The necessity, sir, of publick economy obliges me to insist, that before any money shall be granted, an account be laid before the senate, in particular terms, of the uses to which it is to be applied. To ask for supplies in general terms, is to demand the power of squandering the publick money at pleasure, and to claim, in softer language, nothing less than despotick authority.
It has not been uncommon for money, granted by the senate, to be spent without producing any of those effects which were expected from it, without assisting our allies, or humbling our enemies; and, therefore, there is reason for suspecting that money has sometimes been asked for one use and applied to another.
If our concurrence, sir, is necessary to increase his majesty's influence on the continent, to animate the friends of the house of Austria, or to repress the disturbers of the publick tranquillity, I shall willingly unite with the most zealous advocates for the administration in any vote of approbation or assistance, not contrary to the act of settlement, that important and well-concerted act, by which the present family was advanced to the throne, and by which it is provided, that Britain shall never be involved in war for the enlargement or protection of the dominions of Hanover, dominions from which we never expected nor received any benefit, and for which, therefore, nothing ought to be either suffered or hazarded.
If it should be again necessary to form a confederacy, and to unite the powers of Europe against the house of Bourbon, that ambitious, that restless family, by which the repose of the world is almost every day interrupted, which is incessantly labouring against the happiness of human nature, and seeking every hour an opportunity of new encroachments, I declare, sir, that I shall not only, with the greatest cheerfulness, bear my share of the publick expense, but endeavour to reconcile others to their part of the calamities of war. This, sir, I have advanced in confidence, that sufficient care shall be taken, that in any new alliance we shall be parties, not principals; that the expense of war, as the advantage of victory, shall be common; and that those who shall unite with us will be our allies, not our mercenaries.
Mr. WALPOLE then spoke, to the following purpose:—Sir, it is not without reason that the honourable gentleman desires to be informed of the stipulations contained in the treaty by which we have engaged to support the Pragmatick sanction; for I find that he either never knew them or has forgotten them; and, therefore, those reasonings which he has formed upon them fall to the ground.
We are obliged, sir, by this treaty, to supply the house of Austria with twelve thousand men, and the Dutch, who were engaged in it by our example, have promised a supply of five thousand. This force, joined to those armies which the large dominions of that family enable them to raise, were conceived sufficient to repel any enemy by whom their rights should be invaded.
But because in affairs of such importance nothing is to be left to hazard, because the preservation of the equipoise of power, on which the liberties of almost all mankind, who can call themselves free, must be acknowledged to depend, ought to be rather certain, than barely probable; it is stipulated farther, both by the French and ourselves, that if the supplies, specified in the first article, shall appear insufficient, we shall unite our whole force in the defence of our ally, and struggle, once more, for independence, with ardour proportioned to the importance of our cause.
By these stipulations, sir, no engagements have been formed that can be imagined to have been prohibited by the act of settlement, by which it is provided, that the house of Hanover shall not plunge this nation into a war, for the sake of their foreign dominions, without the consent of the senate; for this war is by no means entered upon for the particular security of Hanover, but for the general advantage of Europe, to repress the ambition of the French, and to preserve ourselves and our posterity from the most abject dependence upon a nation exasperated against us by long opposition, and hereditary hatred.
Nor is the act of settlement only preserved unviolated by the reasons of the present alliance, but by the regular concurrence of the senate which his majesty has desired, notwithstanding his indubitable right of making peace and war by his own authority. I cannot, therefore, imagine upon what pretence it can be urged, that the law, which requires that no war shall be made on account of the Hanoverian dominions without the consent of the senate, is violated, when it is evident that the war is made upon other motives, and the concurrence of the senate is solemnly desired.
But such is the malevolence with which the conduct of the administration is examined, that no degree of integrity or vigilance can secure it from censure. When, in the present question, truth and reason are evidently on their side, past transactions are recalled to memory, and those measures are treated with the utmost degree of contempt and ridicule, of which the greatest part of the audience have probably forgotten the reasons, and of which the authors of them do not always stand up in the defence, because they are weary of repeating arguments to those who listen with a resolution never to be convinced.