Besides, my lords, it is well known, that Hanover is equally engaged by treaty with Britain to maintain the Pragmatick sanction, and that a certain proportion of troops are to be furnished.  But, my lords, as to the march of that body of forces, I have yet heard no account.  Will any lord say that they have marched?  I, therefore, suppose, that the wisdom and justice of our ministers has comprehended them in the sixteen thousand who are to fatten upon British pay, and that Hanover will support the Pragmatick sanction at the cost of this inexhaustible nation.

The service which those troops have already done to the common cause, has been urged with great pomp of exaggeration, of which what effect it may have had upon others, I am not able to say; for my part, I am convinced, that the great happiness of this kingdom is the security of the established succession; and am, therefore, always of opinion, that no measures can serve the common cause, the cause of liberty, or of religion, or of general happiness, by which the royal family loses the affections of the people.  And I can with great confidence affirm, that no attempt for many years has raised a greater heat of resentment, or excited louder clamours of indignation, than the hire of Hanoverian troops; nor is this discontent raised only by artful misrepresentations, formed to inflame the passions, and perplex the understanding; it is a settled and rational dislike, which every day contributes to confirm, which will make all the measures of the government suspected, and may in time, if not obviated, break out in sedition.

A jealousy of Hanover has, indeed, for a long time prevailed in the nation.  The frequent visits of our kings to their electoral dominions, contrary to the original terms on which this crown was conferred upon them, have inclined the people of Britain to suspect, that they have only the second place in the affection of their sovereign; nor has this suspicion been made less by the large accessions made to those dominions by purchases, which the electors never appeared able to make before their exaltation to the throne of Britain, and by some measures which have been apparently taken only to aggrandize Hanover at the expense of Britain.

These measures, my lords, I am very far from imputing to our sovereign or his father; the wisdom of both is so well known, that they cannot be imagined to have incurred, either by contempt or negligence, the disaffection of their subjects.  Those, my lords, are only to be blamed, who concealed from them the sentiments of the nation, and for the sake of promoting their own interest, betrayed them, by the most detestable and pernicious flattery, into measures which could produce no other effect than that of making their reign unquiet, and of exasperating those who had concurred with the warmest zeal in supporting them on the throne.