But the truth of the
assertion is too plain to all the nations of the world; and those
whose interest it may be to conceal from their countrymen what is
known to all the continent, may rage, indeed, and threaten, but they
cannot deny it; for what enterprise have we hitherto either prevented
or retarded? What could we have done on one side, or suffered on the
other, if we had been struck out from existence, which has not been
suffered, or not done, though our armies have been reviewed on the
continent, and, to make yet a better show, lengthened out by a line of
sixteen thousand of the troops of Hanover.
It is asserted in the same treatise, that the troops of Hanover cannot
act against the king, and that, therefore, they are an useless burden
to the state; that they compose an army of which no other effect will
be found but that they eat, and eat at the expense of Britain. This
assertion is, indeed, somewhat more contestable than the former, but
is at least credible; since, if we may be permitted on this, as on
other occasions, to judge of the future from the past, we may
conclude, that those who have let pass such opportunities as their
enemies have in the height of contempt and security presented to them,
will hardly ever repair the effects of their conduct, by their bravery
or activity in another campaign; but that they will take the pay of
Britain, and, while they fatten in plenty, and unaccustomed affluence,
look with great tranquillity upon the distresses of Austria, and, in
their indolence of gluttony, stand idle spectators of that deluge, by
which, if it be suffered to roll on without opposition, their own
halcyon territories must at last be swallowed up.
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