uth dock; and seven
hundred and fifty thousand pounds to supply the deficiency of the
quarterly poll. The estimates of the land-service were not discussed
without tedious debates and warm disputes. The ministry demanded
fifty-four thousand men, twenty thousand of whom should be kept at home
for the defence of the nation, while the rest should serve abroad in the
allied army. Many members declared their aversion to a foreign war,
in which the nation had no immediate concern and so little prospect
of success. Others agreed that the allies should be assisted on the
continent with a proportion of British forces; but that the nation
should act as an auxiliary, not as a principal, and pay no more than
what the people would cheerfully contribute to the general expense.
These reflections, however, produced no other effect than that of
prolonging the debate. Ministerial influence had surmounted all
opposition. The house voted the number of men demanded. Such was their
servile complaisance, that when they examined the treaties by which the
English and Dutch contracted equally with the German princes, and found
that, notwithstanding these treaties, Britain bore two-thirds of the
expense, they overlooked this flagrant instance of partiality, and
enabled the king to pay the proportion. Nay, their maxims were so much
altered, that, instead of prosecuting their resentment against foreign
generals, they assented to a motion that the prince of Wirtemberg, the
major-generals Tetteau and La Forest, who commanded the Danish troops in
the pay of the states-general, should be indulged with such an addition
to their appointments as would make up the difference between the pay of
England and that of Holland. Finally, they voted above two millions
for the subsistence of the land forces, and for defraying extraordinary
expenses attending the war upon the continent, including subsidies to
the electors of Saxony and Hanover.

THE LORDS PRESENT AN ADDRESS OF ADVICE TO THE KING.

The house of lords meanwhile was not free from animosity and contention.
The Marlborough faction exerted themselves with great vivacity. They
affirmed, it was the province of their house to advise the sovereign:
like the commons, they insisted upon the king's having asked their
advice because he had mentioned that word in his speech, though he never
dreamed that they would catch at it with such eagerness. They moved,
that the task of digesting the articles of advice