ught to incite distant nations to
espouse her quarrel, to raise armies in her favour, to consider her
cause as that of human nature, and to prosecute those that invade her
territories, as the enemies of general society.

The Pragmatick sanction, my lords, by which she claims all the
hereditary dominions of her family, cannot change the nature of right
and wrong, nor invalidate any claim before subsisting, unless by the
consent of the prince by whom it was made. The elector of Bavaria may,
therefore, urge in his own defence, that by the elder sister he has a
clear and indisputable right, a right from which he never receded, as
he never concurred in the Pragmatiok sanction; he may, therefore,
charge this illustrious princess, for whom so many troops are raised,
and for whom so much blood is about to be shed, with usurpation, with
detention of the dominions of other potentates, and with an obstinate
assertion of a false title.

That the Pragmatick sanction is generally understood to be unjust,
appears sufficiently from the conduct of those powers who, though
engaged by solemn stipulations to support it, yet look unconcerned on
the violation of it, and appear convinced, that the princes who are
now dividing among themselves the Austrian dominions, produce claims
which cannot be opposed without a manifest disregard of justice.

The pretensions of these princes ought, indeed, to have been more
attentively considered, when this guaranty was first demanded; for it
is evident, that either no such compact ought to have been made, or
that it ought now to be observed; and that those who now justify the
neglect of it, by urging its injustice, ought to have refused
accession to it for the same reason. But it is probable, that they
will urge in their defence, what cannot easily be confuted, that their
consent was obtained by misrepresentations; and that he who has
promised to do any thing on the supposition that it is right, is not
bound by that promise, when he has discovered it to be wrong.

But though justice may, my lords, be pretended, I am far from doubting
that policy has, in reality, supplied the motives upon which these
powers proceed. Since the world is evidently governed more by interest
than virtue, I think it not unreasonable to imagine, that they form
their measures according to their own expectations of advantage; and
as I do not believe our countrymen distinguished from the rest of
mankind by any peculiar disregard