prescribe other measures to the ministers, than they should be
themselves inclined to pursue; our minister was resolved to show them,
by a master-stroke, that it was in his power to disappoint their
desires, by seeming to comply, and to destroy their commerce and their
happiness, by the very means by which they hoped to secure them.

For this purpose, sir, did this great man summon all his politicks
together, and call to council all his confidants and all his dependants;
and it was, at length, after mature deliberation, determined, by their
united wisdom, to put more ships into commission, to aggravate the
terrours of the impress by new violence and severity, to draw the
sailors by the promise of large rewards from the service of the
merchants, to collect a mighty fleet, and to despatch it on a _secret
expedition_.

A secret expedition, sir, is a new term of ministerial art, a term which
may have been, perhaps, formerly made use of by soldiers, for a design
to be executed without giving the enemy an opportunity of providing for
their defence; but is now used for a design with which the enemy is
better acquainted than those to whom the execution of it is committed. A
secret expedition is now an expedition of which every one knows the
design, but those at whose expense it is undertaken. It is a kind of
naval review, which excels those of the park in magnificence and
expense, but is equally useless, and equally ridiculous.

Upon these secret expeditions, however, were fixed for a long time the
expectations of the people; they saw all the appearances of preparation
for real war; they were informed, that the workmen in the docks were
retained by uncommon wages to do double duty; they saw the most specious
encouragement offered to the sailors; they saw naval stores accumulated