ed upon before; they are such as the act of settlement,
that act to which our sovereign owes his title to this throne, ought
for ever to have excluded from British councils.

I should proceed, my lords, to explain this new method of
impoverishing our country, and endeavour to show the principles from
which it arises, and the end which it must promote. But some sudden
indisposition obliges me to contract my plan, and conclude much sooner
than I intended, with moving, "that an humble address be presented to
his majesty, to beseech and advise his majesty, that considering the
excessive and grievous expenses, incurred by the great number of
foreign troops now in the pay of Great Britain, (expenses so increased
by the extraordinary manner, as we apprehend, of making the estimates
relating thereunto, and which do not appear to us conducive to the end
proposed,) his majesty will be graciously pleased, in compassion to
his people, loaded already with such numerous and heavy taxes, such
large and growing debts, and greater annual expenses than this nation,
at any time, ever before sustained, to exonerate his subjects of the
charge and burden of those mercenaries who were taken into our service
last year, without the advice or consent of parliament."

Lord SANDWICH spoke next in support of the motion to the following
effect:--My lords, though I heard the noble lord with so much
pleasure, that I could not but wish he had been able to deliver his
sentiments more fully upon this important affair; yet I think the
motion so reasonable and just, that though he might have set it yet
more beyond the danger of opposition, though he might have produced
many arguments in defence of it, which, perhaps, will not occur to any
other lords; yet I shall be able to justify it in such a manner, as
may secure the approbation of the unprejudiced and disinterested; and,
therefore, I rise up to second it with that confidence, which always
arises from a consciousness of honest intentions, and of an impartial
inquiry after truth.

The measures, my lords, which have given occasion to this motion, have
been for some time the subject of my reflections; I have endeavoured
to examine them in their full extent, to recollect the previous
occurrences by which the ministry might have been influenced to engage
in them, and to discover the certain and the probable consequences
which they may either immediately, or more remotely produce; I have
laboured to collec