Providence, secured to this country the happiness of the constitution under which we now live, and many of whose descendants I have the honour of addressing.
During the latter part of King William, and the whole of the reign of Queen Anne, the Parliament was engaged in the African trade. In the proceedings of Parliament from 1707 to 1713, are records to support the trade. Your Lordships may recollect the long, the great, and glorious war, the war of succession, carried on in the reign of Queen Anne, and your Lordships may also have impressed on your minds, that the treaty of Utrecht was the consequence of that war. The Commissioners appointed by her Majesty for the peace, were the Earl of Strafford and the Bishop of Winchester. In their instructions, the Assiento Contract was one of the articles of peace; and I cannot suppose that a Right Reverend and Learned Prelate would have undertaken to go as a Commissioner with
