Pitt complained that we lay inactive, while the French pushed on their conquests. - William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

...the day is come when the very inadequate benefits of the treaty of Utrecht, the indelible reproach of the last generation, are become the necessary, but almost unattainable wish of the present, when the empire is no more, the ports of the Netherlands betrayed, the Dutch Barrier treaty an empty sound, Minorca, and with it, the Mediterranean lost, and America itself precarious.

Reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations.

I rejoice to hear that you have begun Homer's Iliad; and have made so great a progress in Virgil. I hope you taste and love those authors particularly. You cannot read them too much: they are not only the two greatest poets, but they contain the finest lessons for your age to imbibe: lessons of honour, courage, disinterestedness, love of truth, command of temper, gentleness of behaviour, humanity, and in one word, virtue in its true significance.