een achieved, have been the effects of resolution,
diligence, and daring activity, virtues wholly opposite to the
calmness of moderation. I need not observe, that the advantages
enjoyed at present by the French are the consequences of that vigour
and expedition, by which they are distinguished, and which the form of
their government enables them to exert. Had they, my lords, instead of
pouring armies into the Austrian dominions, and procuring, by the
terrour of their troops, the election of an emperour, pursued these
measures of moderation which have been so pathetically recommended,
how easily had their designs been defeated?

Had they lost time in persuading the queen of Hungary by a solemn
embassy to resign her dominions, or attempted to influence the diet by
amicable negotiations, armies had been levied, and the passes of
Germany had been shut against them; they had been opposed on the
frontiers of their own dominions, by troops equally numerous and
warlike with their own, and instead of imposing a sovereign on the
empire, had been, perhaps, pursued into their own country.

But, my lords, whether moderation was not recommended to them by such
powerful oratory as your lordships have heard, or whether its
advocates met with an audience not easily to be convinced, it is plain
that they seem to have acted upon very different principles, and I
wish their policy had not been so strongly justified by its success.
By sending an army into Germany, my lords, when there were no forces
ready to oppose them, they reduced all the petty princes to immediate
submission, and obliged those to welcome them as friends, who would
gladly have united against them as the inveterate enemies of the whole
German body; and who, had they been firmly joined by their neighbours,
under a general sense of their common danger, would have easily raised
an army able to have repelled them.

This, my lords, was the effect of vigour, an effect very different
from that which we had an opportunity of experiencing as the
consequence of moderation; it was to no purpose that we endeavoured to
alarm mankind by remonstrances, and to procure assistance by
entreaties and solicitations; the universal panick was not to be
removed by advice and exhortations, and the queen of Hungary must have
sunk under the weight of a general combination against her, had we not
at last risen up in her defence, and with our swords in our hands, set
an example to the nations of Eu