But money, however valuable, however necessary, has sometimes been
imprudently and unseasonably spared; and an ill-timed parsimony has
been known to hasten calamities, by which those have been deprived of
all who would not endeavour to preserve it by the loss of part. It is
therefore to be considered, whether measures less expensive would not
have been more dangerous; and whether we have not, by hiring foreign
troops, though at a very high rate, at a rate which would have been
demanded from no other nation, purchased an exemption from distresses,
insults, and invasions.
The only nations, my lords, whom we have any reason to suspect of a
design to invade us, or that have power to put any such design in
execution, are well known to be the French and Spaniards; from these,
indeed, it may justly be expected, that they will omit no opportunity
of gratifying that hatred which difference of religion and contrariety
of interest cannot fail to continue from age to age; and therefore we
ought never to imagine ourselves safe, while it is in their power to
endanger us. But of these two nations, my lords, the one is already
disarmed by the navies of Britain, which confine her fleets to their
harbours, and, as we have been just now informed, preclude her armies
from supplies: the other is without a fleet able to transport an army,
her troops are dispersed in different countries, and her treasures
exhausted by expeditions or negotiations equally expensive.
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