But, my lords, whether moderation was not recommended to them by such
powerful oratory as your lordships have heard, or whether its
advocates met with an audience not easily to be convinced, it is plain
that they seem to have acted upon very different principles, and I
wish their policy had not been so strongly justified by its success.
By sending an army into Germany, my lords, when there were no forces
ready to oppose them, they reduced all the petty princes to immediate
submission, and obliged those to welcome them as friends, who would
gladly have united against them as the inveterate enemies of the whole
German body; and who, had they been firmly joined by their neighbours,
under a general sense of their common danger, would have easily raised
an army able to have repelled them.
This, my lords, was the effect of vigour, an effect very different
from that which we had an opportunity of experiencing as the
consequence of moderation; it was to no purpose that we endeavoured to
alarm mankind by remonstrances, and to procure assistance by
entreaties and solicitations; the universal panick was not to be
removed by advice and exhortations, and the queen of Hungary must have
sunk under the weight of a general combination against her, had we not
at last risen up in her defence, and with our swords in our hands, set
an example to the nations of Europe, of courage and generosity.
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