re any reason for imagining that the other princes, who have
incurred the same obligations, will not endeavour to perform their
promises; it may be easily conceived that some of them are not able at a
sudden summons to afford great assistance, and that others may wait the
result of our deliberations, and regulate their conduct by our example.

Not that we ought to neglect our engagements, or endanger our country,
because other powers are either perfidious, or insensible; for I am not
afraid to declare, that if that should happen, which there is no reason
to suspect, if all the other powers should desert the defence of the
Austrian line, should consent to annul the Pragmatick sanction, and
leave the queen of Hungary to the mercy of her enemies, I would advise
that Britain alone should pour her armies into the continent, that she
should defend her ally against the most formidable confederacy, and show
mankind an example of constancy not to be shaken, and of faith not to be
violated.

If it be, therefore, our duty to support the Pragmatick sanction, it is
now the time for declaring our resolutions, when the imperial crown is
claimed by a multitude of competitors, among whom the elector of
Bavaria, a very powerful prince, has, by his minister, notified his
pretensions to the court of Britain.

The ancient alliance between this prince and the French is well known,
nor can we doubt that he will now implore their assistance for the
attainment of the throne to which he aspires; and I need not say what
may be expected from an emperour, whose elevation was procured by the
forces of France.

Nor is this the only prince that claims the imperial crown upon
plausible pretences, or whose claims other powers may combine to
support; it is well known, that even the Spanish monarch believes
himself entitled to it, nor can we, who have no communication with him,
know whether he has not declared to all the other princes of Europe, his
resolution to assert his claim.

It is far from being impossible that the pretensions of the house of
Bourbon may be revived, and that though no single prince of that family
should attempt to mount the imperial throne, they may all conspire to
dismember the empire into petty kingdoms, and free themselves from the
dread of a formidable neighbour, by erecting a number of diminutive
sovereigns, who may be always courting the assistance of their
protectors, for the sake of harassing each other.

Thus will t