Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs
and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity
of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of
Manilla.
The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour
bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be
remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham
remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the
adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to
understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge.
Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes
wrong, he was often right. [29]
Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more
reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been
sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance
was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and
destruction.
Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very
properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which
provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why
should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an
East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a
sum sufficient to satisfy our demands.
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