OF THE LATE JOHN CLERK, ESQ. OF ELDIN. 121 



vered could have been attended with more important conse- 

 quences. The contest in which Britain was engaged with the 

 American colonies, so questionable in its principle, — so appro- 

 ved by the nation, — and so obstinately pursued by the Go- 

 vernment, had involved the country in the greatest difficul- 

 ties. A series of great and ill-directed efforts, if they had not 

 exhausted, had so far impaired, the strength and resources of 

 Britain, that neighbouring nations thought they had found a fa- 

 vourable opportunity for breaking the power, and humbling the 

 pride, of a formidable rival. The French Government, desi- 

 rous of accomplishing an object of which it had never lost 

 sight, and willing also to share in the glory of giving inde- 

 pendence to a new State, was yet ignorant of the lesson which 

 it was so soon to learn to its cost, — the danger which a despot 

 runs, who attempts to give that liberty to other nations which 

 he refuses to his own people. Spain also, which we see at this 

 moment exerting every nerve to continue the thraldrom of 

 her own colonies, joined eagerly in the scheme of giving inde- 

 pendence to those of England ; and by her detail of a hundred 

 grievances, sufficiently convinced the world, that her hostility 

 to Britain proceeded from a cause which she could not venture 

 to avow. — Against this formidable combination, which Hol- 

 land was preparing to join, Britain stood alone without an al- 

 ly ; and not merely alone, but divided in her counsels, with 

 more than half her force engaged in the operations of a de- 

 structive civil war, in which victory would have been more 

 ruinous than defeat. These were circumstances, which, in the 

 mind of every friend to his country, could not but excite 

 anxiety and alarm ; yet they were perhaps not the most threa- 

 tening that distinguished this perilous crisis. In the naval 

 rencounters which took place after France had joined herself 

 to America, the superiority of the British navy seemed almost 

 VOL. IX. p. i. q to 



