insisted on their former claims, but prosecuted them with the utmost
rigour, insolence, and cruelty.

It must, indeed, sir, be urged in favour of our minister, that he did
not refuse any act of submission, or omit any method of supplication by
which he might hope to soften the Spaniards; he solicited their favour
at their own court, he sent commissaries into their country, he assisted
them in taking possession of dominions, to which neither we nor they
have proved a right; and he employed the navies of Britain to transport
into Italy the prince on whom the new-erected kingdom was to be
conferred.

Well might he expect that the Spaniards would be softened by so much
kindness and forbearance, and that gratitude would at length induce them
to spare those whom no injuries or contempt had been able to alienate
from them, and to allow those a free course through the seas of America,
to whom they had been indebted for an uninterrupted passage to the
possession of a kingdom.

He might likewise urge, sir, that when he was obliged to make war upon
them, he was so tender of their interest, that the British admiral was
sent out with orders rather to destroy his own fleet than the galleons,
which, in appearance, he was sent to take, and to perish by the
inclemency of the climate, rather than enter the Spanish ports, terrify
their colonies, or plunder their towns.

But to little purpose, sir, did our minister implore the compassion of
the Spaniards, and represent the benefits by which we might claim it;
for his compliance was by the subtle Spaniards attributed, not to
kindness, but to fear; and it was therefore determined to reduce him to