It is not without an uncommon degree of grief, that I hear it urged in defence of this contract, that it was approved by a very numerous council; for what can produce more sorrow in an honest and a loyal breast, than to find that our sovereign is surrounded by counsellors, who either do not know the desires and opinions of the people, or do not regard them; who are either so negligent as not to examine how the affections of the nation may be best preserved, or so rash as to pursue those schemes by which they hope to gratify the king at whatever hazard, and who for the sake of flattering him for a day, will risk the safety of his government, and the repose of his life.

It has, with regard to these troops, been asked by the noble lord who spoke last, what is the intent of this motion but to disband them?  What else, indeed, can be intended by it, and what intention can be more worthy of this august assembly?  By a steady pursuit of this intention, my lords, we shall regain the esteem of the nation, which this daring invasion of our privileges may be easily supposed to have impaired.  We shall give our sovereign an opportunity, by a gracious condescension to our desires, to recover those affections of which the pernicious advice of flatterers has deprived him; we shall obviate a precedent which threatens destruction to our liberties, and shall set the nation free from an universal alarm.  Nor in our present state is it to be mentioned as a trifling consideration, that we shall hinder the wealth of the nation from being ravished from our merchants, our farmers, and our manufacturers, to be squandered upon foreigners, and foreigners from whom we can hope for no advantage.

But it may be asked, my lords, how the great cause of liberty is to be supported, how the house of Austria is to be preserved from ruin, and how the ambition of France is to be repressed?  How all this is to be effected, my lords, I am very far from conceiving myself qualified to determine; but surely it will be very little hindered by the dismission of troops, whose allegiance obliges them not to fight against the emperour, and of whom, therefore, it does not easily appear how they can be very useful allies to the queen of Hungary.

But whatever service is expected from them, it may surely, my lords, be performed by the same number of British troops; and that number may be sent to supply their place, without either delay or difficulty; I will venture to say, without any hazard.  If it be objected, as it has often been, that by sending out our troops, we shall leave our country naked to invasion, I hope I may be allowed to ask, who will invade us?  The French are well known to be the only people whom we can suspect of any such design.  They have no fleet on this side of their kingdom, and their ships in the Mediterranean are blocked up in the harbour by the navies of Britain.  We shall still have at home a body of seven thousand men, which was thought a sufficient security in the late war, when the French had a fleet equal to our own.  Why we should now be in more danger from without, I cannot discover; and with regard to intestine commotions, they will be prevented by compliance with the present motion.  For nothing can incite the people of Britain to oppose those who have openly dismissed the troops of Hanover.