The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11.: Parlimentary Debates II.Johnson, Samuel
History
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11.: Parlimentary Debates II.
Johnson, Samuel
Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons -- History -- 18th century
For these great purposes, my lords, are those auxiliaries retained, of
which some lords now require the dismission; and those armies
transported, which part of the nation is by false reports inclined to
recall; but I hope that such unreasonable demands will not be
gratified, and that the faith of treaties, the ties of friendship, the
call of justice, and the expectations of our allies, will easily
prevail upon your lordships to despise the murmurs of prejudice, and
the outcries of faction.
Lord BATH replied to the following effect:--My lords, as I am far from
thinking, that my advice or opinion can be of any use in this
illustrious assembly, I should have listened in silence to this
debate, important as it is, had I not thought it my duty to defend
here what I approved in the council; and considered it as an act of
cowardice and meanness to fall passively down the stream of
popularity, and to suffer my reason and my integrity to be overborne
by the noise of vulgar clamours, which have been raised against the
measures of the government by the low arts of exaggeration, fallacious
reasonings, and partial representations. It is not without concern, my
lords, that even in this house I observe some inclination to gratify
the prejudices of the people, and to confirm them in their contempt of
the foreign troops, by the poor artifice of contemptuous language. To
dispute about words, is, indeed, seldom useful; and when questions so
weighty as these are before us, may be justly censured as improper. I
shall, therefore, only observe that the term mercenaries, which is in
the motion applied to the forces of Hanover, seems designed rather to
affect the passions than influence the reason, and intended only to
express a partiality which cannot be justified.
But it is far more necessary, my lords, to consider upon what motives
the troops of Hanover were hired, than by what denomination they may
most properly be called; and therefore I shall endeavour to explain
the reasons which induced the ministry to retain them, and which, I
suppose, have prevailed upon the commons to provide for their support.
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