Whether the troops of Hanover will assist us at that time, I cannot
determine. Perhaps, in the destruction of the British dominions, it
may be thought expedient to secure a more valuable and important
country by a timely neutrality; but if we have any auxiliaries from
thence, we must then necessarily obtain them upon cheaper terms.
If our inactivity in the European seas, and our ill success in those
of America be, as it is generally suspected, the consequence of
perfidious counsels, and private machinations; if our fleets are sent
out with orders to make no attempt against our enemies, or our
admirals commanded to retreat before them; surely no higher degree of
madness can be imagined, than that of provoking new enemies before we
have experienced a change of counsels, and found reason to place in
our ministers and statesmen that confidence which war absolutely
requires.
This is the conduct, my lords, which I should think most rational,
even though we were attacked in some of our real rights, and though
the quarrel about which we were debating was our own; I should think
the nearest danger the greatest, and should advise patience under
foreign insults, till we had redressed our domestick grievances; till
we had driven treachery from the court, and corruption from the
senate.
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