which the enemy might prepare, either at Dunkirk, or in the ports of West France; your majesty's example and readiness, in fitting out your proportion of ships for all parts of that service, have been so far from prevailing with the States General to keep pace with you, that they have been deficient every year to a great degree, in proportion to what your majesty has furnished; sometimes, no less than two-thirds, and generally, more than half of their quota: hence your majesty has been obliged, for the prevention of disappointments in the most pressing services, to supply those deficiencies by additional reinforcements of your own ships; nor has the single increase of such a charge been the only ill consequence that attended it; for, by this means the debt of the navy has been enhanced, so that the discounts arising upon the credit of it, have affected all other parts of the service, from the same cause. Your majesty's ships of war have been forced in greater numbers to continue in remote seas, and at unseasonable times of the year, to the great damage and decay of the British navy. This also has been the occasion that your majesty has been straitened in your convoys for trade; your coasts have been exposed, for want of a sufficient number of cruisers to guard them; and you have been disabled from annoying the enemy in their most beneficial commerce with the West Indies, from whence they received those vast supplies of treasure, without which they could not have supported the expenses of this war.
"That part of the war which has been carried
