Publick perfidy, sir, like private dishonesty, whatever temporary advantages it may promise or produce, is always, upon the whole, the parent of misery.  Every man, however prosperous, must sometimes wish for a friend; and every nation, however potent, stand in need of an ally; but all alliances subsist upon mutual confidence, and confidence can be produced only by unlimited integrity, by known firmness, and approved veracity.

The use of alliances, sir, has, in the last age, been too much experienced to be contested; it is by leagues well concerted, and strictly observed, that the weak are defended against the strong, that bounds are set to the turbulence of ambition, that the torrent of power is restrained, and empires preserved from those inundations of war, that, in former times, laid the world in ruins.  By alliances, sir, the equipoise of power is maintained, and those alarms and apprehensions avoided, which must arise from daily vicissitudes of empire, and the fluctuations of perpetual contest.

That it is the interest of this nation to cultivate the friendship of the house of Austria, to protect its rights, and secure its succession, to inform it when mistaken, and to assist it when attacked, is allowed by every party.  Every man, sir, knows that the only power that can sensibly injure us, by obstructing our commerce, or invading our dominions, is France, against which no confederacy can be formed, except with the house of Austria, that can afford us any efficacious support.

The firmest bond of alliances is mutual interest.  Men easily unite against him whom they have all equal reason to fear and to hate; by whom they have been equally injured, and by whom they suspect that no opportunity will be lost of renewing his encroachments.  Such is the state of this nation, and of the Austrians.  We are equally endangered by the French greatness, and equally animated against it by hereditary animosities, and contests continued from one age to another; we are convinced that, however either may be flattered or caressed, while the other is invaded, every blow is aimed at both, and that we are divided only that we may be more easily destroyed.

For this reason we engaged in the support of the Pragmatick sanction, and stipulated to secure the imperial crown to the daughters of Austria; which was nothing more than to promise, that we would endeavour to prevent our own destruction, by opposing the exaltation of a prince who should owe his dignity to the French, and, in consequence of so close an alliance, second all their schemes, admit all their claims, and sacrifice to their ambition the happiness of a great part of mankind.

Such would probably be the consequence, if the French should gain the power of conferring the imperial crown.  They would hold the emperour in perpetual dependence, would, perhaps, take possession of his hereditary dominions, as a mortgage for their expenses; would awe him with the troops which they sent under a pretence of assisting him, and leave him only the titles of dominion, and the shadows of empire.