decision is, indeed, by no means necessary in
the present debate; since if we are too weak to struggle with Spain,
unassisted as she is, and embarrassed with different views, I need not
say what will be our condition, when the whole house of Bourbon shall
be combined against us; when that nation which stood alone for so many
years against the united efforts of Europe, shall attack us, exhausted
with taxes, enervated with corruption, and disunited from all allies.
Whether the troops of Hanover will assist us at that time, I cannot
determine. Perhaps, in the destruction of the British dominions, it
may be thought expedient to secure a more valuable and important
country by a timely neutrality; but if we have any auxiliaries from
thence, we must then necessarily obtain them upon cheaper terms.

If our inactivity in the European seas, and our ill success in those
of America be, as it is generally suspected, the consequence of
perfidious counsels, and private machinations; if our fleets are sent
out with orders to make no attempt against our enemies, or our
admirals commanded to retreat before them; surely no higher degree of
madness can be imagined, than that of provoking new enemies before we
have experienced a change of counsels, and found reason to place in
our ministers and statesmen that confidence which war absolutely
requires.

This is the conduct, my lords, which I should think most rational,
even though we were attacked in some of our real rights, and though
the quarrel about which we were debating was our own; I should think
the nearest danger the greatest, and should advise patience under
foreign insults, till we had redressed our domestick grievances; till
we had driven treachery from the court, and corruption from the
senate. But much more proper do I think this conduct, when we are
invited only to engage in distant war, in a dispute about the dominion
of princes, in the bowels of the continent; of princes, of whom it is
not certain, that we shall receive either advantage or security from
their greatness, or that we should suffer any loss or injury by their
fall.

But, my lords, I know it will be answered, that the queen of Hungary
has a right by treaty to our assistance; and that in becoming
guarantees of the Pragmatick sanction, we engaged to support her in
the dominions of her ancestors. This, my lords, is an answer of which
I do not deny the justness, and of which I will not attempt to
invalidate the s