ned
as an instance of uncommon attention to the great cause of universal
liberty, as a proof that no regard has been paid to private interest,
and that all considerations are sacrificed to publick good. But since
no service can be so great but it may be overpaid, it is necessary
that we may judge of the benefit, to inform us on what terms it has
been obtained, and how well the act of succession has been observed on
this occasion.

Though I am too well acquainted, my lords, with the maxims which
prevail in the present age, and have had too much experience of the
motives, by which the decisions of the senate are influenced, to offer
any motion of my own, yet these reasons will withhold me from
concurring with this. I cannot but be of opinion, that the question
ought to be postponed to another day, in which the house may be
fuller, our deliberations be assisted by the wisdom and experience of
more than thirty lords, who are now absent, and the subjects of
inquiry, of which many are new and unexpected, may be more accurately
considered; nor can I prevail upon myself to return to general
declarations any other than general answers.

Lord CARTERET answered in substance as follows:--My lords, as there
has arisen no new question, as his majesty in assisting the queen of
Hungary, has only followed the advice of the senate; I am far from
being able to discover, why any long deliberation should be necessary
to a concurrence with the motion now before us, or whence any doubt
can arise with regard to the effects of his majesty's measures;
effects which no man will deny, who will believe either his own eyes,
or the testimony of others; effects, which every man who surveys the
state of Europe must perceive, and which our friends and our enemies
will equally confess.

To these measures, which we are now to consider, it must be ascribed,
that the French are no longer lords of Germany; that they no longer
hold the princes of the empire in subjection, lay provinces waste at
pleasure, and sell their friendship on their own terms. By these
measures have the Dutch been delivered from their terrours, and
encouraged to deliberate freely upon the state of Europe, and prepare
for the support of the Pragmatick sanction. But the common cause has
been most evidently advanced by gaining the king of Prussia, by whose
defection the balance of the war was turned, and at least thirty
thousand men taken away from the scale of France.

This, my lord