Mr. Fox spoke next, in this manner:—­Sir, I am far from thinking that this question has been hitherto fully explained by those who have either considered it only as a dispute about money, or a question merely speculative concerning the proportions between different degrees of expense, and probability of success.  In a war of this kind, expense is the last and lowest consideration, and where experience may be consulted, the conjectures of speculation ought to have no weight.

The method, sir, by which our troops have hitherto been regulated, is well known to have produced success beyond our expectations, to have exalted us to the arbitration of the world, to have reduced the French to change their threats of forcing a monarch upon us, into petitions for peace, and to have established the liberties of almost every nation of the world that can call itself free.

Whether this method, sir, so successful, so easy, and so formidable, shall be changed, whether it shall be changed at a time when the whole continent is in commotion, and every nation calling soldiers to its standard; when the French, recovered from their defeats, seem to have forgotten the force of that hand that crushed them in the pride of victory; when they seem to be reviving their former designs, and rekindling their extinguished ambition; whether, at such a time, the regulations of our army shall be changed to save, upon the highest computation, only thirty thousand pounds, is the present question.

On such a question, sir, I cannot observe, without astonishment, any man deliberating for a single moment.  To suspend our opinion in this case, would be to balance our lives, our liberties, our patrimonies, and our posterity, against thirty thousand pounds.

The effects of our present method, sir, are well known to ourselves, our confederates, our enemies, to every man that has heard the name of Blenheim and Ramillies; the consequences of the establishment, now contended for, our most experienced commanders own themselves unable to foresee, and I am far from believing that theoretical disquisitions can enable any man to make great discoveries in military affairs.

Our own inexperience of the method which is so warmly recommended, is not the strongest objection to it, though even this ought, in my opinion, to restrain us from trying it at this hazardous conjuncture.  But since arguments, merely negative, may be thought over-balanced by the prospect of saving money, I shall lay before the house, what effects the want of officers has produced, with regard to those nations whose poverty has laid them under a necessity of parsimonious establishments.

When the Germans were defeated by the French, in the late war, I was at the Sardinian court, where the battle was, as it may easily be supposed, the reigning subject of conversation, and where they did not want opportunities of informing themselves minutely of all the circumstances which contributed to the event; it was there, sir, universally determined, that the Germans lost the day merely for want of officers.