Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/482

 468 give up the idea, and order his baggage on shore again. He assured parliament, however, that the spirit and magnanimity of the queen of Hungary, and the resolute conduct of the king of Sardinia in Italy, had produced the most beneficial effect. He maintained that Sweden had implored his good offices in procuring peace with Russia, and that the defensive alliances which he had made with the king of Prussia and the czarina, were events which could not have been expected if Great Britain had not manifested a seasonable spirit in the assistance of her ancient allies, and in maintaining the liberties of Europe. He added that the honour and interest of his crown and kingdom, the success of the war with Spain, the re-establishment of the balance and tranquillity of Europe, would greatly depend on the prudence and vigour of their resolutions.



The usual address, proposed by the marquis of Tweeddale, met with considerable opposition, especially in the upper house, from the earl of Chesterfield. Lyttleton again introduced the place-bill, but it was rejected by the very men who had formerly advocated it. There was another motion made for inquiry into the administration of Walpole, on the plea that that inquiry had been shamefully stifled on the former occasion; but it met with the same fate. But on the 10th of December the opposition mustered all its strength on the motion of Sir William Yonge, the new secretary-at-war, that we should pay for the sixteen thousand Hanoverians and the six thousand Hessians, and that a grant of six hundred and fifty-seven thousand pounds should be made for their maintenance from August, 1742, to December, 1743. It was the hard task of Sandys, as the new chancellor of the exchequer, to defend this monstrous grant and the interests of Hanover, after so many years of attack on these topics in opposition. Pitt answered Sandys in the most caustic style of his eloquence, and Sir John Aubyn and others followed as indignantly; but the ministers carried the motion by two hundred and sixty votes against one hundred and ninety-three. Their ablest supporter on this occasion was Murray, afterwards lord Mansfield, who made his first parliamentary speech on the occasion, and showed the delighted cabinet that the man whom they had just made their solicitor-general was capable of contending with that "terrible cornet of horse," Pitt.

But in the house of lords the motion and the millstone of Hanover were dealt with still more rigorously. The earl of Stanhope, the son of the late respected minister of that name, moved an address to beseech and advise his majesty, that, in compassion to his people, loaded already with numerous and heavy taxes, such large and growing debts and greater annual expenses than the nation had before borne, he would exonerate his subjects from the burthen of mercenaries engaged without the consent of parliament. The earl of Sandwich followed in terms of great contempt for Hanover, and the duke of Bedford was still more severe. He said that it was a public conviction that the measures of the English ministry were directed to the benefit of the electorate of Hanover instead of that of their own country. That, little as Hanover was, it was a gulph which swallowed up all the wealth of Great Britain. That by it we were involved in all the quarrels of the continent, with which we had no real concern whatever. That the state of