Lord POWLETT rose up next, and spoke to the effect following:—­Sir, the honourable gentleman has with so much clearness and elegance displayed the state of Europe, explained the necessity of hiring foreign troops, and showed, the reasons for which the troops of Hanover were preferred to those of any other nation, that I believe it not to be of any use to urge other arguments than those which he has produced.

As, therefore, it is indisputably necessary to hire troops, and none can be hired which can be so safely trusted as those of Hanover, I cannot but agree with the right honourable gentleman, that this measure of his majesty ought to be supported.

Sir JOHN ST. AUBYN then spoke as follows:—­Sir, it is with the greatest difficulties that I rise up to give you this trouble, and particularly after the honourable gentleman with whom I am so very unequal to contend.  But when my assent is required to a proposition, so big with mischiefs, of so alarming a nature to this country, and which I think, notwithstanding what the honourable gentleman has most ingeniously said, must determine from this very day, who deserves the character and appellation of a Briton, I hope you will forgive me, if I take this last opportunity which perhaps I may ever have of speaking with the freedom of a Briton in this assembly.

I am not able to follow the honourable gentleman in any refinements of reason upon our foreign affairs; I have not subtilty enough to do it, nor is it in my way as a private country gentleman.  But though country gentlemen have not that sagacity in business, and, for want of proper lights being afforded us, the penetration of ministers into publick affairs; yet give me leave to say, they have one kind of sense which ministers of state seldom have, and at this time it is of so acute a nature, that it must, overthrow the arguments of the most refined administration; this is the sense of feeling the universal distresses of their country, the utter incapacity it now lies under of sustaining the heavy burdens that are imposing upon it.

This I take to be the first, the great object of this day’s debate.  Consider well your strength at home, before you entangle yourselves abroad; for if you proceed without a sufficient degree of that, your retreat will be certain and shameful, and may in the end prove dangerous.  Without this first, this necessary principle, whatever may be the machinations, the visionary schemes of ministers, whatever colourings they may heighten them with, to mislead our imaginations, they will prove in the end for no other purpose, but to precipitate this nation, by empty captivating sounds, into the private views and intrigues of some men, so low, perhaps, in reputation and authority, as to be abandoned to the desperate necessity of founding their ill possessed precarious power upon the ruins of this country.