Ministry have submitted to annex to it.[4] My Lords, I revere the just prerogative of the Crown, and would contend for it as warmly as for the rights of the people.  They are linked together, and naturally support each other.  I would not touch a feather of the prerogative.  The expression, perhaps, is too light; but, since I have made use of it, let me add, that the entire command and power of directing the local disposition of the army is the royal prerogative, as the master-feather in the eagle’s wing; and if I were permitted to carry the allusion a little farther, I would say, they have disarmed the imperial bird, the ‘Ministrum fulminis alitem’.  The army is the thunder of the Crown.  The Ministry have tied up the hand which should direct the bolt.

My Lords, I remember that Minorca was lost for want of four battalions.  They could not be spared from hence; and there was a delicacy about taking them from Ireland.  I was one of those who promoted an inquiry into that matter in the other House; and I was convinced that we had not regular troops sufficient for the necessary service of the nation.  Since the moment the plan of augmentation was first talked of, I have constantly and warmly supported it among my friends:  I have recommended it to several members of the Irish House of Commons, and exhorted them to support it with their utmost interest in Parliament.  I did not foresee, nor could I conceive it possible, the Ministry would accept of it, with a condition that makes the plan itself ineffectual, and, as far as it operates, defeats every useful purpose of maintaining a standing military force.  His Majesty is now so confined, by his promise, that he must leave twelve thousand men locked up in Ireland, let the situation of his affairs abroad, or the approach of danger to this country, be ever so alarming, unless there be an actual rebellion, or invasion, in Great Britain.  Even in the two cases excepted by the King’s promise, the mischief must have already begun to operate, must have already taken effect, before His Majesty can be authorized to send for the assistance of his Irish army.  He has not left himself the power of taking any preventive measures, let his intelligence be ever so certain, let his apprehensions of invasion or rebellion be ever so well founded; unless the traitor be actually in arms—­unless the enemy be in the heart of your country, he cannot move a single man from Ireland.

[Footnote 1:  Louis XV, in consequence, as was pretended, of the Jesuits being allowed to take refuge in Corsica in 1767, purchased the island from the Genoese, and after two years’ contest, succeeded in subduing it.  The French minister, Choiseul, induced the British Government to render no opposition.]

[Footnote 2:  In the year 1735, by an arrangement between the Emperor of Austria and the French.]

[Footnote 3:  The Duke of Grafton.]

[Footnote 4:  King George III had, by a message through the Lord-Lieutenant, recommended the Irish House of Commons to augment the Irish army, and assured them expressly that on the augmentation being made, not less than 12,000 men should at all times, ’except in cases of invasion or rebellion in Great Britain,’ be stationed in Ireland.]