These men, my lords, have long endeavoured to rouse their country from the sloth of avarice, and the slumber of tranquillity, to a generous and extensive regard for the universal happiness of mankind; and are now labouring in the general assembly to communicate that ardour with which they are themselves inflamed, and to excite that zeal for publick faith, of which their superiour knowledge shows them the necessity.

It has been, indeed, insinuated, that all their consultations tend only to place garrisons in those towns from which the queen of Hungary has withdrawn her forces; but this supposition, my lords, as it is without any support from facts, is, likewise, without probability.  For to garrison the barrier towns requires no previous debates nor deliberations; since it never was opposed even by those by whom the assistance of the queen of Hungary has been most retarded.  Nor have even the deputies of Dort, whose obstinacy has been most remarkable, denied the necessity of securing the confines of their country, by possessing with their own troops those places which the Austrians are obliged to forsake.  Their present disputes, my lords, must be, therefore, on some other question; and what question can be now before them which can produce any difficulties, but that which regards the support of the Pragmatick sanction?

If these deliberations should be so far influenced by the arrival of the army in the pay of Britain, as to end in a resolution to send a sufficient number of forces into Germany, it will not be denied, that the troops which give occasion for this debate, have really been useful to the common cause; nor will his majesty lose the affections of any of his subjects, by the false accounts which have been spread of an invidious preference given to the troops of Hanover.

That every government ought to endeavour to gain the esteem and confidence of the people, I suppose we are all equally convinced; but I, for my part, am very far from thinking that measures ought only to be pursued or rejected, as they are immediately favoured or disliked by the populace.  For as they cannot know either the causes or the end of publick transactions, they can judge only from fallacious appearances, or the information of those whose interest it may perhaps be to lead them away from the truth.  That monarch will be most certainly and most permanently popular, who steadily pursues the good of his people, even in opposition to their own prejudices and clamours; who disregards calumnies, which, though they may prevail for a day, time will sufficiently confute, and slights objections which he knows may be answered, and answered beyond reply.

Such, my lords, are the objections which have been hitherto raised against the troops of Hanover, of which many arise from ignorance, and many from prejudice; and some may be supposed to be made only for the sake of giving way to invectives, and indulging a petulant inclination of speaking contemptuously of Hanover.