cts have been
produced by our armaments and expenses? For what end auxiliaries are
hired, and why our armies are transported into Flanders? I cannot but
suspect, my lords, that this affectation of ignorance is only intended
to irritate their opponents; that they suppress facts with which they
are well acquainted, only that they may have an opportunity of giving
vent to their passions, of displaying their imagination in artful
reproaches, and exercising their eloquence in splendid declamations. I
believe they hide what they know where to find, only to oblige others
to the labour of producing it; and ask questions, not because they
want or desire information, but because they hope to weary those whose
stations condemn them to the task of answering them.

The effects, my lords, which the assistance given by us to the queen
of Hungary have already produced, are the recovery of one kingdom, and
the safety of the rest; the exclusion of the Spaniards from Italy on
the one part, and on the other the confinement of them in it, without
either the supplies for war, or the necessaries of life.

These, my lords, are surely great advantages; but these are not the
greatest which we have reason to hope. Our vigour and resolution have
at last animated the Dutch to suspend for a time their attention to
trade and money, and to consider what they seldom much regard, the
state of other nations; the most rich and powerful of their provinces
have already determined to concur in the reestablishment of the house
of Austria; and if the approbation of the rest be necessary, it is
likely to be obtained by the same method of proceeding.

Thus, my lords, we have a prospect of doing that which the ministers
of queen Anne, whose fidelity, wisdom, and address, have been so often
and so invidiously commended, thought their greatest honour, and the
strongest proof of their abilities. We may soon form another
confederacy against the house of Bourbon, at a time when Louis the
fourteenth is not at its head, at a time when it is exhausted by
expensive projects; and when, therefore, it cannot make the same
resistance as when it was before attacked.

By pursuing the scheme which is now formed, with steadiness and
ardour, we may, perhaps, reinstate all those nations in their
liberties, whom cowardice, or negligence, or credulity have, during
the last century, delivered up to the ambition of France; we may
confine that swelling monarchy, which has from year