That they are intended for the support of the queen of Hungary has been, indeed, asserted; and this contract has been produced as an instance of the zeal of our ministers for the assertion of the Pragmatick sanction, the preservation of the liberties of Europe, and the suppression of the ambitious enterprises of the house of Bourbon; but surely, my lords, had the assistance of that illustrious princess been their sole or principal intention, had they in reality dedicated the sum which is to be received by the troops of Hanover, to the sacred cause of publick faith and universal liberty, they might have found methods of promoting it much more efficaciously at no greater expense.  Had they remitted that money to the queen, she would have been enabled to call nations to her standard, to fill the plains of Germany with the hardy inhabitants of the mountains and the deserts, and have deluged the empire of France with multitudes equally daring and rapacious, who would have descended upon a fruitful country like vultures on their prey, and have laid those provinces in ruin which now smile at the devastation of neighbouring countries, secure in the protection of their mighty monarch.

By this method of carrying on the war, we might have secured our ally from danger which I cannot but think imminent and formidable, though it seems, at present, not to be feared.  By so large an addition to her troops, she would have been enabled to frustrate those designs, which her success may incline the king of Prussia to form against her; for with whatever tranquillity he may now seem to look upon this general commotion, his conduct gives us no reason to imagine, that he has changed his maxims, that he is now forgetful or negligent of his own interest, or that he will not snatch the first opportunity of aggrandizing himself by new pretensions to the queen of Hungary’s dominions.

At least, my lords, it may without scruple be asserted, that the hopes which some either form or affect of engaging him in a confederacy for the support of the Pragmatick sanction, are merely chimerical.  He who has hitherto considered no interest but his own, he who has perhaps endangered himself by attempting to weaken the only power to which he, as well as the other princes of the empire, can have recourse for protection from the ambition of France, and has, therefore, broken the rules of policy only to gratify a favourite passion, will scarcely concur in the exaltation of that family which he has so lately endeavoured to depress, and which he has so much exasperated against him.  If he is at length, my lords, alarmed at the ambition of the house of Bourbon, and has learned not to facilitate those designs which are in reality formed against himself, it cannot be doubted, that he looks with equal fear on the house of Austria, that he knows his safety to consist only in the weakness of both, and that in any contest between them, the utmost that can be hoped from him is neutrality.