are, sir, that I shall not only, with the greatest
cheerfulness, bear my share of the publick expense, but endeavour to
reconcile others to their part of the calamities of war. This, sir, I
have advanced in confidence, that sufficient care shall be taken, that
in any new alliance we shall be parties, not principals; that the
expense of war, as the advantage of victory, shall be common; and that
those who shall unite with us will be our allies, not our mercenaries.

Mr. WALPOLE then spoke, to the following purpose:--Sir, it is not
without reason that the honourable gentleman desires to be informed of
the stipulations contained in the treaty by which we have engaged to
support the Pragmatick sanction; for I find that he either never knew
them or has forgotten them; and, therefore, those reasonings which he
has formed upon them fall to the ground.

We are obliged, sir, by this treaty, to supply the house of Austria with
twelve thousand men, and the Dutch, who were engaged in it by our
example, have promised a supply of five thousand. This force, joined to
those armies which the large dominions of that family enable them to
raise, were conceived sufficient to repel any enemy by whom their rights
should be invaded.

But because in affairs of such importance nothing is to be left to
hazard, because the preservation of the equipoise of power, on which the
liberties of almost all mankind, who can call themselves free, must be
acknowledged to depend, ought to be rather certain, than barely
probable; it is stipulated farther, both by the French and ourselves,
that if the supplies, specified in the first article, shall appear
insufficient, we shall unite our whole force in the defence of our ally,
and struggle, once more, for independence, with ardour proportioned to
the importance of our cause.

By these stipulations, sir, no engagements have been formed that can be
imagined to have been prohibited by the act of settlement, by which it
is provided, that the house of Hanover shall not plunge this nation into
a war, for the sake of their foreign dominions, without the consent of
the senate; for this war is by no means entered upon for the particular
security of Hanover, but for the general advantage of Europe, to repress
the ambition of the French, and to preserve ourselves and our posterity
from the most abject dependence upon a nation exasperated against us by
long opposition, and hereditary hatred.

Nor is the act of settle