long reflection to prove that it is proper, when the nation is oppressed
with calamities, to inquire by what misconduct they were brought upon
it; when immense sums have been raised by the most oppressive methods of
exaction, to ask why they were demanded, and how they were expended;
when penal laws have been partially executed, to examine by what
authority they were suspended, and by what they were enforced; and when
the senate has for twenty years implicitly obeyed the direction of one
man, when it has been known throughout the nation, before any question
was proposed, how it would be decided, to search out the motive of that
regular compliance, and to examine whether the minister was reverenced
for his wisdom and virtue, or feared for his power, or courted for the
publick money; whether he owed his prevalence to the confidence or
corruption of his followers?

It cannot surely be thought inexpedient, to inquire into the reasons for
which our merchants were for many years suffered to be plundered, or for
which a war, solicited by the general voice of the whole nation, was
delayed; into the reasons for which our fleets were fitted out only to
coast upon the ocean, and connive at the departure of squadrons and the
transportation of armies, to suffer our allies to be invaded, and our
traders ruined and enslaved.

It is, in my opinion, convenient to examine with the utmost rigour, why
time was granted to our enemies to fortify themselves against us, while
a standing army preyed upon our people? Why forces unacquainted with the
use of arms were sent against them, under the command of leaders equally
ignorant? And why we have suffered their privateers in the mean time to
rove at large over the ocean, and insult us upon our own coasts? Why we
did not rescue our sailors from captivity, when opportunities of
exchange were in our power? And why we robbed our merchants of their