The House promptly voted a million on account, but Pitt as usual uttered eloquent lamentations on the incapacity of Ministers and the calamitous situation of affairs. What was this vote of credit for? Was it to raise more men? We had already 40,000 British and 14,000 foreign troops. Was it for the purpose of marine treaties? Then he would joyfully vote it. For a naval war we could and ought to support, but a Continental war on the present system we could not. Regard should no doubt be had to Hanover, but a secondary regard. For if Hanover was to be our first object it would lead us to bankruptcy. It was impossible to defend Hanover by subsidies. How could an open country be defended against an enemy who could march 150,000 men into it, and if necessary reinforce them by as many more? Should Hanover suffer by her connection with Great Britain, we ought not to make peace without exacting full and ample compensation for all the damage and injury she might have sustained. But the idea of defending Hanover by subsidies was preposterous, absurd, and impracticable. Then, excited by this favourite theme beyond the limits he had imposed on himself, he struck home at the King and his darling patrimony. This system, he said, would in a few years, cost us more money than the fee simple of the electorate was worth, a place which after all could not be found in the map. He ardently wished us to break those fetters which chained us like Prometheus to that barren rock. (The metaphor which made a rock of Hanover does not strike one as one of his happiest efforts). If Lyttelton could not state the purpose for which this credit was designed, perhaps he could say for what it was not designed. Still, Pitt added sardonically, he was of so compounding a temper that he should assent to it. Ministers bragged of their unanimity and spirit. But what had all this army of councils and talents, this universal aye, produced? Were we safe? Had we inflicted any damage on the enemy? If so, when and where? He had no particular pleasure in thus speaking. He did not wish to load the unhappy men who had undone their country, most unhappy if they did not realise it. And our activity! Philosophers indeed had a phrase _vis inertiæ_ by which they denoted the inactivity of action (_sic_). Was it by that that we were to be saved? His charge against the Government was this: that we had provoked before we could defend, and neglected after provocation; that we were left inferior to France in every quarter; that the vote of credit had been misapplied to secure Hanover; and that we had bought a treaty with Prussia by sacrificing our rights. He would not have signed such a treaty to have the five great places of those who had signed it. Yet if this treaty were restrained to the defence of the King's dominions he should not know how to oppose it.