INTRODUCTION, xxiii 



what terrible diftrefs, and almoft irremediable evil muft accrue 

 from a failure in the arrival of the fupplies from America^ by a 

 Itoppage of the galleons, which is liable to happen only in time 

 of war, the time when their prefence is moft abfolutely necelTary : 

 one cannot therefore fufficiently wonder at the folly of an enemy, 

 that long has, and ftill might have continued to have enjoyed much 

 advantage from a war between England and France; with the 

 former of which too Spain at all times carried on the moH 

 beneficial part of her commerce, and can entertain the lead 

 fufpicion of being injured by, if fhe rightly confidered, and w^as 

 not made the tool and dupe of French artifice, who has rafhiy 

 thrown up fuch a happy opportunity, to embroil herfelf in war 

 with a nation, only at prefent by far the moft potent of any in 

 in the univcrfe, and to fight the caufe of a people, difpirited, 

 beggared, and funk into the utmoft contempt. What can a 

 Britijh adminiftration, firm and true to its own, that is to fay, 

 the intereft of its country, fear from the jundion of fuch defpi- 

 cable foes^ the one in theprofecution of a war, unjuftly commenced 

 by them, contrary to common faith and folemn treaty, having loft 

 all her moft valuable pofTellions, like limbs fevered from the bleeding 

 body, and the other in the feeble, abject condition, above defcribed. 



The Spanijh monarchs having not been unappiized of the 

 great difadvantages their country laboured under, from being 

 thus deprived by foreigners of the immenfe treafures they draw 

 from their mines, for the better fecuring the commerce of their 

 American dominions to the inhabitants of Old Spain^ ftridly 



forbid 



