"'Let France damn the Germans, and undamn the Dutch, And Spain on old England pish ever so much; Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that, I care not, by _Robert, one kick of my hat!_ "'Or should my chous'd owners begin to look sour, I'll trust to _mate_ Bob to exert his old power, _Regit animos dictis_, or _numis_ with ease So, spite of your growling, I'll act as I please!'" The British Nation, described as the owners, are cautioned to look into the accounts of their Captain, who is bringing them to insolvency:-- "This secret, however, must out on the day When he meets his poor owners to ask for his pay; And I fear, when they come to adjust the account, A zero for balance will prove their amount." The final result of all these subsidy votes was to increase our national debt, up to the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, to £76,000,000; while the seven years' war, which came later, brought the debt to £133,000,000, not including in this the capitalized value of the terminable annuities. On November 22d, 1743, a caricature was published, which had a wide sale, and which represented the King as a fat Hanoverian white horse riding to death a nearly starved British lion. In 1744, £200,000 was voted, which King George and Lord Carteret, who was called by William Pitt, his "Hanoverian troop minister," had agreed to give the King of Sardinia. £40,000 was also voted for a payment made by the King to the Duke of Arenberg. This payment was denounced by Mr. Lyttelton as a dangerous misapplication of public money. The votes for foreign subsidies alone, in 1744, were £691,426, while the Hanoverian soldiers cost us £393,773. The King actually tried in addition, in the month of August, to get a further subsidy for his friend, the Elector of Saxony, and another for the King of Poland, and this when Englishmen and Irishmen were lacking bread. Nor was even a pretence made in some instances of earning the money. £150,000 was paid this year to keep Prince Charles in Alsace, and the moment Austria got the money, Prince Charles was withdrawn, and Henry Pelham, writing to the Duke of Newcastle, says, "The same will be the case with every sum of money we advance. The allies will take it, and then act as suits their convenience and security." In the four years from 1744 to 1747, both included, we paid £4,342,683 for foreign troops and subsidies, not including the Dutch and Hessians, whom we hired to put down the rebellion of 1745. In the case of the whole of this war, in which we subsidized all our allies except the Dutch, it is clear that the direct and sole blame rests upon the King, who cared nothing for English interests in the matter. When firmly remonstrated with by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, his reply was what the Duke of Newcastle describes as "almost sullen silence."