they had been forced to a peace, the Spaniards, who abhor dismembering their monarchy, would never have fuffered the French to possess themselves of Flanders. At that time, they had none of those endearments to each other, which this war hath created; and, whatever hatred and jealousy were natural between the two nations, would then have appeared. So that there was no fort of neceffity for us to proceed further, although we had been in a better condition. But, our politicians, at that time, had other views; and a new war must be undertaken, upon the advice of those, who, with their partisans and adherents, were to be the sole gainers by it. A grand alliance was therefore made between the Emperor, England, and the States-General; by which, if the injuries complained of from France, were not remedied in two months, the parties concerned were obliged mutually to assist each other with their own strength.

Thus we became parties in a war, in conjunction with two allies, whose share in the quarrel was beyond all proportion greater than ours. However, I can fee no reason from the words of the grand alliance, by which we were obliged to make those prodigious expences we have fince been at. By what I have always heard and read, I take the whole ftrength of a nation, as understood in that treaty, to be, the utmost that a prince can raise annually from his subjects. If he be forced to mortgage and borrow, whether at home

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home or abroad, it is not, properly speaking, his own trength, or that of the nation, but the entire fubftance of particular perfons; which, not being able to raise out of the annual income of his kingdom, he takes upon security, and can only pay the interest. And, by this method, one part of the nation is pawned to the other, with hardly a poffibility left of being ever redeemed.

Surely, it would have been enough for us to have fufpended the payment of our debts contracted in the former war, and to have continued our land and malt tax, with those others, which have fince been mortgaged: these, with fome additions, would have made up fuch a fum, as, with prudent management, might, I fuppofe, have maintained an hundred thousand men by fea and land; a reasonable quota, in all confcience, for that ally, who apprehended leaft danger, and expected least advantage. Nor can we imagine, that either of the confederates, when the war began, would have been fo unreasonable, as to refuse joining with us upon fuch a foot, and expect that we should every year go betwen three or four millions in debt (which hath been our cafe) because the French could hardly have contrived any offers of a peace fo ruinous to us as fuch a war. Pofterity will be at a loss to conceive, what kind of fpirit could poffess their ancestors, who, after ten years suffering by the unexampled politics of a nation maintaining war by annually pawning itself; and during a short peace, while they were looking back with horror on the heavy loads of debts they had contracted; univerfally condemning those pernicious counsels which had occafioned them; racking their invention for fome remedies or expedients to mend their shattered condition; I say, that these very people, without giving themselves time to breathe, should again enter into a more dangerous, chargeable, and expensive war, for the fame, or perhaps a greater period of time, and without any apparent neceffity. It is obvious in a private fortune, that whoever annually runs out, and continues the fame expences, must every year mortgage a greater quantity of land than he did before; and as the debt doubles and trebles upon him, so doth his inability to pay it. By the same proportion, we have suffered twice as much by this last ten years war, as we did by the former; and if it were possible to continue it five years longer, at the same rate, it would be as great a burthen as the whole twenty. This computation being so easy and trivial, that it is almost a shame to mention it, pofterity will think, that those who first advised the war, wanted either the sense or the honesty to confider it.

And as we have wasted our strength and vital substance in this profuse manner, fo we have shamefully misapplied it to ends at least very different from those, for which we undertook the war, and often to effect others, which, after a peace, we may feverely repent. This is the second article I proposed to examine.

We have now, for ten years together, turned the whole force and expence of the war where