1800. | 
two countries to be as 8Z to one, he finds 
by another operation cqually erroneous, 
that this expenditure is as 73 to one. 
Admitting, for a moment, the Ai/forical 
part of the affertion on which this pro- 
portion is founded, let us fee how well the 
arithmetical part of it agrees with the 
truth. If £.5,800,000 (the peace-elta- 
blifhment) be multiplied into 6 (or the 
vears of peace) and the product be added 
to £.27,000,000 (or one year’s war-efta- 
blifhment) we have £.61,800,000 for the 
whole money, which, onan average, has 
been expended by Great Britain in peace 
and war during the term of feven years. 
In like manner, £.1,012,000 multiplied 
into 6, and added to £.3,075,000 will give 
£-9,148,000, for the whole money ex- 
pended by Ireland during the fame period; 
and the ‘farther mean’” above-mentioned, 
will therefore, inftead of ‘* 7% to one,” 
be as 61,800,000 to 9,148,000, or as 
63 to one. 
Excepting, however, the unparalleled: 
profulion of the laft feven years, it is 
no more true, that the war-eftablifhment 
in this country amounted on an average to 
£.27,000,000, or even to £.15,000,000, 
than it is true, ‘‘ that the years of peace 
in the prefent century have been fx times 
more numerous than thofe of war.”’— 
‘Happy, indeed, would it have been for 
Great Britain, had her tranquillity been 
fo little difturbed! Had the ravages of 
war fpread defolation and ruin among~ her 
refources, during 14 years only of this 
century, the prodigality and extravagance 
in former times muft have equalled, -or 
even exceeded, that of the laft feven years, 
to have loaded her with her prefent bur- 
thens. But as the noble fecretary’s time 
is no doubt employed much more to the 
benefit of the public, than in ftudying 
arithmetic, or in reading the hiftory of his 
country, it is no wonder that he fhould 
be inaccurate in his information on thefe 
fubjeéts ; and, in conlequence, commit a 
few miftakes in attempting to combine 
. numbers and proportions with the events 
of a whole century. In order, however, 
to give fome idea of the degree in which 
he has erred in his ftatements and eOmpu- 
tations, it will be fufficient to obferve, 
that “in 1701, King William died, after 
“having formed an alliance onthe continent, 
/ which involved this country in a war with 
France in 1702, which was not concluded 
till the year 1712 ;—that, in confequence 
) of the quadruple alliance of George the Itt, 
a war broke out with Spainin 1726, which 
| ended in 1729; that a trifling difpute about 
gutting logwood in America induced King 




Obfervations on Lord Caftlereagh’s printed Speech. 
352 
George the IId, in 1739, to declare war 
againit Spain;-and in 1745, againft her 
ally, the kingdom of France; which ter- 
minated, without fettling the original dif 
pute, in the year 1748; that in 1755, we 
were engaged in another war, whichcom- 
menced (as Voltaire obferves) about a 
few acres of fnow in North America, but 
which extended itfelf over one.half the 
slobe, and was not concluded before the 
year 17625 thatthe refiftance of the Ame- 
rican colonies involved us in a war with 
them in 1775, with the French in 1778, 
with the Spaniards in 1779, and with the 
Dutch in 17803; which, having eftablifhed 
the independence of the American fates, 
was fucceeded by a general peace in 17343 
and that in 1793, we plunged into a war 
with France, the objeét of which remains 
hitherto undefined ; but which, after hav- 
ing been continued for {even years, prefents 
at this moment neither the hope nor the 
‘profpect of a termination.” 
Thefe different wars comptize a term 
of more than 40 years, exclufive of the 
Dutch armament in 1787, the Spanifh ar- 
mament in 1790,and the Ruffian armament 
in 1794. It appears therefore, that, inftead 
of being only ‘ one in fix,”’ the years of war 
have been nearly equal to thofe of peace. 
There is, indeed, but little to folace 
humanity in the retrofpect of our hiftory, 
from the commencement of the prefent 
century. ‘The fame difgufting {cenes of 
carnage and profufion are perpetually re- 
curring, and the breken intervals of peace 
feem to have no other effect, than te give 
greater {trength and energy to the repeti- 
tion of them. The millions of maney 
which have been {quandered, and the my- 
riads of lives which have been facrificed, 
when confidered in conjunétion with the 
objects of thofe wars, will afford a melan- 
choly proof to pofterity of the barbarifim 
of the prefent age. But I fee! no difpo- 
fition to enlarge on this fubjeét, more ef- 
pecially as it has already been fo well 
explained in an admirable work lately pub- 
lifhed, which does equal honour to the abi- 
lities and the principles of its author.—In 
his ‘* View of the caufes and confequences 
of Englith wars,’ Mr. Robinfiz has de- 
{cribed fo accurately, and at the fame time 
fo energetically, the true fources from 
which all thofe wars have originated, that 
it is impoffible to perufe the account with- 
out conviction, or to reflect upon it with- 
out execrating the avarice, the ambition, 
and the folly, which have entailed fo much 
diftrefs and mifery on this country. 
We have hitherto been led to believe, 
thar the expenditure and confequently the 
increafe 
