The time, my lords, at which we shall be thus exhausted, at which we shall be reduced to an absolute inability to raise an army or equip a fleet, is not at a great distance. If our late profusion be for a short time continued, we shall quickly have drained the last remains of the wealth of our country. We have long gone on from year to year, raising taxes and contracting debts; and unless the riches of Britain are absolutely unlimited, must in a short time reduce them to nothing. Our expenses are not all, indeed, equally destructive; some, though the method of raising them be vexatious and oppressive, do not much impoverish the nation, because they are refunded by the extravagance and luxury of those who are retained in the pay of the court; but foreign wars threaten immediate destruction, since the money that is spent in distant countries can never fall back into its former channels, but is dissipated on the continent, and irrecoverably lost. When this consideration is present to my mind, and, on this occasion, no man who has any regard for himself or his posterity can omit it, I cannot but think with horrour on a vote by which such prodigious sums are wafted into another region: I cannot but tremble at the sound of a tax for the support of a foreign war, and think a French army landed on our coasts not much more to be dreaded than the annual payment to which we appear now to be condemned, and from which nothing can preserve us but the address which is now proposed. By what arguments the commons were persuaded, or by what motives incited to vote a supply for the support of this mercenary force, I have not yet heard; nor, as a member of this house, my lords, was it necessary for me to inquire. Their authority, though mentioned with so much solemnity on this occasion, is to have no influence on our determinations. If they are mistaken, it is more necessary for us to inquire with uncommon caution. If they are corrupt, it is more necessary for us to preserve our integrity. If we are to comply blindly with their decisions, our knowledge and experience are of no benefit to our country, we only waste time in useless solemnities, and may be once more declared useless to the publick. The commons, my lords, do not imagine themselves, nor are imagined by the nation, to constitute the legislature. The people, when any uncommon heat prevails in the other house, disturbs their debates, and overrules their determinations, have been long accustomed to expect redress and security from our calmer counsels; and have considered this house as the place where reason and justice may be heard, when, by clamour and uproar, they are driven from the other. On this occasion, my lords, every Briton fixes his eye upon us, and every man who has sagacity enough to discover the dismal approach of publick poverty, now supplicates your lordships, by agreeing to this address, to preserve him from it.