Thus, my lords, I have endeavoured to explain and enforce my opinion of the measures in which our ministers have engaged the nation; and hope that I shall not be accused of being influenced in my determinations by personal prejudices, nor of having changed my opinions with regard to publick affairs, in consequence of any change of the persons by whom they are conducted.  For if my sentiments have ever been thought important enough to be retained in memory, I can, with the utmost confidence, appeal to all those who can recollect what I have formerly said, when the reestablishment of the house of Austria was the subject of our consultations; and defy the most rigorous and attentive examiner of my conduct, to prove, that there ever was a time in which I thought it necessary or expedient for the British nation to be entangled in disputes on the continent, or to employ her arms in regulating the pretensions of contending powers.

I was always of opinion, my lords, that peace is the most eligible state, and that the ease of security is to be preferred to the honour of victory.  I always thought peace particularly necessary to a trading people; and as I have yet found no reason to alter my sentiments, and as auxiliaries cannot be of any use but in time of war, I shall endeavour to promote peace by joining in the motion.

Lord CHOLMONDELEY spoke to this effect:—­My lords, notwithstanding the atrocious charges which have been urged with so much vehemence against the ministry; notwithstanding the folly and absurdity which some lords have imagined themselves to have discovered in the present measures, I cannot yet prevail upon myself, whatever may be my veneration for their integrity, or my confidence in their abilities, to approve the motion for which they so earnestly contend.

To comply with this motion, my lords, would be, in my opinion, to betray the general cause of mankind, to interrupt the success of the assertors of liberty, to give up all the continent, at once, to the house of Bourbon, to defeat all the measures of our ancestors and ourselves, and to invite the oppressors of mankind to extend their claims of universal dominion to the island of Britain.

Of the measures which we are now to consider, I think the defence at once obvious and unanswerable; and should advise, that instead of exerting an useless sagacity in uncertain conjectures on future events, or displaying unseasonable knowledge by the citation of authorities, or the recollection of ancient facts, every lord should attentively compare the state into which Europe was reduced soon after the death of the late emperour, with that in which it now appears; and inquire to what causes such sudden and important changes are to be ascribed.  He will then easily discover the efficacy of the British measures; and be convinced, that nothing has been omitted which the interest of this nation required.