That the consent of the senate was not asked, my lords, supposing it a neglect, and a neglect of a criminal kind, of a tendency to weaken our authority, and shake the foundations of our constitution, which is the utmost that the most ardent imagination, or the most hyperbolical rhetorick can utter or suggest, may be, indeed, a just reason for invective against the ministers, but is of no force if urged against the measures.  To take auxiliaries into our pay may be right, though it might be wrong to hire them without applying to the senate; as it is proper to throw water upon a fire, though it was conveyed to the place without the leave of those from whose well it was drawn, or over whose ground it was carried.

If the liberties of Europe be really in danger, if our treaties oblige us to assist the queen of Hungary against the invaders of her dominions, if the ambition of France requires to be repressed, and the powers of Germany to be animated against her by the certain prospect of a vigorous support, I cannot discover the propriety of this motion, even supposing that we have not found from the ministers all the respect that we have a right to demand.  As a lawful authority may do wrong, so right may be sometimes done by an unlawful power; and surely, though usurpation ought to be punished, the benefits which have been procured by it, are not to be thrown away.  We may retain the troops that have been hired, if they are useful, though we should censure the ministry for taking them into pay.

But the motion to which our concurrence is now required, is a motion by which we are to punish ourselves for the crime of the ministers, by which we are about to leave ourselves defenceless, because we have been armed without our consent, and to resign up all our rights and privileges to France, because we suspect that they have not been sufficiently regarded on this occasion by our ministers.

Those noble lords who have dwelt with the greatest ardour on this omission, have made no proposition for censuring those whom they condemn as the authors of it, though this objection must terminate in an inquiry into their conduct, and has no real relation to the true question now before us, which is, whether the auxiliaries be of any use?  If they are useless, they ought to be discharged without any other reason; if they are necessary, they ought to be retained, whatever censure may fall upon the ministry.

I am, indeed, far from thinking, that when your lordships have sufficiently examined the affair, you will think your privileges invaded, or the publick trepanned by artifice into expensive measures; since it will appear that the ministry in reality preferred the most honest to the safest methods of proceeding, and chose rather to hazard themselves, than to practice or appear to practice any fraud upon their country.