Hume Campbell at last broke silence, but, though he pressed some firmness into his words, the manner, and much of the matter, was flat and mean. He complimented Charles Townshend with a mixture of irony, telling him that in some points he had no superior; in some, no equal. He should have answered Mr. Pitt in the former Debate, but he had inquired, and found it was contrary to the orders of the House. He denied having spoken on any treaties but on that of Worms; since that he had been following a profession to avoid servility. Now he returned to the service of the House, he found that Debates were cramped by expressions unbecoming men; yet no epithets should make him cease to speak his mind with resolution. He was taxed with adulation; he found that the former adulation of others was turned to run the race of invective; sudden conversion was more applicable to others than to him. He had not expected such support as Mr. Fox’s; he would study to deserve it, dum spiritus hos regit artus—but he would not take up the time of the House in fabricating words and coining verbiage: this was the last time personality should call him up. He had been told that morning by the Speaker, that everything might be said there with impunity. He had scarce ever felt what ambition was, though he knew he had been accused of it. No political variation had ever made him break a friendship: the flame of invective he had caught from his superiors. Nemo sine vitiis nascitur; optimus ille qui minimis urgetur. He had quitted the former Opposition, when he saw they aimed at men, not measures, and when he saw all confidence broken amongst them: that, and the Rebellion, had opened his eyes. He owned he had formerly thought it wrong to take Hanoverians into our pay, as it would increase the disgusts against the Royal Family. Pitt did not deign a reply.[45]
Sir George Lyttelton said he did not mean to restrain invectives; desired no man’s mouth should be free from them but his own; urged that the treaty specified, if we were attacked ourselves, that we should not be obliged to furnish twelve ships to Muscovy. That if either treaty tended to war, or to provoke Prussia, they would deserve censure; but they were merely defensive; the troops even not to move unless we required it. Defence is not injury; provision is not provocation. The King of Prussia would have a higher esteem for our Government; he knows that whoever desires peace, must prepare for war. Despair is the worst and weakest of councils. Fortitude and wisdom will find resources, as the Queen of Hungary did, in 1741: we [were] not in so bad a situation by a thousand degrees. Had we then retained the Russians, that war had been prevented. Here were no plans of partition. Unallied, we could make no diversion to France. France unassisted would not dare to disturb the peace of the Empire. Would you have trusted to France for not violating the Law of Nations? Cæsar ashamed! has he not seen Pharsalia? Our trade could not be preserved if the balance of Europe overturned, nor that balance overturned, without some assistance from hence. Subsidiary treaties must be struck at lucky moments, when the occasion offers itself.
Legge, in reply, asked if, because it was possible that France might draw us upon the continent, we ought to mark out the way for her?—but the Ministers, indeed, by way of defence, had endeavoured to reduce the treaties to no meaning. All they pretended was to make magazines of 140,000 men standing at livery, to supply our contingents; though all our Allies told us they were at peace. For Hesse-Cassel, one would think we were as ignorant of the topography of it as if it belonged to ourselves. In five weeks the Hessians might be ready to be prevented by the wind from coming to our assistance! That little country, since 1726, had received two millions of our money! When in danger, we wanted them—but they were in other pay, and did not behave quite so ill as when in ours. At Bergopzoom they behaved shamefully! We lost a good officer there—while he was endeavouring to persuade them but to look over the parapet. There was no end of objections to them! They occasioned the loss of the battle of Laffelt. In Scotland they would not fight because no cartel was settled with Rebels. The present Landgrave was old; the next would be a papist: subjects of a papist, would we wish them here to fight against the French?
Colonel Haldane bore testimony to the Hessians behaving well at Roucoux,—not so well at Laffelt, yet not very infamously: the Prince of Hesse, with tears, tried to rally them. Colonel Griffin deposed that he did see them rally there.
Nugent argued on the necessity of diverting the men and money of France by a grand alliance, in case they should obtain the superiority; and on the difficulty of our collecting any Army but of Russians. This, said he, is my way of thinking, and agreeable to one who is reckoned in the system of that rash and frantic Minister[46] who saved Europe.
George Grenville observed, how extraordinary it was in this treaty to call the King of Prussia the common enemy; but it was evident the whole was intended against him. He did not hear that our civility had engaged that Prince to pay the Silesian Loan. In four years we were to pay 340,000l. to Hesse-Cassel; besides which, they were to be indemnified: cheap bargain! If they were employed, the whole expense of Foot and Cavalry would amount to 1,180,000l. The Russians were to receive 500,000l. a-year, from the time they were required to act. Together, the expense would rise to the sum of 3,180,000l.! This was the first treaty that promised indemnification. Was our debt reduced only to furnish new subsidies? Why had a mere naval war never been tried? The moment the former treaties had been obtained, the election of a King of the Romans was laid aside. Edward the Third, who experienced the inutility and inconveniences of German auxiliaries, ordered a record to be entered that subsidia Germanorum in pace onerosa, in bello inutilia. The treaty with Russia had been commenced in 1747, but had been kept secret during the life of Mr. Pelham.
Beckford, with his wild sense, ran through some general heads; said, no affront had been intended to the Law, but to its rotten, servile limbs, such as explained away an Act of Settlement, and assisted state alchymists to render an Act of Parliament a caput mortuum. Yet there was this difference between the professors; the metallurgic artist loses gold; the State artist gets it. That it was an indignity for great nations to become tributary to little ones. That we have no barrier, but what by defending we shall enrich ourselves. That our Kings, though they have less prerogative than their predecessors, are richer, and consequently more powerful. In the late war, the Queen of Hungary’s affairs went well, till we engaged as principals, and then she left the burthen upon us. Before the present war, we had twenty men in America to one Frenchman.
Lord George Sackville, with as much spirit, and with sense as compact as the other’s was incoherent, replied, that if the question was agitating whether we should desert the war in America, and stick to the continent, nobody would dare to support such an argument. In the year 1725, the Court of Vienna leagued with Russia; we with Sweden and Denmark, and Wolfenbuttle, and Hesse. The greatest loss we had experienced was of Prussia;—but should we bear it patiently or counteract him by Russia? It might be right to trust to his inactivity, if, in 1744, after you had given him Silesia, he had not marched into Bohemia. If the Russians had then been on his back, would he have dared to go to Prague? When driven from thence by Prince Charles, he lost 30,000 men by desertion. He will always seize opportunities where he can strike with security. If all allow that Hanover is to be protected, and Hanover says, “This is the easiest way,” shall we not take it? He would not have our Allies think that we were so taken up with America, as not to be able to attend to them. He concluded handsomely with saying, “They who on this occasion have declined employments, have acted honourably; they who have gone into an unenvied Ministry, to support it, deserve not reproach: they will deserve support, if their conduct continues upright.”
George Townshend, with much warmth and threats, expressed his resentment on being drawn to make the Motion last year for a perverted Vote of Credit. Lord Granby, with great decency, said, that if anything had been done contrary to that Address, the House must judge of it: yet he was not such an enemy to Hanover, as to let the French satiate their rage on Hanoverian subjects, because their Elector had acted the part of a British King.
Old Horace Walpole, now near fourscore, had yet busy spirits enough, very late at night, to pay part of the purchase of his future title, by a speech in defence of the treaties; to which Pitt replied in a very long harangue, but was not well, and spoke with little fire. He told Fox, that it should not be his method to vilify the laws, and yet pretend to love the lawyers; that he did not pretend to eloquence, but owed all his credit to the indulgence of the House: looked with respect on the King’s prejudices, with contempt on those who encouraged them. Was everything to be styled invective, that had not the smoothness of a Court compliment? Must it be called so, unless a charge was brought judicially on paper? He complimented Charles Townshend, who, he said, had displayed such abilities as had not appeared since that House was a House. He talked much on the situation of the King of Prussia, who if well disposed, this measure was not necessary; if ill disposed, it was a war—but he would not enter into all the ambages of the Corps Diplomatique, and of the gentleman[47] wrapped up in a political cloak. He and others had said, “Talk against Hanover! oh! you will raise a Rebellion!”—it was language for a boarding-school girl! Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole had withstood Hanover: the latter, said he, thought well of me, died in peace with me. He was a truly English Minister, and kept a strict hand on the closet—as soon as removed, the door was flung open. His friends and followers transferred themselves to the Minister,[48] who transplanted that English Minister—and even his reverend brother, who still adorns this House, is gone over to the Hanoverian party!