But, my lords, though such endeavours are the duty of all who are engaged in the transaction of publick affairs, though the importance of the cause of the queen of Hungary be acknowledged in the speech to which we are to return an address, it does not appear that the ministers of Britain have once attempted to assist her, or have even forborne any thing which might aggravate her distress.

The only effectual methods by which any efficacious relief could have been procured, were that of reconciling her with the king of Prussia, or that of prevailing upon the Muscovites to succour her.

A reconciliation with the king of Prussia would have been my first care, if the honour of advising on this occasion had fallen to my lot.  To have mediated successfully between them could surely have been no difficult task, because each party could not but know how much it was their common interest to exclude the French from the empire, and how certainly this untimely discord must expose them both to their ancient enemy.

As in private life, my lords, when two friends carry any dispute between them to improper degrees of anger or resentment, it is the province of a third to moderate the passion of each, and to restore that benevolence which a difference of interest or opinion had impaired; so in alliances, or the friendships of nations, whenever it unhappily falls out that two of them forget the general good, and lay themselves open to those evils from which a strict union only can preserve them, it is necessary that some other power should interpose, and prevent the dangers of a perpetual discord.

Whether this was attempted, my lords, I know not; but if any such design was in appearance prosecuted, it may be reasonably imagined from the event, that the negotiators were defective either in skill or in diligence; for how can it be conceived that any man should act contrary to his own interest, to whom the state of his affairs is truly represented?

But not to suppress what I cannot doubt, I am convinced, my lords, that there is in reality no design of assisting the queen of Hungary; either our ministers have not yet recovered from their apprehensions of the exorbitant power of the house of Austria, by which they were frighted some years ago into the bosom of France for shelter, and which left them no expedient but the treaty of Hanover; or they are now equally afraid of France, and expect the pretender to be forced upon them by the power whom they so lately solicited to secure them from him.

Whatever is the motive of their conduct, it is evident, my lords, that they are at present to the unfortunate queen of Hungary, either professed enemies, or treacherous allies; for they have permitted the invasion of her Italian dominions, when they might have prevented it without a blow, only by commanding the Spaniards not to transport their troops.

To argue that our fleet in the Mediterranean was not of strength sufficient to oppose their passage, is a subterfuge to which they can only be driven by the necessity of making some apology, and an absolute inability to produce any which will not immediately be discovered to be groundless.