The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11

This I take to be the first, the great object of this day's debate. Consider well your strength at home, before you entangle yourselves abroad; for if you proceed without a sufficient degree of that, your retreat will be certain and shameful, and may in the end prove dangerous. Without this first, this necessary principle, whatever may be the machinations, the visionary schemes of ministers, whatever colourings they may heighten them with, to mislead our imaginations, they will prove in the end for no other purpose, but to precipitate this nation, by empty captivating sounds, into the private views and intrigues of some men, so low, perhaps, in reputation and authority, as to be abandoned to the desperate necessity of founding their ill possessed precarious power upon the ruins of this country.

Next to the consideration of our inward domestick strength, what foreign assistances have we to justify this measure? Are we sure of one positive active ally in the world? Nay, are not we morally certain that our nearest, most natural ally, disavows the proceeding, and refuses to cooperate with us? One need not be deep read in politicks to understand, that when one state separates itself from another, to which it is naturally allied, it must be for this plain reason, that the interest is deserted which is in common to them both. And it is an invariable rule in this country, a rule never to be departed from, that there can no cause exist in which we ought to engage on the continent, without the aid and assistance of that neighbouring state. This is the test, the certain mark, by which I shall judge, that the interest of this country is not at present the object in pursuit.

Is any man then wild enough to imagine, that the accession of sixteen thousand Hanoverian mercenaries will compensate for the loss of this natural ally? No; but it is said that this indicates such a firmness and resolution within ourselves, that it will induce them to come in. Sir, if they had any real proofs of our firmness and resolution, that the interest of this country was to be pursued, I dare say they would not long hesitate. But they look with a jealous eye upon this measure, they consider it as an argument of your weakness, because it is contrary to the genius and spirit of this country, and may, therefore, lessen his majesty in the affections of his people.

They have for some years past looked upon a British parliament as the corrupt engine of administration, to exhaust the riches, and impair the strength of this country. They have heard it talk loudly, indeed, of the house of Austria, when it was in your power to have raised her to that state, in which she was properly to be considered as the support of the balance of Europe, if timid neutralities had not intervened, and our naval strength had properly interposed to her assistance.

They have lately looked upon this parliament, and with the joy of a natural ally they have done it, resenting your injuries, bravely withstanding the power, that you might restore the authority of your government, demanding constitutional securities, appointing a parliamentary committee for inquiry and justice. Sir, they now see that inquiry suppressed, and justice disappointed. In this situation, what expectations can we form of their accession to us; talking bigly, indeed, of vindicating foreign rights, but so weak and impotent at home, as not to be able to recover our own privileges?

But this measure is said to be undertaken in consequence of the advice of parliament. There has been great stress laid upon this. It has been loudly proclaimed from the throne, echoed back again from hence, and the whole nation is to be amused with an opinion, that upon this measure, the fate of the house of Austria, the balance and liberties of Europe, the salvation of this country, depend.

But was this fatal measure the recommendation of parliament, or was it the offspring of some bold enterprising minister, hatched in the interval of parliament, under the wings of prerogative; daring to presume upon the corruption of this house, as the necessary means of his administration? The object, indeed, might be recommended, but if any wrong measure is undertaken to attain it, that measure surely should be dropt; for it is equally culpable to pursue a good end by bad measures, as it is a bad end by those that are honest.

But as to the address, I wish gentlemen would a little consider the occasion which produced it. Sir, it proceeded from the warmth of expectation, the exultation of our hearts, immediately after, and with the same breath that you established your committee of inquiry; and it is no forced construction to say, that it carries this testimony along with it, that national securities and granting supplies were reciprocal terms.

But, sir, I must own for my part, was the occasion never so cogent, Hanoverian auxiliaries are the last that I would vote into British pay; not upon the consideration only, that we ought otherwise to expect their assistance, and that we should rather make sure of others that might be engaged against us; but from this melancholy apprehension, that administrations will for ever have sagacity enough to find out such pretences, that we may find it difficult to get rid of them again.

Besides, the elector of Hanover, as elector of Hanover, is an arbitrary prince; his electoral army is the instrument of that power; as king of Great Britain he is a restrained monarch. And though I don't suspect his majesty, and I dare say the hearts of the British soldiery are as yet free and untainted, yet I fear that too long an intercourse may beget a dangerous familiarity, and they may hereafter become a joint instrument, under a less gracious prince, to invade our liberties.

His majesty, if he was rightly informed, I dare say would soon perceive the danger of the proposition which is now before you. But, as he has every other virtue, he has, undoubtedly, a most passionate love for his native country, a passion which a man of any sensation can hardly divest himself of; and, sir, it is a passion the more easily to be flattered, because it arises from virtue. I wish that those who have the honour to be of his councils, would imitate his royal example, and show a passion for their native country too; that they would faithfully stand forth and say, that, as king of this country, whatever interests may interfere with it, this country is to be his first, his principal care; that in the act of settlement this is an express condition. But what sluggish sensations, what foul hearts must those men have, who, instead of conducting his majesty's right principles, address themselves to his passions, and misguide his prejudices? making a voluntary overture of the rights and privileges of their country, to obtain favour, and secure themselves in power; misconstruing that as a secondary consideration, which in their own hearts they know to be the first.

Sir, we have already lost many of those benefits and restrictions which were obtained for us by the revolution, and the act of settlement. For God's sake, let us proceed no farther. But if we are thus to go on, and if, to procure the grace and favour of the crown, this is to become the flattering measure of every successive administration,—this country is undone!

Mr. BLADEN then rose up, and spoke to the following purport:—Sir, if zeal were any security against errour, I should not willingly oppose the honourable gentleman who has now declared his sentiments; and declared them with such ardour, as can hardly be produced but by sincerity; and of whom, therefore, it cannot be doubted, that he has delivered his real opinion; that he fears from the measures which he censures, very great calamities; that he thinks the publick tranquillity in danger; and believes that his duty to his country obliged him to speak on this occasion with unusual vehemence.

But I am too well acquainted with his candour to imagine, that he expects his assertions to be any farther regarded than they convince; or that he desires to debar others from the same freedom of reason which he has himself used. I shall therefore proceed to examine his opinion, and to show the reasons by which I am induced to differ from him.

The arguments upon which he has chiefly insisted, are the danger of hiring the troops of Hanover in any circumstances, and the impropriety of hiring them now without the previous approbation of the senate.

The danger of taking into our pay the forces of Hanover, the contrariety of this conduct to the act of settlement, and the infraction of our natural privileges, and the violation of our liberties which is threatened by it, have been asserted in very strong terms, but I think not proved with proportionate force; for we have heard no regular deduction of consequences by which this danger might be shown, nor have been informed, how the engagement of sixteen thousand Hanoverians to serve us against France for the ensuing year, can be considered as more destructive to our liberties than any other forces.

It is, indeed, insinuated, that this conduct will furnish a dangerous precedent of preference granted to Hanover above other nations; and that this preference may gradually be advanced, till in time Hanover may, by a servile ministry, be preferred to Britain itself, and that, therefore, all such partiality ought to be crushed in the beginning, and its authors pursued with indignation and abhorrence.

That to prefer the interest of Hanover to that of Britain would be in a very high degree criminal in a British ministry, I believe no man in this house will go about to deny; but if no better proof can be produced, that such preference is intended than the contract which we are now desired to ratify, it may be with reason hoped, that such atrocious treachery is yet at a great distance; for how does the hire of Hanoverian troops show any preference of Hanover to Britain?

The troops of Hanover are not hired by the ministry as braver or more skilful than those of our own country; they are not hired to command or to instruct, but to assist us; nor can I discover, supposing it possible to have raised with equal expedition the same number of forces in our own country, how the ministry can be charged with preferring the Hanoverians by exposing them to danger and fatigue.

But if it be confessed, that such numbers would not possibly be raised, or, at least, not possibly disciplined with the expedition that the queen of Hungary required, it will be found, that the Hanoverians were at most not preferred to our own nation, but to other foreigners, and for such preference reasons have been already given which I shall esteem conclusive, till I hear them confuted.

The other objection on which the honourable gentleman thought it proper to insist, was the neglect of demanding from the senate a previous approbation of the contract which is now before us; a neglect, in his opinion, so criminal, that the ministry cannot be acquitted of arbitrary government, of squandering the publick money by their own caprice, and of assuming to themselves the whole power of government.

But the proof of this enormous usurpation has not yet been produced; for it does not yet appear, that there was time to communicate their designs to the senate, or that they would not have been defeated by communication; and, therefore, it is yet not evident, but that when they are censured for not having laid their scheme before the senate, they are condemned for omitting what was not possibly to be done, or what could not have been done, without betraying their trust, and injuring their country.

It is allowed, that the senate had resolved to assist the queen of Hungary; and, therefore, nothing remained for the ministers but to execute with their utmost address the resolution that had been formed; if for the prosecution of this design they should be found to have erred in their choice of means, their mistakes, unless some ill designs may justly be suspected, are to be imputed to the frailty of human nature, and rather to be pitied, and relieved as misfortunes, than punished as crimes.

But I doubt not, that in the course of our deliberations, we shall find reason for concluding that they have acted not only with fidelity but prudence; that they have chosen the means by which the great end which the senate proposed, the succour of the queen of Hungary, and consequently the reestablishment of the balance of power, will be most easily attained; and that they have taken into the pay of this nation those troops which may be trusted with the greatest security, as they have the same prince, and the same interest.

But the honourable gentleman appears inclined to advance a new doctrine, and to insinuate, that when any vote is passed by the senate, the ministers are to suppose some conditions which are to be observed, though they were never mentioned, and without which the voice of the senate is an empty sound. In pursuance of this supposition, he calls upon us to recollect the time and circumstances in which this vote was passed; he reminds us, that the concession was made in a sudden exultation of our hearts, in the raptures of triumph, and amidst the shouts of conquest, when every man was forming expectations which have never been gratified, and planning schemes which could never be perfected.

He seems therefore to think, that our ministers insidiously took advantage of our intoxication, and betrayed us in a fit of thoughtless jollity to a promise, which when made, we hardly understood, and which we may, therefore, now retract. He concludes, that the concession which might then escape us ought not to have been snatched by our ministers, and made the foundation of their conduct, because they knew it was made upon false suppositions, and in prospect of a recompense that never would be granted.

I hope there is no necessity for declaring, that this reasoning cannot safely be admitted, since, if the vote of the senate be not a sufficient warrant for any measure, no man can undertake the administration of our affairs, and that government which no man will venture to serve must be quickly at an end.

For my part, I know not how the nation or the senate has been disappointed of any just expectations, nor can I conceive that any such disappointments vacate their votes or annul their resolutions, and therefore I cannot but think the ministry sufficiently justified, if they can show that they have not deviated from them.

Lord QUARENDON spoke next to the effect following:—Sir, I am so far from thinking that the past conduct or the present proposals of the ministry deserve approbation, that, in my opinion, all the arguments which have been produced in their favour are apparently fallacious, and even the positions on which they are founded, and which are laid down as uncontrovertible, are generally false.

It is first asserted, that we are indispensably obliged to assist the queen of Hungary against France, and to support her in the possession of the hereditary dominions of the Austrian house, and from thence is precipitately inferred the necessity of assembling armies, and hiring mercenaries, of exhausting our treasure, and heaping new burdens upon the publick.

That we concurred with other powers in promising to support the Pragmatick sanction is not to be denied, nor do I intend to insinuate, that the faith of treaties ought not strictly to be kept; but we are not obliged to perform more than we promised, or take upon ourselves the burden which was to be supported by the united strength of many potentates, and of which we only engaged to bear a certain part. We ought, undoubtedly, to furnish the troops which we promised, and ought to have sent them when they were first demanded; but there is no necessity that we should supply the deficiencies of every other power, and that we should determine to stand alone in defence of the Pragmatick sanction; that we should, by romantick generosity, impoverish our country, and entail upon remotest posterity poverty and taxes. We ought to be honest at all events; we are at liberty, likewise, to be generous at our own expense, but I think we have hardly a right to boast of our liberality, when we contract debts for the advantage of the house of Austria, and leave them to be paid by the industry or frugality of succeeding ages.

It is, therefore, at least, dubious, whether we ought to hazard more than we promised in defence of the house of Austria; and, consequently, the first proposition of those who have undertaken the defence of the ministry requires to be better established, before it becomes the basis of an argument.

But though it be allowed, that we ought to exceed our stipulations, and engage more deeply in this cause than we have promised, I cannot yet discover upon what principles it can be proved, that sixteen thousand Hanoverians ought to be hired. Why were not our troops sent which have been so long maintained at home only for oppression and show? Why have they not at last been shown the use of those weapons which they have so long carried, and the advantages of that exercise which they have been taught to perform with so much address? Why have they not, at length, been shown for what they had so long received their pay, and informed, that the duty of a soldier is not wholly performed by strutting at a review?

If it be urged, that so great a number could not be sent out of the kingdom without exposing it to insults and irruptions, let it be remembered how small a force was found sufficient for the defence of the kingdom in the late war, when the French were masters of a fleet which disputed, for many years, the empire of the sea; and it will appear, whether it ought to be imputed to prudence or to cowardice, that our ministers cannot now think the nation safe without thrice the number, though our fleets cover the ocean, and steer from one coast to another without an enemy.

But to show more fully the insufficiency of the vindication which has been attempted, and prove, that no concession will enable the ministry to defend their schemes, even this assertion shall be admitted. We will allow for the present, that it is necessary to garrison an island with numerous forces against an enemy that has no fleet. I will grant, that invaders may be conveyed through the air, and that the formidable, the detestable pretender may, by some subterraneous passage, enter this kingdom, and start on a sudden into the throne. Yet will not all this liberality avail our ministers, since it may be objected, that new forces might easily have been raised, and our own island have been, at once, defended, and the queen of Hungary assisted by our native troops.

Since the necessity of expedition is urged, it may reasonably be inquired, what it was that appeared so immediately necessary, or what has been brought to pass by this wonderful expedition? Was it necessary to form an army to do nothing? Could not an expedition in which nothing was performed, in which nothing was attempted, have been delayed for a short time, and might not the queen of Hungary have been preserved equally, whether the troops of her allies slept and fattened in her country or their own?

Nothing, surely, can be more ridiculous than to expatiate upon the necessity of raising with expedition an useless body of forces, which has only been a burden to the country in which it has been stationed, and for which pay is now demanded, though they have neither seen a siege nor a battle; though they have made no attempt themselves, nor hindered any that might have been made by the enemy.

To make this plea yet more contemptible, we are informed, that if we had raised an army of our countrymen, they would have been unacquainted with arms and discipline, and, therefore, they could not have done what has been done by these far-famed Hanoverians. This, indeed, I cannot understand, having never found, that the Britons needed any documents or rules to enable them to eat and drink at the expense of others, to bask in the sun, or to loiter in the street, or perform any of the wonders that may be ascribed to our new auxiliaries; and, therefore, I cannot but think, that all the actions of the four months for which those forces expect to be paid, might have been brought to pass by new-raised Britons, who might in the mean time have learned their exercise, and have been made equal to any other soldiers that had never seen a battle.

But if foreign troops were necessary, I am still at a loss to find out why those of Hanover were chosen, since it appears to me, that by hiring out his troops to Britain, our monarch only weakens one hand to strengthen the other. It might be expected, that he should have employed these troops against France without hire, since he is not less obliged, either by treaty or policy, to protect the house of Austria as elector of Hanover, than as king of Britain.

Since, therefore, the troops of Hanover were hired, without the consent of the senate, they have hitherto performed nothing; and since it is reasonable to expect, that without being paid by Britain they will be employed against the French, I think it expedient to discharge them from our service, and to delay the pay which is required for the last four months, till it shall appear how they have deserved it.

Mr. FOX then rose, and spoke to the following purport:—Sir, though the observations of the right honourable gentleman must be allowed to be ingenious, and though the eloquence with which he has delivered them, naturally excites attention and regard, yet I am obliged to declare, that I have received rather pleasure than conviction from his oratory; and that while I applaud his imagination and his diction, I cannot but conclude, that they have been employed in bestowing ornaments upon errour.

I shall not, indeed, attempt to confute every assertion which I think false, or detect the fallacy of every argument which appears to me sophistical, but shall leave to others the province of showing the necessity of engaging in the war on the continent, of employing a large force for the preservation of the house of Austria, and of forming that army with the utmost expedition, and of taking auxiliaries into our pay, and confine myself to this single question, whether, supposing auxiliaries necessary, it was not prudent to hire the troops of Hanover?

Nothing can be, in my opinion, more apparent, than that if the necessity of hiring troops be allowed, which surely cannot be questioned, the troops of Hanover are to be chosen before any other, and that the ministry consulted in their resolutions the real interest of their country, as well as that of our ally.

The great argument which has in all ages been used against mercenary troops, is the suspicion which may justly be entertained of their fidelity. Mercenaries, it is observed, fight only for pay, without any affection for the master whom they serve, without any zeal for the cause which they espouse, and without any prospect of advantage from success, more than empty praises, or the plunder of the field, and, therefore, have no motives to incite them against danger, nor any hopes to support them in fatigues; that they can lose nothing by flight, but plunder, nor by treachery, but honour; and that, therefore, they have nothing to throw into the balance against the love of life, or the temptations of a bribe, and will never be able to stand against men that fight for their native country under the command of generals whom they esteem and love, and whom they cannot desert or disobey, without exposing themselves to perpetual exile, or to capital punishment.

These arguments have always been of great force, and, therefore, that nation whose defence has been intrusted to foreigners, has always been thought in danger of ruin. Yet there have been conjunctures in which almost every state has been obliged to rely upon mercenaries, and in compliance with immediate necessity, to depend upon the fidelity of those who had no particular interest in supporting them. But with much greater reason may we trust the success of the present war, in some degree, to the troops of Hanover, as they are, perhaps, the only foreign forces against which the arguments already recited are of no force. They are foreigners, indeed, as they are born in another country, and governed by laws different from ours; but they are the subjects of the same prince, and, therefore, naturally fight under the same command; they have the same interest with ourselves in the present contest, they have the same hopes and the same fears, they recommend themselves equally to their sovereign by their bravery, and can neither discover cowardice nor treachery, without suffering all the punishment that can be feared by our native troops, since their conduct must be censured by the same prince of whose approbation they are equally ambitious, and of whose displeasure they are equally afraid.