may not, perhaps, wish to have the market overstocked. What then must be the confequence? Young men of fortune and rank cannot accept of places, when by accepting them they are to be deemed unfit for ferving their country in Parliament, and to have the ignominious mark of flavery set on them; and without accepting which, they cannot arrive at a knowledge of business fit to be trufted with the public affairs. What will be the effect? Men of no fortune, no rank in the State, who have firft drudged through the lower and mean offices, muft have thofe of the greatest trust and profit, as being the only perfons capable of filling them and it is too much to be feared, that the complaifance of fuch (who owe all they poffefs to the Crown) will be boundless, and that the King will have bad Counsellors, and the nation be ill ferved.

My Lords, with regard to the Officers of the Army, I think the fame argument is ftill ftronger, as the misfortunes which will flow from it are of a more immediate and a more dangerous confequence, and the danger without remedy. This Bill will exclude all young men of fortune from the army, for the fame reafon it will from all civil employments. Your Gentry, your Nobility, deprived of all laudable ambitious views, will fink, like Italians, into a flothful idleness. But, my Lords, I muft beg leave to remind you of this nation's being faved from flavery, by having men of property in the army: for God's fake, do not let us ruin that great barrier of our liberty. It may be faid, we do not stand in need of an army; we are an ifland, have a moft powerful fleet, fo that an army is both uselefs and dangerous. I fhall not enter into all that may be faid in answer to that complicated affertion; but only beg leave to put a cafe, and it is a cafe, as the affairs of Europe stand, must happen once in twenty years; and I hope our liberty will be upon a founder foundation than to be hazarded every twenty years within that space of time, you must, in all probability, raife a confiderable army, either to defend your own poffeffions, or preferve the balance of power in Europe; which are equally

and

and abfolutely neceffary. When this army has done what you raised them for, you will think it neceffay likewife to disband them, and ease yourself and the people of fo coftly a burden; but your Lordships, perhaps, will find the difbanding them more difficult than the raifing them. I am apt to believe, that a Vote of either Houfe, how rhetorically foever it may be expreffed, will not perfuade them it is for their intereft to lose their bread, when by keeping together, you and all you have is entirely at their mercy: and, my Lords, at fuch a season, fhould a Prince, lefs a father of his people than his prefent Majefty, should a Prince of more ambition than honeft intentions, fill the Throne, it would be in his power, with fuch an army, to become as abfolute as the King of France. My Lords, by what I have offered to you, it plainly appears to me, that nothing can keep and confirm your liberties but having the Officers, at least, men of property, who have a stake in the country, and whofe intereft is the fame with ours. by an army of hirelings, debtors, renegados, and fuch like, that Rome at laft fell a victim to the ambition of one man.

It was

It may, perhaps, be faid in excufe for this Bill, that men of too fmall fortunes have employments and feats in Parliament; have you not an Act of Qualification? If that is not obferved, why will you imagine this will? I fhould think it would not for tho' it is an extraordinary thing to fay fo, it would be contrary to the intereft of the Crown, contrary to the intereft of every particular, and contrary to the intereft of the nation in general. But if the fum limited in the Qualification Bill is not already fufficient, increase it; that is the only way which will anfwer what is in vain expected from this Bill. But, my Lords, to conclude, what a compli ment would it be to his Majefty, to fay, you are not fit to be trufted with what your ancestors have always hitherto enjoyed, the power of difpofing of places and judging of merit? We will, by a public Act, fhew we miftruft you: what a compliment will it be to those the people chufe, to fay, we will not truft your integrity, because the people chufe you their Reprefentatives?

Q3

fentatives? Is this the means to endear a people to their Prince, a Prince to his people, or mankind to one another?

Lord Raymond, April 6, 1742.

I SHOULD imagine, my Lords, that when a King of the Houfe of Hanover furveys his navies, reviews his troops, or examines his revenue, beholds the splendour of his Court, or contemplates the extent of his dominions, he cannot but fometimes, however unwillingly, compare his present state with that of his ancestors; and that when he gives audience to the Ambaffadors of Princes, who, perhaps, never heard of Hanover, and directs the payment of fums, dearly purchased, and reflects, as furely he fometimes will, that all these honours and riches, this reverence from foreign powers, and his domestic fplendour, are the gratuitous and voluntary gifts of the mighty people of Great-Britain; he should find his heart overflowing with unlimited gratitude, and should be ready to facrifice to the happiness of his benefactors, not only every petty intereft, or accidental inclination, but even his repofe, his fafety, or his life that he should be ready to ease them of every burthen before they complained, and to aid them with all his power, before they requested his affiftance; that he fhould confider his British kingdom a kind of nursery for troops, to be employed without harraffing his more valuable subjects.

It might be at leaft hoped, my Lords, that the Princes of the House of Hanover might have the fame regard to this nation, as to Kings from whom they never received any benefit, and whom they ought in reality always to have confidered as enemies, yet even from fuch levy-money was not always required, or, if required, was not always received.

There was once a time, my Lords, before any of this race wore the Crown of Great-Britain, when the great French Monarch, Lewis XIV. being under a neceffity of hiring auxiliary troops, applied to the Duke of Hanover, as a Prince whofe neceffities would naturally incline him to fet the lives of his

fubjects

subjects at a cheap rate: the Duke, pleased with an opportunity of trafficking with fo wealthy a Monarch, readily promised a supply of troops, and demanded levy-money to be paid him, that he might be enabled to ride them; but Hanoverian reputation was not then raised so high, as that the French King fhould truft him with his money. Lewis fufpected, and made no fcruple of declaring his fufpicion, that the demand of levymoney was only a pretence to obtain a fum which would never afterwards be repaid, and for which no troops would be obtained; and therefore with his ufual prudence infifted, that the troops should first march and then be paid. Thus for fome time the Treaty was at a ftand; but the King being equally in want of men as the Duke of money, and perceiving, perhaps, that it was really impracticable for fo indigent a Prince to raise troops without fome pecuniary affiftance, offered him at length a small fum, which was gladly accepted, though much below the original demand. The troops were engaged in the fervice of France; and the Duke of Hanover thought himself happy, in being able to amuse himself at his leisure with the rattle of the money.

Such, my Lords, were the conditions on which the troops of Hanover were furnished in former times; and furely what could then be produced by the love of money, or the awe of a fuperior power, might now be expected as the effect of gratitude and kindness.

Earl of Sandwich, Feb. 1, 1742.

I KNOW not how fuccefsfully I may repeat affertions in this House, for which I have been formerly cenfured and committed to the Tower, and which few other Members have hitherto maintained; but I rife with confidence, that I fhall be at least acknowledged to act confiftently with myself in seconding the noble person, (Lord Somerset) who has made the Motion now before you, for addreffing his Majefty, not to engage these kingdoms in a war for the prefervation of his foreign domi

nions and I am convinced, that many who differ from me in opinion, would be glad to boast of resembling my steadiness of conduct.

But fteadiness, Sir, is the effect only of integrity; he that speaks always what he thinks, and endeavours by diligent inquiry to think aright before he ventures to declare his fentiments; he that follows in his fearches no leader but reafon, nor expects any reward from them but the advantage of difcovering truth, and the pleasure of communicating it, will not easily change his opinion; because it will feldom be eafy to fhew, that he who has honeftly inquired after truth has failed to attain it.

For my part, I am neither afhamed nor afraid to affirm, that thirty years have made no change in any of my political opinions; I am now grown old in this House, but that experience which is the confequence of age, has only confirmed the principles with which I entered it many years ago: time has verified the predictions which I formerly uttered, and I have seen my conjectures ripened into knowledge.

I should be therefore without excufe, if either terror could affright, or the hope of advantage allure me from the declaration of my opinions; opinions which I was not deterred from afferting, when the profpect of a longer life than I can now expect might have added to the temptations of ambition, or aggravated the terrors of poverty and difgrace; opinions, for which I would willingly have fuffered the feverest censures, even when I had enforced them only in compliance with reafon, without the infallible certainty of experience.

Of truth it has always been obferved, Sir, that every day adds to its establishment, and that falfhoods, however fpecious, however fupported by power, or established by confederacies, are unable to ftand before the ftroke of time: against the inconveniencies and vexations of long life may be fet the pleasure of discovering truth, perhaps the only pleafure that age affords. Nor is it a flight fatisfaction to a man not utterly infatuated

or