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a British army could have been raised and disciplined for its deliverance? Whether this account of our measures will satisfy those who have hitherto condemned them, I am not able to foretel. There are, indeed, some reasons for suspecting, that they blame not, because they disapprove, but because they think it necessary either to the character of discernment, or of probity, to censure the ministry, whatever maxims are pursued. Of this disposition it is no slight proof, that contrary measures have been sometimes condemned by the same men with the same vehemence; and that even compliance with their demands has not stilled their outcries. When the ministry appeared unwilling to engage in the war of Germany, without the concurrence of the other powers who had engaged to support the Pragmatick sanction, they were hourly reproached with being the slaves of France, with betraying the general cause of Europe, and with repressing that generous ardour, by which our ancestors have been incited to stand forth as the asserters of universal liberty, and to fight the quarrel of mankind. They were marked out as either cowards or traitors, and doomed to infamy as the accomplices of tyranny, engaged in a conspiracy against their allies, their country, and their posterity. At length the Britons have roused again, and again declared themselves the supporters of right, whenever injured; they have again raised their standards in the continent, and prepared to march again through those regions where their victories are yet celebrated, and their bravery yet reverenced. The hills of Germany will again sound with the shouts of that people who once marched to her deliverance through all the obstructions that art or power could form against them, and which broke through the pass of Schellembourg, to rout the armies that were ranged behind it. Now it might be expected, my lords, that, at least, those who were before dissatisfied, should declare their approbation; for surely where peace or neutrality is improper, there is nothing left but war. Yet experience shows us, that men resolved to blame will never want pretences for venting their malignity; and where nothing but malignity is the consequence of opposite measures, we must necessarily conclude, that there is a fixed resolution to blame, and that all vindications will be ineffectual. Some have, indeed, found out a middle course between censure and approbation, and declare, that they thi
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