SUBSTANCE OF THE KING’S SPEECH.
On the seventeenth day of January, the British parliament was opened with a long elaborate speech, importing that the proceedings and transactions of the emperor and king of Spain, and the secret offensive alliance concluded between them, had laid the foundation of a most exorbitant and formidable power; that they were directly levelled against the most valuable and darling interests and privileges of the British nation, which must either give up Gibraltar to Spain, and acquiesce in the emperor’s usurped exercise of commerce, or resolve vigorously to defend their undoubted rights against those reciprocal engagements, contracted in defiance and violation of all national faith, and the most solemn treaties. He assured them, that one of those secret articles was the placing the pretender on the throne of Great Britain; and another the conquest of Gibraltar and Port Mahon. He affirmed that those combinations extended themselves into Russia; and that the English fleet seasonably prevented such designs as would have opened a way to the invasion of these kingdoms. He exhorted the commons to grant such supplies as should be necessary for the defence of then-country, and for making good his engagements with the allies of Great Britain. He told them that the king of Spain had ordered his minister residing in England to quit the kingdom; and that he had left a memorial little short of a declaration, in which he insisted upon the restitution of Gibraltar. He did not fail to touch the energetic strings which always moved their passions: the balance of power in Europe, the security of the British commerce, the designs of a popish pretender, the present happy establishment, the religion, liberties, and properties of a protestant people. Such addresses of thanks were penned in both houses as the ministers were pleased to dictate; yet not without opposition from a minority, which was far from being formidable, though headed by chiefs of uncommon talents and resolution. The commons voted twenty thousand seamen, besides six-and-twenty thousand three hundred and eighty-three men for the land service; and, to defray the extraordinary expense, a land-tax of four shillings in the pound was granted.
GEORGE I, 1714—1727