a British army could have been raised and disciplined
for its deliverance?

Whether this account of our measures will satisfy those who have
hitherto condemned them, I am not able to foretel. There are, indeed,
some reasons for suspecting, that they blame not, because they
disapprove, but because they think it necessary either to the
character of discernment, or of probity, to censure the ministry,
whatever maxims are pursued. Of this disposition it is no slight
proof, that contrary measures have been sometimes condemned by the
same men with the same vehemence; and that even compliance with their
demands has not stilled their outcries. When the ministry appeared
unwilling to engage in the war of Germany, without the concurrence of
the other powers who had engaged to support the Pragmatick sanction,
they were hourly reproached with being the slaves of France, with
betraying the general cause of Europe, and with repressing that
generous ardour, by which our ancestors have been incited to stand
forth as the asserters of universal liberty, and to fight the quarrel
of mankind. They were marked out as either cowards or traitors, and
doomed to infamy as the accomplices of tyranny, engaged in a
conspiracy against their allies, their country, and their posterity.

At length the Britons have roused again, and again declared themselves
the supporters of right, whenever injured; they have again raised
their standards in the continent, and prepared to march again through
those regions where their victories are yet celebrated, and their
bravery yet reverenced. The hills of Germany will again sound with the
shouts of that people who once marched to her deliverance through all
the obstructions that art or power could form against them, and which
broke through the pass of Schellembourg, to rout the armies that were
ranged behind it.

Now it might be expected, my lords, that, at least, those who were
before dissatisfied, should declare their approbation; for surely
where peace or neutrality is improper, there is nothing left but war.
Yet experience shows us, that men resolved to blame will never want
pretences for venting their malignity; and where nothing but malignity
is the consequence of opposite measures, we must necessarily conclude,
that there is a fixed resolution to blame, and that all vindications
will be ineffectual.

Some have, indeed, found out a middle course between censure and
approbation, and declare, that they thi