ther danger which
gentlemen who contend for this measure do not consider: can they who
profess a distrust of all ministers, and particularly those who are
now employed at home; they who have ever argued against all votes of
credit, upon this principle, that it affords an opportunity to
ministers of defrauding the service, and of putting large sums into
the purse of the crown, or into their private pockets; can they now
argue for this measure, which I may be bold to say, would be in effect
the most enormous vote of credit that was ever given in the world?
Gentlemen insinuate, that the taking the Hanoverian forces into
British pay, is a criminal complaisance, calculated only to confirm an
infant and a tottering administration. But how much greater means for
such a purpose, would an alternative like this afford? Suppose a
minister, unfirm in his new-acquired power, to ingratiate himself with
his prince, should propose a scheme to replenish the coffers of an
exhausted civil list, squandered in such vile purposes, that no man
could have the hardiness to come to parliament, or dare to hope a
supply for it by any regular application to this house? What method
could be devised by such a minister himself, to do the job more
excellent than this? For who can doubt that (guard it how you will)
the queen of Hungary might be induced, in the condition in which she
now stands, to accept a million, and to give a receipt in full for the
whole sum? How could you prevent an understanding of this kind between
two courts? and how easy, therefore, might it be to sink 500,000 _l_.
out of so vast a grant? Sir, I will suspect no minister, but I will
trust none in this degree; and I wonder other gentlemen do not
suspect, if I do not. From hence, therefore, I consider this as a
proposition both fallacious and unsafe; for though it be a fact, that
the same sum of money might maintain in Austria double the number of
troops; yet, if no more than half that money should be applied (as I
have shown great reason to believe that it would not) to the uses of
the war, it is evident that you would deceive yourselves, and would
have but an equal number of raw, irregular, undisciplined, and much
worse troops for it.

But, sir, there is yet a stronger argument against the supply in money
only. What are our views in supporting the queen of Hungary? Our views
are _general_ and _particular_; _general_, to save the house of
Austria, and to preserve a balance of po