Sir George Lyttelton said he did not mean to restrain invectives; desired no man’s mouth should be free from them but his own; urged that the treaty specified, if we were attacked ourselves, that we should not be obliged to furnish twelve ships to Muscovy. That if either treaty tended to war, or to provoke Prussia, they would deserve censure; but they were merely defensive; the troops even not to move unless we required it. Defence is not injury; provision is not provocation. The King of Prussia would have a higher esteem for our Government; he knows that whoever desires peace, must prepare for war. Despair is the worst and weakest of councils. Fortitude and wisdom will find resources, as the Queen of Hungary did, in 1741: we [were] not in so bad a situation by a thousand degrees. Had we then retained the Russians, that war had been prevented. Here were no plans of partition. Unallied, we could make no diversion to France. France unassisted would not dare to disturb the peace of the Empire. Would you have trusted to France for not violating the Law of Nations? _Cæsar ashamed! has he not seen Pharsalia?_ Our trade could not be preserved if the balance of Europe overturned, nor that balance overturned, without some assistance from hence. Subsidiary treaties must be struck at lucky moments, when the occasion offers itself. Legge, in reply, asked if, because it was possible that France might draw us upon the continent, we ought to mark out the way for her?--but the Ministers, indeed, by way of defence, had endeavoured to reduce the treaties to no meaning. All they pretended was to make magazines of 140,000 men _standing at livery_, to supply our contingents; though all our Allies told us they were at peace. For Hesse-Cassel, one would think we were as ignorant of the topography of it as if it belonged to ourselves. In five weeks the Hessians might be ready to be prevented by the wind from coming to our assistance! That little country, since 1726, had received two millions of our money! When in danger, we wanted them--but they were in other pay, and did not behave quite so ill as when in ours. At Bergopzoom they behaved shamefully! We lost a good officer there--while he was endeavouring to persuade them but to look over the parapet. There was no end of objections to them! They occasioned the loss of the battle of Laffelt. In Scotland they would not fight because no cartel was settled with Rebels. The present Landgrave was old; the next would be a papist: subjects of a papist, would we wish them here to fight against the French? Colonel Haldane bore testimony to the Hessians behaving well at Roucoux,--not so well at Laffelt, yet not very infamously: the Prince of Hesse, with tears, tried to rally them. Colonel Griffin deposed that he did see them rally there.