THE KING SETS OUT FOR HANOVER.
Nor did the house of peers tamely and unanimously submit to the measures of the ministry. The pension-bill being read, was again rejected, and a protest entered. A debate arose about the number of standing forces; and the earl of Chesterfield argued for the court motion. The earl of Oxford moved that they might be reduced to twelve thousand effective men. The earl of Winchelsea observed, that a standing army rendered ministers of state more daring than otherwise they would be, in contriving and executing projects that were grievous to the people; schemes that could never enter into the heads of any but those who were drunk with excess of power. The marquis of Tweedale, in reasoning against such a number as the ministry proposed, took occasion to observe, that not one shilling of the forfeited estates was ever applied to the use of the public; he likewise took notice, that the eighteen thousand men demanded as a standing force, were modelled in such a manner, that they might be speedily augmented to forty thousand men on any emergency. The duke of Argyle endeavoured to demonstrate the danger of depending for the safety of the kingdom upon an undisciplined militia, a fleet, or an army of auxiliaries. Then he represented the necessity of having recourse to a regular army in case of invasion; and, after all, acknowledged that the number proposed was no way sufficient for that purpose. All his arguments were answered and refuted in an excellent speech by lord Carteret; nevertheless, victory declared for the minister. The parliament having granted every branch of the supply, towards the payment of which they borrowed a sum from the sinking fund, and passed divers other acts for the encouragement of commerce and agriculture, the king, on the first day of June, gave the royal assent to the bills that were prepared, and closed the session, after having informed both houses that the states-general had acceded to the treaty of Vienna; that he had determined to visit his German dominions, and to leave the queen regent in his absence. He accordingly set out for Hanover in the beginning of June. By this time the pragmatic sanction was confirmed by the diet of the empire, though not without a formal protest by the electors Palatine, Bavaria, and Saxony.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760