this nation; a term of art to which such uncommon efficacy has been
hitherto annexed, that the people have been influenced by it to pay
taxes, without expecting to be informed how they were applied, having
been content with being told, when they inquired after their properties,
that they were exhausted and dissipated in secret service.

Secret service I conceive to have originally implied transactions, of
which the agents were secret, though the effects were visible. When
MARLBOROUGH defeated the French, when he counteracted all their
stratagems, obviated all their designs, and deceived all their
expectations, he charged the nation with large sums for secret service,
which were, indeed, cheerfully allowed, because the importance and
reality of the service were apparent from its effects. But what
advantages can our ministers boast of having obtained in twenty years by
the means of their intelligence? Or by whom have they, within that
period, not been deceived by false appearances? When we purchase secret
service at so dear a rate, let it appear that we really obtain what we
pay for, though the means by which it is obtained are kept impenetrably
secret. Wherever the usefulness of the intelligence is not discoverable,
it is surely just to inquire, whether our money is not demanded for
other purposes, whether we are not in reality hiring with our own money
armies to enslave, or senators to betray us; or enriching an avaricious
minister, while we imagine ourselves contributing to the publick
security?

Colonel CHOLMONDELEY replied to the following effect:--Sir, it has been
in all foregoing ages the custom for men to speak of the government with
reverence, even when they opposed its measures, or projected its
dissolution; nor has it been thought, in any time before our own, decent
or senatorial, to give way to satire or invective, or indulge a petulant