The same licentiousness of speech has not, indeed, been extended to
all the princes mentioned in this debate. The emperour has been
treated with remarkable decency as the lawful sovereign of Germany, as
one who cannot be opposed without rebellion, and against whom we,
therefore, cannot expect that the troops of Hanover should presume to
act, since they must expose their country to the severities of the
imperial interdict.
The noble lords who have thus ardently asserted the rights of the
emperour, who have represented in such strong language the crime of
violating the German constitutions, and have commended the neutrality
of the king of Prussia, as proper to be imitated by all the rest of
the princes 'of the empire, have forgotten, or hoped that others Would
forget, the injustice and violence by which he exalted himself to the
throne, from which they appear to think it a sacrilegious attempt to
endeavour to thrust him down. They forget that one of the votes was
illegally suspended, and that the rest were extorted by the terrour of
an army. They forget that he invited the French into the empire, and
that he is guilty of all the ravages which have been committed and all
the blood that has been shed, since the death of the emperour, in the
defence of the Pragmatick sanction which he invaded, though ratified
by the solemn consent of the imperial diet.
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