For what, my lords, must be the consequence, if this motion should be complied with? what but the total destruction of the whole system of power which has been so laboriously formed and so strongly compacted? what but the immediate ruin of the house of Austria, by which the French ambition has been so long restrained? what but the subversion of the liberties of Germany, and the erection of an universal empire, to which all the nations of the earth must become vassals?

Should the auxiliary troops be disbanded, the queen of Hungary would find what benefit she has received from them by the calamities which the loss of them would immediately bring upon her.  All the claims of all the neighbouring princes, who are now awed into peace and silence, would be revived, and every one would again believe, that nothing was to be hoped or feared but from France.  The French would again rush forward to new invasions, and spread desolation over other countries, and the house of Austria would be more weakened than by the loss of many battles in its present state.

The support of the house of Austria appears not, indeed, much to engage the attention of those by whom this motion is supported.  It has been represented as a house equally ambitious and perfidious with that of Bourbon, and equally an enemy both to liberty and to true religion; and a very celebrated author has been quoted to prove, that it is the interest of the Germans themselves to see a prince at their head, whose hereditary dominions may not incite him to exert the imperial power to the disadvantage of the inferiour sovereigns.

In order to the consideration of these objections, it is necessary to observe, my lords, that national alliances are not like leagues of friendship, the consequences of an agreement of disposition, opinions, and affections, but like associations of commerce, formed and continued by no similitude of any thing but interest.  It is not, therefore, necessary to inquire what the house of Austria has deserved from us or from mankind; because interest, not gratitude, engages us to support it.  It is useless to urge, that it is equally faithless and cruel with the house of Bourbon, because the question is not whether both shall be destroyed, but whether one should rage without control.  It is sufficient for us that their interest is opposite, and that religion and liberty may be preserved by their mutual jealousy.  And I confess, my lords, that were the Austrians about to attain unlimited power by the conquest or inheritance of France and Spain, it would be no less proper to form confederacies against them.