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have no need of allies to enable us to command jus-
tice; the story of
Jenkins will raise volunteers:’ such was the cry of
Pulteney, resolved to find fault at any rate, and to embarrass and overthrow the administration of
Walpole.
The clamor of orators was seconded by the greatest poets of that age:
Pope, in his dying notes sneered at the timidity which was willing to shun giving offence,
And own the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king;
and the early genius of
Johnson, in more energetic strains, indignant at the supporters of
Walpole, as men who explained away the rights of their country, and openly pleaded for pirates, vindicated the right of
England to the territory which
Oglethorpe had colonized:—
Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore?
No secret island in the boundless main?
No peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain?
At last, a convention was signed.
The mutual
claims for damages sustained in commerce were balanced and liquidated; and, while the king of
Spain demanded of the
South Sea company sixty-eight thousand pounds, as due to him for his share of their profits, he agreed to pay, as an indemnity to British merchants for losses sustained by unwarranted seizures, the sum of ninety-five thousand pounds. On these questions no dispute remained but the trivial one, whether the
British government should guaranty to
Spain the acknowledged debt of the
South Sea company.
The question with regard to the boundaries of
Florida was equally well settled; the actual possessions of each nation were to remain without change till commissioners Could mark the boundary.
In other words,
England
