rope, of courage and generosity.

It then quickly appeared, my lords, how little is to be expected from
cold persuasion, and how necessary it is, that he who would engage
others in a task of difficulty, should show himself willing to partake
the labour which he recommends. No sooner had we declared our
resolution to fulfil our stipulations, and ordered our troops to march
for the relief of the queen of Hungary, than other princes discovered
that they had the same dispositions, though they had hitherto thought
it prudent to conceal them; that they, equally with ourselves, hated
and feared the French; that they were desirous to repress their
insolence and oppose their conquests, and only waited for the motions
of some power who might stand at the head of the confederacy, and lead
them forwards against the common enemy. The liberal promises of
dominion made by the French, by which the sovereigns of Germany had
been tempted to concur in a design which they thought themselves
unable to oppose, were now no longer regarded; they were considered
only as the boasts of imaginary greatness, which would at last vanish
into air; and every one knew, that the ultimate design of Europe was
to oppress equally her enemies and friends; they wisely despised her
offers, and either desisted from the designs to which they had been
incited by her, or declared themselves ready to unite against her.

This, my lords, has been the consequence of assembling the army,
which, by the motion now under our consideration, some of your
lordships seem desirous to disband, an inclination of which I cannot
discover from whence it can arise.

For what, my lords, must be the consequence, if this motion should be
complied with? what but the total destruction of the whole system of
power which has been so laboriously formed and so strongly compacted?
what but the immediate ruin of the house of Austria, by which the
French ambition has been so long restrained? what but the subversion
of the liberties of Germany, and the erection of an universal empire,
to which all the nations of the earth must become vassals?

Should the auxiliary troops be disbanded, the queen of Hungary would
find what benefit she has received from them by the calamities which
the loss of them would immediately bring upon her. All the claims of
all the neighbouring princes, who are now awed into peace and silence,
would be revived, and every one would again believe, that nothing was
to be