ntage of this resolution, by that low
senatorial craft, the previous question.

Then the CHANCELLOR spoke to the following purpose:--My lords, I am far
from suspecting that an open profession of my inability to examine the
question before us, in its full extent, will be imputed to an
affectation of modesty, since any knowledge of military affairs could
not be acquired in those stations in which I have been placed, or by
those studies, in which the greatest part of my life is known to have
been spent.

It will not be expected, my lords, that I should attempt a formal
confutation of the noble duke's positions, or that I should be able to
defend my own opinion against his knowledge and experience; nor would I,
my lords, expose myself to the censure of having harangued upon war in
the presence of Hannibal.

The noble duke has explained his sentiments to your lordships with the
utmost accuracy of method, and the most instructive perspicuity of
language; he has enforced them with a strength of reasoning rarely to be
found, and with an extent of knowledge peculiar to himself. Yet, my
lords, as his arguments, however powerful in themselves, do not strike
me with the same force with which others may be affected, who are more
capable of receiving them, I hope that your lordships will allow me to
mention such objections as occur to me, that in voting on this question
I may, at least, preserve my conscience from violation, and neither
adopt the opinion of another, however great, without examination, nor
obstinately reject the means of conviction.

Every lord who has spoken either in support of the noble duke's opinion,
or in opposition to it, has confessed that he is very little acquainted
with the subject of our debate; and it may not, therefore, be an
improper or useless attempt, if I endeavour by objections, however
injudicious, or by arguments, however inconclusive, to procure some
illustration of a question so important, and, at the same time, so
little understood.

The objections, my lords, which I shall produce, are such as I have
heard in conversation with those whose long acquaintance with military
employments give them a just claim to authority in all questions which
relate to the art of war; among whom I find no uniformity of opinion
with regard to the most proper method of augmenting our forces. And, my
lords, when we observe those to differ in their sentiments, whose
education, experience, and opportunities of kn