To which Mr. George GRENVILLE replied in substance:—­Sir, though I am far from thinking myself able to produce, without study or premeditation, a complete answer to the elaborate and artful harangue which you have now heard, yet as I cannot be convinced of the reasonableness of the measures which have been defended with so much subtilty, I shall at least endeavour to show, that my disapprobation is not merely the effect of obstinacy, and that I have at least considered the proposals of the ministry, before I have ventured to condemn them.

Whether we ought to think ourselves indispensably obliged to maintain, at all events, the balance of power on the continent, to maintain it without allies, to maintain it against a combination of almost all Europe, I shall not now inquire; I will suppose it, for once, our duty to struggle with impossibility, and not only to support the house of Austria when it is attacked, but to raise it when it is fallen; fallen by our own negligence, and oppressed with the weight of all the surrounding powers; and shall, therefore, at present, only inquire by what means we may afford that assistance with most benefit to our allies, and least danger to ourselves.

With regard to our ally, that assistance will be apparently most advantageous to her, by which her strength will be most increased, and therefore it may, perhaps, be more useful to her to find her money than troops; but if we must supply her with troops, I doubt not but it will readily appear, that we may easily find troops which may be of more use and less expense than those of Hanover.

It has been observed, with regard to the convenient situation of those troops, that it cannot now be denied, since they are acting in Flanders in conjunction with the British forces.  This is an assertion to which, though it was uttered with an air of victorious confidence, though it was produced as an insuperable argument, by which all those who intended opposition were to be reduced to silence and despair, many objections may be made, which it will require another harangue equally elaborate to remove.

That the troops of Hanover are now acting in conjunction with the Britons, I know not how any man can affirm, unless he has received intelligence by some airy messengers, or has some sympathetick communication with them, not indulged to the rest of mankind.  None of the accounts which have been brought hither of the affairs of the continent have yet informed us of any action, or tendency to action; the Hanoverians have, indeed, been reviewed in conjunction with our forces, but have, hitherto, not acted; nor have the armies yet cemented the alliance by any common danger, or shown yet that they are friends otherwise than by sleeping and eating together, by eating at the expense of the same nation.