But these inquiries, my lords, however proper or necessary, are to be made by us not in solemn assemblies but in our private characters; and therefore I shall not now lay before your lordships what I have heard from those whom I have consulted for the sake of obtaining information on this important question, or shall at least not offer it as the opinion of the commons, or pretend to add to it any influence different from that of reason and truth.
The arguments which have been offered in this debate for the motion, are, indeed, such as do not make any uncommon expedients necessary; they will not drive the advocates for the late measures to seek a refuge in authority instead of reason. They require, in my opinion, only to be considered with a calm attention, and their force will immediately be at an end.
The most plausible objection, my lords, is, that the measures to which your approbation is now desired, were concerted and executed without the concurrence of the senate; and it is, therefore, urged, that they cannot now deserve our approbation, because it was not asked at the proper time.
In order to answer this objection, my lords, it is necessary to consider it more distinctly than those who made it appear to have done, that we may not suffer ourselves to confound questions real and personal, to mistake one object for another, or to be confounded by different views.
That the consent of the senate was not asked, my lords, supposing it a neglect, and a neglect of a criminal kind, of a tendency to weaken our authority, and shake the foundations of our constitution, which is the utmost that the most ardent imagination, or the most hyperbolical rhetorick can utter or suggest, may be, indeed, a just reason for invective against the ministers, but is of no force if urged against the measures. To take auxiliaries into our pay may be right, though it might be wrong to hire them without applying to the senate; as it is proper to throw water upon a fire, though it was conveyed to the place without the leave of those from whose well it was drawn, or over whose ground it was carried.
If the liberties of Europe be really in danger, if our treaties oblige us to assist the queen of Hungary against the invaders of her dominions, if the ambition of France requires to be repressed, and the powers of Germany to be animated against her by the certain prospect of a vigorous support, I cannot discover the propriety of this motion, even supposing that we have not found from the ministers all the respect that we have a right to demand. As a lawful authority may do wrong, so right may be sometimes done by an unlawful power; and surely, though usurpation ought to be punished, the benefits which have been procured by it, are not to be thrown away. We may retain the troops that have been hired, if they are useful, though we should censure the ministry for taking them into pay.
But the motion to which our concurrence is now required, is a motion by which we are to punish ourselves for the crime of the ministers, by which we are about to leave ourselves defenceless, because we have been armed without our consent, and to resign up all our rights and privileges to France, because we suspect that they have not been sufficiently regarded on this occasion by our ministers.
Those noble lords who have dwelt with the greatest ardour on this omission, have made no proposition for censuring those whom they condemn as the authors of it, though this objection must terminate in an inquiry into their conduct, and has no real relation to the true question now before us, which is, whether the auxiliaries be of any use? If they are useless, they ought to be discharged without any other reason; if they are necessary, they ought to be retained, whatever censure may fall upon the ministry.
I am, indeed, far from thinking, that when your lordships have sufficiently examined the affair, you will think your privileges invaded, or the publick trepanned by artifice into expensive measures; since it will appear that the ministry in reality preferred the most honest to the safest methods of proceeding, and chose rather to hazard themselves, than to practice or appear to practice any fraud upon their country.
When it was resolved in council to take the troops of Hanover into the pay of Britain, a resolution which, as your lordships have already been informed, was made only a few days before the senate rose, it was natural to consider, whether the consent of the senate should not be demanded; but when it appeared upon reflection, that to bring an affair of so great importance before the last remnant of a house of commons, after far the greater part had retired to the care of their own affairs, would be suspected as fraudulent, and might give the nation reason to fear, that such measures were intended as the ministers were afraid of laying before a full senate. It was thought more proper to defer the application to the next session, and to venture upon the measures that were formed, upon a full conviction of their necessity.