When I hear it asked by the noble lords, what effects have been produced by our armaments and expenses?  For what end auxiliaries are hired, and why our armies are transported into Flanders?  I cannot but suspect, my lords, that this affectation of ignorance is only intended to irritate their opponents; that they suppress facts with which they are well acquainted, only that they may have an opportunity of giving vent to their passions, of displaying their imagination in artful reproaches, and exercising their eloquence in splendid declamations.  I believe they hide what they know where to find, only to oblige others to the labour of producing it; and ask questions, not because they want or desire information, but because they hope to weary those whose stations condemn them to the task of answering them.

The effects, my lords, which the assistance given by us to the queen of Hungary have already produced, are the recovery of one kingdom, and the safety of the rest; the exclusion of the Spaniards from Italy on the one part, and on the other the confinement of them in it, without either the supplies for war, or the necessaries of life.

These, my lords, are surely great advantages; but these are not the greatest which we have reason to hope.  Our vigour and resolution have at last animated the Dutch to suspend for a time their attention to trade and money, and to consider what they seldom much regard, the state of other nations; the most rich and powerful of their provinces have already determined to concur in the reestablishment of the house of Austria; and if the approbation of the rest be necessary, it is likely to be obtained by the same method of proceeding.

Thus, my lords, we have a prospect of doing that which the ministers of queen Anne, whose fidelity, wisdom, and address, have been so often and so invidiously commended, thought their greatest honour, and the strongest proof of their abilities.  We may soon form another confederacy against the house of Bourbon, at a time when Louis the fourteenth is not at its head, at a time when it is exhausted by expensive projects; and when, therefore, it cannot make the same resistance as when it was before attacked.

By pursuing the scheme which is now formed, with steadiness and ardour, we may, perhaps, reinstate all those nations in their liberties, whom cowardice, or negligence, or credulity have, during the last century, delivered up to the ambition of France; we may confine that swelling monarchy, which has from year to year torn down the boundaries of its neighbours, within its ancient limits, and disable it for ages from giving any new alarms to mankind, and from making any other efforts for the acquisition of universal dominion; we may reestablish the house of Austria as the great barrier of the world, by which it is preserved on one part from being laid waste by the barbarity of the Turks, and on the other from being enslaved by politer tyrants, and overrun by the ambition of France.