behaviour surprizes me not a little, because upon every Qh question respecting public asfairs they are always unani- ^ mous; andl consess it is to me a little astonishing that two x or three hundred gentlemen should, by an unaccountable sort of unanimity, always agree in opinion upon the many disserent questions which occur annually. I am convinced this surprizing unanimity does not proceed from any effect of the places they hold under the Crown; for if it did, a man's being possessed of any place under the Crown would in such a case, I am sure, be an infallible reason for the people not to trust him with the preservation of their liberties, or the disposal of their properties in Parliament.

"Then, as to the Tories, and suspected Jacobites, I am surprized to hear any comparison made between them and the sat man in the crowd. There are so sew of either in the kingdom that I am sure they can give no man an occasion for being afraid of them ; and therefore there is not the least shadow of reason for saying they are the occasion of our being obliged to keep such a numerous standing army.

"Our large army may properly be- compared to the sat man in the crowd; for the keeping up of such an army is the sirst cause of our discontents, and those discontents, now we find, are made the chief pretence for keeping the army. Remove therefore the army, or but a considerable part of it, and the discontents complained of will cease.

"I come now to the only argument the Hon. Gentleman made use of, which can admit a serious consideration; and if our army were intirely or but generally composed of veterans inured to the satigues and the dangers of war, and such as had often ventured their lives against the enemies of their country, I consess the argument would have a great weight; but considering the circumstances of our present army, I can hardly think my Hon. Friend was serious when he made use of such argument. As for the ossicers of the army they are quite out of the question; for in case of a reduction there is a handsome provision for every one of them: no man can doubt, nor would any man oppose, their being put upon half-pay; and I must observe that our half-pay is better, or as good, as sull pay, I believe, in any other

country

Chap. II country in Europe: for in the method our army is now kept up, I could (hew, by calculation, that it costs the na1738. tion more than would maintain three times the number of men either in France or Germany. And as for the soldiers I believe it may be said of at least three-fourths of them, that they never went under any satigue except that of a review, nor were ever exposed to any danger except in apprehending smugglers, or dispersing mobs; therefore I must think they have no claim for any greater reward than the pay they have already received, nor should I think we were guilty of the least ingratitude if they were all turned adrift to-morrow morning.

"But suppose, Sir, the soldiers of our army were all such who served a campaign or two against a public enemy ; is it from thence to be inserred that they mult for ever after live idly, and be maintained at the expence of their country, and that in such a manner as to be dangerous to the liberties of their country? At this rate if a man has but once ventured his lise in the service of his country, he must for ever be, not only a burthen, but a terror to his country. This would be a fort of reward which I am sure no brave toldier would accept of, nor any honest one desire. That we should shew a proper gratitude to those who have ventured their lives in the service of their country, is what I (hall readily acknowledge; but this gratitude ought to be (hewn in such a way as not to be dangerous to the liberties, nor tooburthensome to the people; and therefore after a war is at an end, if a soldier can provide for himself, either by his labour or by the means of his own private fortune, he ought not to expect, and is he is not of a mercenary disposition, he will scorn to receive, any other rewards than those which consist in the peculiar honour and privileges, which may and ought to .be conserred upon him.

"That we ought to (hew a proper gratitude to every , man who has ventured his lise in the cause of his country, is what, I am sure, no gentleman will deny: yet as the laws now stand, an old officer, who has often ventured his lise, and often spilt his blood in the service of his country, may be dismissed and reduced, perhaps to a starving condition, at the arbitrary will and pleasure, perhaps at the whim, of a minister ; so that by the present

establishment establishment of the army, the reward of a soldier seems Chap.II. not to depend upon the services done to his country, but ^*^~s^/ upon the services he does to those who happen to be Mi- 1739-1' nisters at the time. Must not this be allowed to be a desect in the present establishment? And yet when a law was proposed for supplying this desect, we may remember what reception it met with, even from those who now insist so highly upon the gratitude we ought to shew the gentlemen of the army."

On the 8th of March, 1739, Mr- H- ^cUpole

having moved that an addresses thanks be presented to the king, on the convention with Spain, this motion brought on a long debate; in which Mr. Pitt followed Mr. Howe (afterwards created Lord Chedwortti) who spoke for the address, Mr. Pitt against it, viz.

"I can by no means think that the complicated questi- Speech upon now before us is the proper, the direct manner of on the taking the sense of this committee. We have here the Spanish soft name of an humble address to the crown proposed, convenand for no other end but to lead gentlemen into an appro- tlon" bation of the convention. But is this that sull deliberate examination which we were with dessiance called upon to give? Is this cursory blended disquisition of matters of such variety and extent, all we owe to ourselves and our country? When trade is at stake it is your last retrenchment; you must desend it, or perish, and whatever is to decide that deserves the most distinct consideration, and the most direct undisguised sense of Parliament. But how are we now proceeding? Upon an artisicial, ministerial question: here is all the considence, here is the conscious sense of the greatest service that ever was done to this country; to be complicating questions, to be lumping sanction and approbation like a Commissary's accompt; to be covering and taking sanctuary in the royal name, instead of meeting openly and standing sairly the direct judgment and sentence of parliament upon the several articles of this convention.

"You have been moved to vote an humble address of thanks to his majesty for a measurewhich (I will appeal to

Vol. I. C gentlemen's

Chap. II. gentlemen's conversation in the worlds is odious through

m 'out the kingdom : such thanks are only due to the fatal

1739- influence that framed it, as are due sor that low, onallied condition abroad, which is now made a plea for this convention. To what are gentlemen reduced in support of it? First try a little to desend it upon its own merits; if that is not tenable, throw out general terrors, the House os Bourbon Is united, who knows the consequence of a war? Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains it must prove satal to her; she knows it, and must therefore avoid it: but she knows England does not dare to make it, and what is a delay, which is all this magnisied convention is sometimes called, to produce? Can it produce such conjunctures as those you lost, while you were giving kingdoms to Spain, and all to bring her back again to that great branch of the House of Bourbon which is now thrown out to you with so much terror? If this union be formidable, are we to delay only till it becoms more formidable by being carried surther into execution, and more strongly cemented? But be it what it will, is this any longer a nation, or what is an English Parliament, if with more (hips in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatissactory, dishonourable convention? Sir, I call it no more than it has been proved in this debate; it carries sallacy or down right subjection in almost every line. It has been laid open and exposed in so many strong and glaring lights that I can pretend to add nothing to the conviction and indignation it has raised.

"Sir, as to the great national objection, the searching your ships, that favourite word, as it was called, is . not omitted, indeed, in the preamble to the Convention, but it stands there as the reproach of the whole, as the strongest evidence of the satal submission that follows: on the part of Spain an usurpation, an inhuman tyranny claimed and exercised over the American seas; on the part of England an undoubted right by treaties and from God and nature, declared and asserted in the resolutions of Parliament, are reserred to the discussion of Plenipotentiaries, upon one and the same equal foot. Sir, I say this undoubted right is to be discussed and regulated. Chap. 1t, And if to regulate be to prescribe rules (as in all construe- v----~,— tion it is) this right is, by the express words of this con- 17 39. vention, to be given up and sacrisiced; for it must cease to be any thing, from the moment it is submitted to limits.

"The court of Spain has plainly told you (as appears by papers upon the table) you shall steer a due course, you shall navigate, by a line to and from your plantations in America; if you draw near to her coasts (though from the circumstances of that navigation you are under an unavoidable necessity of doing it) you shall be seized and confiscated. If then upon these terms only she has consented to reser, what becomes at once of all the security we are flattered with in consequence of this reserence? Plenipotentiaries are to regulate finally the respective pretensions of the two crowns with regard to trade and navigation in America; but does a man in Spain reason that these pretentions must be regulated to the satissaction and honour of England? No, Sir, they conclude, and with reason, from the high spirit of their administration, from the superiority with which they have so long treated you, that this reserence must end, as it has begun, to their honour and advantage.

"But, gentlemen say, the treaties subsisting are to be the measure of this regulation: Sir, as to treaties, I will take part of the words os Sir William Temple, quoted by the Hon. Gentleman near me. It is vain to negotiate and make treaties, if there is not dignity and vigour to ensorce the observance of them; for under the misconstruction and misrepresentation of these very treaties subsisting, this intolerable grievance has arisen ; it has been growing upon you, treaty after treaty, through twenty years of negociation, and even under the discussion of Commissaries to whom it was reserred. You have heard from Captain Vaughan at your bar, at what time these injuries and indignities were continued; as a kind of explanatory comment upon the convention, Spain has thought sit to grant you; as another insolent protest, under the validity and force of which she has suffered this convention to be proceeded upon. We'll treat with you, but we'll search and take your ships; we'll sign a convention, but wi'll keep your subjects prisoners, prisoners in old C 3 Spain;