Allies imagined that they had a right to obtain at least everything
which had been demanded for them respectively, and it was visible
that nothing less would content them. These considerations set the
vastness of the undertaking in a sufficient light.

The importance of succeeding in the work of the peace was equally
great to Europe, to our country, to our party, to our persons, to
the present age, and to future generations. But I need not take
pains to prove what no man will deny. The means employed to bring
it about were in no degree proportionable. A few men, some of whom
had never been concerned in business of this kind before, and most
of whom put their hands for a long time to it faintly and
timorously, were the instruments of it. The Minister who was at
their head showed himself every day incapable of that attention,
that method, that comprehension of different matters, which the
first post in such a Government as ours requires in quiet times. He
was the first spring of all our motion by his credit with the Queen,
and his concurrence was necessary to everything we did by his rank
in the State, and yet this man seemed to be sometimes asleep and
sometimes at play. He neglected the thread of business, which was
carried on for this reason with less dispatch and less advantage in
the proper channels, and he kept none in his own hands. He
negotiated, indeed, by fits and starts, by little tools and indirect
ways, and thus his activity became as hurtful as his indolence, of
which I could produce some remarkable instances. No good effect
could flow from such a conduct. In a word, when this great affair
was once engaged, the zeal of particular men in their several
provinces drove it forward, though they were not backed by the
concurrent force of the whole Administration, nor had the common
helps of advice till it was too late, till the very end of the