ed that reputation for which our ancestors were always renowned in war? I wish it could be answered in the affirmative.

WHAT then has been done by those numerous and expenfive fubfidiaries? they marched and counter-marched thro' Germany, thro' Flanders, upon the Rhine, the Maes, the Danube; and I think once our fubfidiary auxiliaries penetrated to the walls of Toulon, which must have surrendered had they vigorously feconded the efforts of the British fleet. One war got us the treaty of Refwick; another, the treaty of Utrecht; a third, the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, without either principal, interest, costs, or damages; but a debt, which, if not timely prevented, muft reduce us to beggary and contempt.

Is not fuch a roll of debts; is not fuch a chain of fruitless campaigns; the accumulated loffes of public treasure, national reputation, and of British blood, enough to perfuade us to cast off that ruinous policy of trufting the honour and constitution of this nation, to the courage and fidelity of foreign aid? we have no enemy that has not fled before the British arms. we can hire no forces that will not deceive us : or which are not bound by the common ties of intereft to exert their whole ftrength for selfpreservation without a bribe.

And

BUT it has always been a fort of infatuation, when the King of England held any favourite country independant of his crown, to engage a

foreign

foreign army to cover it from furprize. This

was the foundation of all the troubles between the fovereign and the subject, when the patrimonial estates of the Plantagenets were continually draining the Exchequer, and driving the miniftry upon oppreffive measures, to raise money to pay large fubfidiary armies. And to prevent the like for the future, it was wifely provided in the act of fettlement, That no war (either by British troops, or forces in British pay) fhall be undertaken in defence of any country not fubject to Great Britain, without confent of parliament: a provifo founded on the strongest reafon. No nation can be easy under the continual demands for money to defend a people that are fubject to other laws, and fwayed by another interest:

Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.

WHAT gave the people fo mean an opinion of their King, and emboldened the difaffected lords to threaten the crown of Henry III. fo much, as the lofs he sustained, and the disgrace he drew upon himself, by playing the knighterrand a whole fummer upon the continent, with a large foreign army paid out of the estates and industry of his English subjects? by this he loft his credit abroad, and the confidence of his own people; who from that time were very cautious how they trufted him with their property or their liberties and his neglect of the marine, whofe

I 3

whofe appointments he confumed upon his fubfidiary troops, loft him the affections of the mariners; the want of whofe aid he woefully experienced, when his mercenary hirelings left him to the mercy of his enemies.

EDWARD II. who did not want perfonal courage, loft the greatest victory the Scots ever won, and the future help of his nobility, by the cowardice of an army of foreigners. And the worft ftep taken by his fon Edward III. after his minority, was the engaging, by large fums of money, the most powerful German princes to affift him in the recovery of his patrimonial eftates on the continent. For, they either dropped him in the time of action, or were fo long in their march, that he was obliged to fubmit to an inglorious truce: a fault in politics which he ever after avoided, and which convinced him, that in all foreign fubfidies, a British Monarch is no farther concerned than for the fake of his treasure. This must be paid by his fubjects, let the event be ever fo hurtful to the nation.

How different was that glorious expedition, when he, trufting to his navy and thirty-two thousand of his own fubjects, marched up to the walls of Paris, braved the enemy in his capital, routed one hundred and fixty thousand French and their Allies, and forced Calais, the key of their nation, to furrender at difcretion? And ten thousand of these invincible Britons routed the whole power of France at Agincourt and Poitou, and carried her captive King and

the

the flower of her nobility to decorate their triumphant entry into the city of London.

GLORY and fuccefs crowned every campaign, when these princes refted on the courage and fidelity of their own fubjects: difgrace in the field, and difcontent at home, were the certain effects of trusting to the ftrength and fair promises of fubfidiary forces. Shall a nation that has been thus impoverished, difgraced and brought to the brink of ruin by purchafing foreign alliances, run headlong into the fame meafures? did not the people in those times depend upon their reprefentatives for relief against the intolerable load of taxes, and other oppreffions made use of by the miniftry to pay thofe inglorious Germans? did not they always please themselves with the expectation of finding a fure redrefs from their reprefentatives affembled in parliament? neither did they fail in their expectation. What could they have thought of a parliament, that from year to year would have agreed to the continuance of fubfidiary contracts, when Britain had nothing to fear on the continent; and every thing that a Briton eats, drinks, or wears, muft be taxed towards the maintenance of a people, whofe faith is not to be depended on, and, who were never remarkable for their hireling courage? I am afraid they would have foon loft the people's confidence and affections; who would have looked upon them not as their representatives or guardians of I 4

their

their liberties, but as the infignificant tools of a court, and the hireling fupporters of an administration.

CAN it be thought that a nation, which was fo fuccessful and glorious, and always a terror to France, when it depended on its own strength, should now be obliged to feek foreign aid to support us against so inconfiderable an enemy; especially when we have a fleet that maintains the dominion of the fea, and no land on the continent to defend ?

WHERE is there a nation or people of any confideration, that have not experienced the good effects of our aid; or fome fatal overthrow by the British arms? it was the English bravery that made the high and mighty States of Holland a free people. It was the fame power that forced the French Monarch to grant the edict of Nantz to his Proteftant fubjects. How often have the vast dominions of Spain trembled at the fight, I may say, at the name only of a Briton ? and fhall it be recorded to pofterity, that there was a generation descended from that race of warriors and champions, that either would not, or could not be trufted to fight their own battles? or that there was a time when the people were difarmed; their lives and fortunes, their King and country, their religion and their laws were committed to the care of a standing army at home; and their intereft on the continent fupported by an army of people defcended from

thofe