this administration that they might virtuously get hold of a force
ten times greater than the force of the Danish fleet? Was there no
other way of protecting Ireland but by bringing eternal shame upon
Great Britain, and by making the earth a den of robbers? See what
the men whom you have supplanted would have done. They would have
rendered the invasion of Ireland impossible, by restoring to the
Catholics their long-lost rights: they would have acted in such a
manner that the French would neither have wished for invasion nor
dared to attempt it: they would have increased the permanent
strength of the country while they preserved its reputation
unsullied. Nothing of this kind your friends have done, because
they are solemnly pledged to do nothing of this kind; because, to
tolerate all religions, and to equalise civil rights to all sects,
is to oppose some of the worst passions of our nature--to plunder
and to oppress is to gratify them all. They wanted the huzzas of
mobs, and they have for ever blasted the fame of England to obtain
them. Were the fleets of Holland, France, and Spain destroyed by
larceny? You resisted the power of 150 sail of the line by sheer
courage, and violated every principle of morals from the dread of
fifteen hulks, while the expedition itself cost you three times more
than the value of the larcenous matter brought away. The French
trample on the laws of God and man, not for old cordage, but for
kingdoms, and always take care to be well paid for their crimes. We
contrive, under the present administration, to unite moral with
intellectual deficiency, and to grow weaker and worse by the same
action. If they had any evidence of the intended hostility of the
Danes, why was it not produced? Why have the nations of Europe been
allowed to feel an indignation against this country beyond the reach
of all subsequent information? Are these times, do you imagine,
when we can trifle with a year of universal hatred, dally with the