"When the world shall see that you will not suffer the British crown and nation to be menaced and insulted, those who most envy the present happiness and tranquillity of this empire, and are endeavouring to make us subservient to their ambition, will consider their own interest and circumstances before they make any attempt upon so brave a people, strengthened and supported by prudent and powerful alliances, and though desirous to preserve the peace, able and ready to defend themselves against the efforts of all aggressors. Such resolutions and such measures, timely taken, I am satisfied, are the most effectual means of preventing a war, and continuing to us the blessings of peace and prosperity." Who would not have been terrified, my lords, at a treaty like this? Our religion was to be destroyed, our government subverted, and our trade reduced to nothing. What could a ministry, thus intimidated, do, but resign themselves implicitly to the direction of a kind neighbour, that promised to shelter them from the storm? There have been ministers, my lords, in former times, who, upon hearing such a representation, would have considered, that Britain was an island, that the pretender could not be forced upon us without an army, and that an army could not be transported without ships, that the emperour of Germany had neither navies nor ports, that Gibraltar might be easily supplied with every thing requisite for its defence, and that any attempt made by Spain to injure our trade, might easily be punished by intercepting their Plate fleets. They would then have considered whether attempts so improbable, and stipulations so absurd and ridiculous, ought to be credited upon the information of an ambassadour's secretary, who, as he proposed to reveal his master's secrets for a bribe, might as probably take another reward for imposing upon those whom he pretended to inform. Those, therefore, who advised his majesty to assert to the senate what they knew from no better authority, those whose daring insolence could make their sovereign instrumental in alarming the people with false terrours, and oppressing them with unnecessary burdens, well deserve to feel a senatorial censure. But our ministers, my lords, were too much frighted to make such reflections: they imagined that destruction was hanging over us, and, in a dread of arbitrary government, oppression, and persecution, concluded at Hanover a treaty with the French. Thus the French gained our confidence, and raised in us a distrust of both the powers with whom it was our interest to be united: but the alliance of the emperour of Germany with Spain made them still uneasy; and, therefore, they determined, once more, to make our credulity instrumental in procuring a reconciliation between them and the Spaniards.