Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  It was desired, my lords, by the queen of Hungary, that a British army might appear on the continent in her favour, for she knew the reputation and terrour of our arms; and as her demand was equitable in itself, and honourable to the nation, it was complied with; and as many of our native troops were sent, as it was thought convenient to spare, the rest were necessarily to be hired; and it is the business of those lords who defend the motion, to show from whence they could be called more properly than from Hanover.

  It has been urged with great warmth, that the contract made for these troops has not been laid before the senate, a charge which the noble lord who spoke last but one, has shown to be ill grounded; because the former determinations of the senate enabled the crown to garrison the frontier towns without any new deliberations, but which may be, perhaps, more satisfactorily confuted by showing, that it is an accusation of neglecting that which was in reality not possible to be performed, or which at least could not be performed without subjecting the government to imputations yet more dangerous than those which it now suffers.

  The accounts, my lords, by which the ministry were determined to send the army into Flanders, arrived only fifteen days before the recess of the senate; nor was the resolution formed, as it may easily be imagined, till several days after; so that there was very little time for senatorial deliberations, nor was it, perhaps, convenient to publish at that time the whole scheme of our designs.

  But let us suppose, my lords, that the senate had, a few days before they rose, been consulted, and that a vote of credit had been required to enable the crown to hire forces during the interval of the sessions, what would those by whom this motion is supported have urged against it? Would they not with great appearance of reason have alleged the impropriety of such an application to the thin remains of a senate, from which almost all those had retired, whom their employments did not retain in the neighbourhood of the court? Would it not have been echoed from one corner of these kingdoms to another, that the ministry had betrayed their country by a contract which they durst not lay before a full senate, and of which they would trust the examination only to those whom they had hired to approve it. Would not this have been generally asserted, and generally believed? Would not those who distinguished themselves as the opponents of the court, have urged, that the king ought to exert his prerogative, and trust the equity of the senate for the approbation of his measures, and the payment of the troops which he had retained for the support of the common cause, the cause for which so much zeal had been expressed, and for which it could not with justice be suspected, that any reasonable demands would be denied? Would not the solicitation of a grant of power without limits, to be exerted wholly at the discretion of the ministry, be censured as a precedent of the utmost danger, which it was the business of every man to oppose, who had not lost all regard to the constitution of his country?

  These insinuations, my lords, were foreseen and allowed by the ministry to be specious, and, therefore, they determined to avoid them by pursuing their schemes at their own hazard, without any other security than the consciousness of the rectitude of their own designs; and to trust to the equity of the senate when they should be laid before them, at a time when part of their effects might be discovered, and when, therefore, no false representations could be used to mislead their judgment. They knew the zeal of the commons for the great cause of universal liberty; they knew that their measures had no other tendency than the promotion of that cause, and, therefore, they confidently formed those expectations which have not deceived them, that the pay of the troops would be readily granted, and ordered them, therefore, to march; though if the commons had disapproved their plan, they must have returned into their own country, or have been supported at the expense of the electorate.

  The objections raised against these troops, have apparently had no influence in the other house, because supplies have been granted for their pay; and I believe they will, upon examination, be found by your lordships not to deserve much regard.

  It is asserted, that they cannot act against the emperour, established and acknowledged by the diet, without subjecting their country to an interdict; and it was, therefore, suspected, that they would in reality be of no use. This suspicion, my lords, I suppose, it is now not necessary to censure, since you have heard from his majesty, that they are preparing to march; and as the consequences of their conduct can only affect the electorate, its propriety or legality with regard to the constitution of the empire, falls not properly under our consideration.

  How his majesty’s measures may be defended, even in this view, I suppose I need not inform any of this assembly. It is well known, that the emperour was chosen not by the free consent of the diet, in which every elector voted according to his own sense, but by a diet in which one vote of the empire was suspended without any regard to law or justice, and in which the rest were extorted by a French army, which threatened immediate ruin to him who should refuse his consent. The emperour thus chosen, was likewise afterwards recognised by the same powers, upon the same motives, and the aid was granted as the votes were given by the influence of the armies of France.

  For this reason, my lords, the queen of Hungary still refuses to give the elector of Bavaria the style and honours which belong to the imperial dignity; she considers the throne as still vacant, and requires that it should be filled by an uninfluenced election.

  It has been observed, my lords, that his majesty gave his vote to the elector of Bavaria; and it has been, therefore, represented as an inconsistency in his conduct, that he should make war against him. But, my lords, it will by no means follow, that because he voted for him he thinks him lawfully elected, nor that it is unjust to dispossess him; though it is to be observed, that we are not making war to dethrone the emperour, however elected, but to support the Pragmatick sanction.

  This observation, though somewhat foreign from the present debate, I have thought it not improper to lay before your lordships, that no scruples might remain in the most delicate and scrupulous, and to show that the measures of his majesty cannot be justly charged with inconsistency.

  But this, my lords, is not the only, nor the greatest benefit which the queen of Hungary has received from these troops; for it is highly probable, that the states will be induced to concur in the common cause, when they find that they are not incited to a mock confederacy, when they perceive that we really intend to act vigorously, that we decline neither expense nor danger, and that a compliance with our demands will not expose them to stand alone and unassisted against the power of France, elated by success, and exasperated by opposition.

  If this, my lords, should be the consequence of our measures, and this consequence is, perhaps, not far distant, it will no longer be, I hope, asserted, that these mercenaries are an useless burden to the nation, that they are of no advantage to the common cause, or that the people have been betrayed by the ministry into expenses, merely that Hanover might be enriched. When the grand confederacy is once revived, and revived by any universal conviction of the destructive measures, the insatiable ambition, and the outrageous cruelty of the French, what may not the friends of liberty presume to expect? May they not hope, my lords, that those haughty troops which have been so long employed in conquests and invasions, that have laid waste the neighbouring countries with slaughters and devastations, will be soon compelled to retire to their own frontiers, and be content to guard the verge of their native provinces? May we not hope, that they will soon be driven from their posts; that they will be forced to retreat to a more defensible station, and admit the armies of their enemies into their dominions; and that they will be pursued from fortress to fortress, and from one intrenchment to another, till they shall be reduced to petition for peace, and purchase it by the alienation of part of their territories.

  I hope, my lords, it may be yet safely asserted that the French, however powerful, are not invincible; that their armies may be destroyed, and their treasures exhausted; that they may, therefore, be reduce
d to narrow limits, and disabled from being any longer the disturbers of the peace of the universe.

  It is well known, my lords, that their wealth is not the product of their own country; that gold is not dug out of their mountains, or rolled down their rivers; but that it is gained by an extensive and successful commerce, carried on in many parts of the world, to the diminution of our own. It is known, likewise, that trade cannot be continued in war, without the protection of naval armaments; and that our fleet is at present superiour in strength to those of the greatest part of the universe united. It is, therefore, reasonably to be hoped, that though by assisting the house of Austria we should provoke the French to declare war against us, their hostilities would produce none of those calamities which seem to be dreaded by part of this assembly; and that such a confederacy might be formed as would be able to retort all the machinations of France upon herself, as would tear her provinces from her, and annex them to other sovereignties.

  It has been urged, that no such success can be expected from the conduct which we have lately pursued; that we, who are thus daring the resentment of the most formidable power in the universe, have long suffered ourselves to be insulted by an enemy of far inferiour force; that we have been defeated in all our enterprises, and have at present appeared to desist from any design of hostilities; that the Spaniards scarcely perceive that they have an enemy, or feel, any of the calamities or inconveniencies of war; and that they are every day enriched with the plunder of Britain, without danger, and without labour.

  That the war against Spain has not hitherto been remarkably successful, must be confessed; and though the Spaniards cannot boast of any other advantages than the defence of their own dominions, yet they may, perhaps, be somewhat elated, as they have been able to hold out against an enemy superiour to themselves. But, my lords, I am far from believing, that they consider the war against us as an advantage, or that they do not lament it as one of the heaviest calamities that could fall upon them. If it be asked, in what part of their dominions they feel any effects of our hostility, I shall answer with great confidence, that they feel them in every part which is exposed to the evils of a naval war; that they are in pain wherever they are sensible; that they are wounded wherever they are not sheltered from our blows, by the interposition of the nations of the continent.

  If we examine, my lords, the influence of our European armaments, we shall find that their ships of war are shut up in the harbour of France, and that the fleets of both nations are happily blocked up together, so that they can neither extricate each other by concerted motions, in which our attention might be distracted, and our force divided, nor by their united force break through the bars by which they are shut up from the use of the ocean.

  But this, my lords, however important with respect to us, is perhaps the smallest inconvenience which the Spaniards feel from our naval superiority. They have an army, my lords, in Italy, exposed to all the miseries of famine, while our fleet prohibits the transportation of those provisions which have been stored in vessels for their supply, and which must be probably soon made defenceless by the want of ammunition, and fall into the hands of their enemies without the honour of a battle.

  But what to the pride of a Spaniard must be yet a more severe affliction, they have on the same continent a natural confederate, who is yet so intimidated by the British fleets, that he dares neither afford them refuge in his dominions, nor send his troops to their assistance. The queen, amidst all the schemes which her unbounded ambition forms for the exaltation of her family, finds her own son, after having received a kingdom from her kindness, restrained from supporting her, and reduced to preserve those territories which she has bestowed upon him, by abandoning her from whom he received them.

  These, my lords, are the inconveniencies which the Spaniards feel from our fleets in the Mediterranean; and even these, however embarrassing, however depressing, are lighter than those which our American navy produces. It is apparent, that money is equivalent to strength, a proposition of which, if it could be doubted, the Spanish monarchy would afford sufficient proof, as it has been for a long time supported only by the power of riches. It is, therefore, impossible to weaken Spain more speedily or more certainly, than by intercepting or obstructing the annual supplies of gold and silver which she receives from her American provinces, by which she was once enabled to threaten slavery to all the neighbouring nations, and incited to begin, with the subjection of this island, her mighty scheme of universal monarchy, and by which she has still continued to exalt herself to an equality with the most powerful nations, to erect new kingdoms, and set at defiance the Austrian power.

  These supplies, my lords, are now, if not wholly, yet in a great measure, withheld; and by all the efforts which the Spaniards now make, they are exhausting their vitals, and wasting the natural strength of their native country. While they made war with adventitious treasures, and only squandered one year what another would repay them, it was not easy to foresee how long their pride would incline them to hold out against superiour strength. While they were only engaged in a naval war, they might have persisted for a long time in a kind of passive obstinacy; and while they were engaged in no foreign enterprises, might have supported that trade with each other which is necessary for the support of life, upon the credit of those treasures which are annually heaped up in their storehouses, though they are not received; and by which, upon the termination of the war, all their debts might at once be paid, and all their funds be reestablished.

  But at present, my lords, their condition is far different; they have been tempted by the prospect of enlarging their dominions to raise armies for distant expeditions, which must be supported in a foreign country, and can be supported only by regular remittances of treasure, and have formed these projects at a time when the means of pursuing them are cut off. They have by one war increased their expenses, when their receipts are obstructed by another.

  In this state, my lords, I am certain the Spaniards are very far from thinking the hostility of Britain merely nominal, and from inquiring in what part of the world their enemies are to be found. The troops in Italy see them sailing in triumph over the Mediterranean, intercepting their provisions, and prohibiting those succours which they expected from their confederate of Sicily. In Spain their taxes and their poverty, poverty which every day increases, inform them that the seas of America are possessed by the fleets of Britain, by whom their mines are made useless, and their wealthy dominions reduced to an empty sound. They may, indeed, comfort themselves in their distresses with the advantages which their troops have gained over the king of Sardinia, and with the entrance which they have forced into his dominions; but this can afford them no long satisfaction, since they will, probably, never be able to break through the passes at which they have arrived, or to force their way into Italy; and must perish at the feet of inaccessible rocks, where they are now supported at such an expense that they are more burdensome to their own master than to the king of Sardinia.

  Of this prince, I know not why, it has been asserted that he will probably violate his engagements to Britain and Austria; that he will purchase peace by perfidy, and grant a passage to the army of Spain. His conduct has certainly given, hitherto, no reason for such an imputation; he has opposed them with fortitude, and vigour, and address; nor has he failed in any of the duties required of a general or an ally; he has exposed his person to the most urgent dangers, and his dominions to the ravages of war; he has rejected all the solicitations of France, and set her menaces at defiance; and surely, my lords, if no private man ought to be censured without just reason, even in familiar discourse, we ought still to be more cautious of injuring the reputation of princes by publick reproaches in the solemn debates of national assemblies.

  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, an
d 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.

  In defence of the Pragmatick sanction, my lords, which all the princes of the empire, except his majesty, saw violated without concern, are we now required to exert our force; we are required only to perform what we promised by the most solemn treaties, which, though they have been broken by the cowardice or ambition of other powers, it will be our greatest honour to observe with exemplary fidelity.