F792: political progres of Britain. tha: * 
*€ and expensive war, the rzght of Britilh thips to na- 
** vigate the American seas without being searched, 
* was NOT SO MUCH AS-MENTIONED*.” We never 
would have suffered a Spanifh fhip to navigate the 
seas of North America without Jeing searched ; 
that our right was founded on the most egregious 
insolence. Yet.in this war we at least had, and we 
had no more than the fhadow of an object. In the 
German war even that-was wanting. In the former, 
- Britain may be compared with a country gentleman, 
worth twenty thousand: pounds a-year, who has: 
been detected in attempting to. steal a horse worth 
twenty fhillings.—In the latter case, we resembled a 
person setting his house on fire, and then driving his 
wife and children over the windows. Four MILLIONS 
sterling per annum for a queen of Hungary! Were 
ever mortal ears invaded with such another sound !. 
We began this war. by bribing her.to fight her‘own. 
battles against the king of Prufsia; and, within ten. 
years, we gave the kingof Prufsia szm bundred and se-- 
venty thousand pounds per annum to fight his own battles 
against her-t+! If.this be not folly, what are we to- 
* Naval Memoirs, &c. yol.i. p. 392. 
+ Atthis day, what better is ourconduct? While our-agriculture, ma-- 
nufactures, and fifhezies are in want of hands, eighteen months have not 
pef.cdover since ve were on the point of fighting and dying for the privi-- 
Jege of killing whales at the Souto Pole, and wild cats at twice that dis- 
fauce. 
Even since that time we have also. interfered, like a terrier between... 
pwo mastiffs, in the quarrels of Turkey and Rufsia. When Britain was. » 
divided into two independent kingdoms, Berwick upon Tweed was..a fre- 
guent object of.contention ; and the Turk or the Muscovite of the four- 
teeath century, might, with equal reason, have interested himself in the. 
fue of Berwick, as Britons of the present.age in the fate of Oczakow...* 
