re determined to send
the army into Flanders, arrived only fifteen days before the recess of
the senate; nor was the resolution formed, as it may easily be
imagined, till several days after; so that there was very little time
for senatorial deliberations, nor was it, perhaps, convenient to
publish at that time the whole scheme of our designs.

But let us suppose, my lords, that the senate had, a few days before
they rose, been consulted, and that a vote of credit had been required
to enable the crown to hire forces during the interval of the
sessions, what would those by whom this motion is supported have urged
against it? Would they not with great appearance of reason have
alleged the impropriety of such an application to the thin remains of
a senate, from which almost all those had retired, whom their
employments did not retain in the neighbourhood of the court? Would it
not have been echoed from one corner of these kingdoms to another,
that the ministry had betrayed their country by a contract which they
durst not lay before a full senate, and of which they would trust the
examination only to those whom they had hired to approve it. Would not
this have been generally asserted, and generally believed? Would not
those who distinguished themselves as the opponents of the court, have
urged, that the king ought to exert his prerogative, and trust the
equity of the senate for the approbation of his measures, and the
payment of the troops which he had retained for the support of the
common cause, the cause for which so much zeal had been expressed, and
for which it could not with justice be suspected, that any reasonable
demands would be denied? Would not the solicitation of a grant of
power without limits, to be exerted wholly at the discretion of the
ministry, be censured as a precedent of the utmost danger, which it
was the business of every man to oppose, who had not lost all regard
to the constitution of his country?

These insinuations, my lords, were foreseen and allowed by the
ministry to be specious, and, therefore, they determined to avoid them
by pursuing their schemes at their own hazard, without any other
security than the consciousness of the rectitude of their own designs;
and to trust to the equity of the senate when they should be laid
before them, at a time when part of their effects might be discovered,
and when, therefore, no false representations could be used to mislead
their judgment. They knew the