At length, sir, the nation was too much inflamed to be any longer amused
with idle negotiations, or trifling expedients; the streets echoed with
the clamours of the populace, and this house was crowded with petitions
from the merchants. The honourable person, with all his art, found
himself unable any longer to elude a determination of this affair. Those
whom he had hitherto persuaded that he had failed merely for want of
abilities, began now to suspect that he had no desire of better success;
and those who had hitherto cheerfully merited their pensions by an
unshaken adherence to all his measures, who had extolled his wisdom and
his integrity with all the confidence of security, began now to be
shaken by the universality of the censures which the open support of
perfidy brought upon them. They were afraid any longer to assert what
they neither believed themselves, nor could persuade others to admit.
The most indolent were alarmed, the most obstinate convinced, and the
most profligate ashamed.
What could now be done, sir, to gain a few months, to secure a short
interval of quiet, in which his agents might be employed to disseminate
some new falsehood, bribe to his party some new vindicators, or lull the
people with the opiate of another expedient, with an account of
concessions from the court of Spain, or a congress to compute the
losses, and adjust the claims of our merchants?
Something was necessarily to be attempted, and orders were therefore
despatched by our minister, to his slave at the court of Spain, to
procure some stipulations that might have at least the appearance of a
step towards the conclusion of the debate.
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