What honours our minifters and negotiators may expect to be paid to their wisdom, it is hard to determine, for the demands of vanity are not easily estimated. They fhould confider, before they call too loudly for encomiums, that they live in an age when the of gold power is no longer a fecret, and in which no man finds much difficulty in making a bargain with money in his hand. To hire troops is very eafy to thofe who are willing to pay their price. It appears, therefore, that whatever has been done, was done by means which every man knows how to use, if fortune is kind enough to put them in his power. To arm the nations of the north in the caufe of Britain, to bring down hofts against France from the polar circle, has indeed a found of magnificence, which might induce a mind unacquainted, with public affairs to imagine, that fome effort of policy more than human had been exerted, by which diftant nations were armed in our defence, and the influence of Britain was extended to the utmoft limits of the world. But when this ftriking phenomenon of negotiation is more nearly infpected, it appears a bargain merely mercantile of one power that wanted troops more than money, with another that wanted money, and was burdened with troops; between whom their mutual wants made an eafy contract, and who have no other friendship for each other, than reciprocal convenience happens to produce.

We fhall therefore leave the praises of our minifters to others, yet not without this acknowledgment, that if they have done little, they do not feem to boast of doing much; and that whether influenced by modesty or frugality, they have not wearied the public with mercenary panegyrifts,

panegyrifts, but have been content with the concurrence of the parliament, and have not much folicited the applaufes of the people.

In public as in private tranfactions, men more frequently deviate from the right for want of virtue than of wifdom; and thofe who declare themfelves diffatisfied with these treaties, impute them not to folly but corruption.

By these advocates for the independence of Britain, who, whether their arguments be just or not, seem to be most favourably heard by the people, it is alledged, that these treaties are expenfive without advantage; that they waste the treasure, which we want for our own defence, upon a foreign intereft; and pour the gains of our commerce into the coffers of princes, whofe enmity cannot hurt nor friendship help us; who fet their fubjects to fale like sheep or oxen, without any enquiry after the intentions of the buyer, and will withdraw the troops with which they have fupplied us, whenever a higher bidder fhall be found.

This perhaps is true, but whether it be true or false is not worth enquiry. We did not expect to buy their friendship, but their troops; nor did we examine upon what principle we were fupplied with affiftance; it was fufficient that we wanted forces, and that they were willing to furnish them. Policy never pretended to make men wife and good; the utmost of her power is to make the best use of men fuch as they are, to lay hold on lucky hours, to watch the present wants and prefent in terefts of others, and make them fubfervient to her own convenience.

It is farther urged with great vehemence, that these troops of Ruffia and Heffe are not hired in defence of Britain; that we are engaged in a naval war for territories on a diftant continent; and that thefe troops, though mercenaries, can never be auxiliaries; that they increase the burden of the war, without haftening its conclufion, or promoting its fuccefs; fince they can neither be fent into America, the only part of the world where England can, on the prefent occafion, have any employment for land forces, nor be put into our fhips, by which, and by which only, we are now to oppofe and fubdue our enemies.

Nature has stationed us in an island inacceffible but by fea; and we are now at war with an enemy, whofe naval power is inferior to our own, and from whom therefore we are in no danger of invafion: to what purpofe then are troops hired in fuch uncommon numbers? To what end do we procure ftrength which we cannot exert, and exhauft the nation with fubfidies at a time when nothing is difputed, which the princes who receive our fubfidies can defend? If we had purchafed fhips, and hired feamen, we had apparently increafed our power, and made ourselves formidable to our enemies, and, if any increase of security be poffible, had fecured ourselves ftill better from invafions: but what can the regiments of Ruffia or of Heffe contribute to the defence of the coafts of England; or by what affiftance can they repay us the fums which we have ftipulated to pay for their coftly friendship?

The King of Great-Britain has indeed a territory on the continent, of which the natives of this island scarcely

knew

knew the name till the prefent family was called to the throne, and yet know little more than that our King vifits it from time to time. Yet for the defence of this country are these fubfidies apparently paid, and these troops evidently levied. The riches of our nation are fent into distant countries, and the strength which should be employed in our own quarrel confequently impaired, for the fake of dominions, the interest of which has no connection with ours, and which, by the act of fucceffion, we took care to keep feparate from the British kingdoms.

To this the advocates for the fubfidies fay, that unreasonable ftipulations, whether in the act of fettlement or any other contract, are in themselves void; and that if a country connected with England by fubjection to the fame fovereign, is endangered by an English quarrel, it must be defended by English force; and that we do not engage in a war for the fake of Hanover, but that Hanover is for our fake exposed to danger.

Those who brought in these foreign troops have still fomething further to fay in their defence, and of no honeft plea is it our intention to defraud them. They grant, that the terror of invafion may poffibly be groundlefs, that the French may want the power or the courage to attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewife, that an invafion is poffible, that the armies of France are fo numerous that she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself expofed; that fhe is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and would be willing to do us mifchief at her own peril. They allow that the invaders may be intercepted at fea, or that, if they land, they may be defeated by our native

troops.

troops. But they fay, and fay justly, that danger is better avoided than encountered; that thofe ministers confult more the good of their country who prevent invafion, than repel it; and that if thefe auxiliaries have only faved us from the anxiety of expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and diftrefs which an invafion, how foon foever repreffed, would have produced, the public money is not spent in vain.

These arguments are admitted by fome, and by others rejected. But even those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of neceffity; for they confider the reception of mercenaries into our country as the defperate remedy of defperate diftrefs; and think with great reason, that all means of prevention fhould be tried to fave us from any fecond need of fuch doubtful fuccours.

That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and fkill, and courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the opinion of every Englishman who can think without prejudice, and speak without influence; and therefore it will not be eafy to perfuade the nation, a nation long renowned for valour, that it can need the help of foreigners to defend it from invafion. We have been long without the need of arms by our good fortune, and long without the use by our negligence; fo long, that the practice and almost the name of our old trained-bands is forgotten. But the story of ancient times will tell us, that the trained-bands were once able to maintain the quiet and fafety of their country; and reafon without history will inform us, that those men are most likely to fight

bravely,