oops? it
ought to be remembered, my lords, with how little propriety our
ministers can be required to make publick a scheme of hostile
operations, and how much we should expose ourselves to our enemies,
should a precedent be established by which our generals would be
incapacitated to form any private designs, and an end would be for
ever put to military secrecy.

What necessity there can be for proposing arguments like these, I am
not, indeed, able to discover, since the objections which have been
made seem to proceed rather from obstinacy than conviction; and the
reflections that have been vented seem rather the product of wit
irritated by malevolence, than of reason enlightened by calm
consideration. The ministers have been reproached with Hanoverian
measures, without any proof that Hanover is to receive the least
advantage; and have been charged with betraying their country by those
who cannot show how their country is injured, nor can prove either
that interest or faith would allow us to sit inactive in the present
disturbance of Europe, or that we could have acted in any other manner
with equal efficacy.

It is so far from being either evident or true, my lords, that Britain
is sacrificed to Hanover, that Hanover is evidently hazarded by her
union with Britain. Had this electorate now any other sovereign than
the king of Great Britain, it might have been secure by a neutrality,
and have looked upon the miseries of the neighbouring provinces
without any diminution of its people, or disturbance of its
tranquillity; nor could any danger be dreaded, or any inconvenience be
felt, but from an open declaration in favour of the Pragmatick
sanction.

Why the hire of the troops of any particular country should be
considered as an act of submission to it, or of dependency upon it, I
cannot discover; nor can I conceive for what reason the troops of
Hanover should be more dangerous, or less popular, at this than at any
former time, or why the employment of them should be considered as any
particular regard. If any addition of dominion had been to be
purchased for the electorate by the united arms of the confederate
army, I should, perhaps, be inclined to censure the scheme, as
contrary to the interest of my native country; nor shall any lord more
warmly oppose designs that may tend to aggrandize another nation at
the expense of this. But to hire foreigners, of whatever country, only
to save the blood of Britons, is, in my