1st. That they made a scandalous peace, unjustly broke the alliance, betrayed the confederates, and sold us all to the French.
God forbid it should be all truth, in the manner that we see it in print; but that I say is none of my business. But what hand had I in all this? I never wrote one word for the peace before it was made, or to justify it after it was made; let them produce it if they can. Nay, in a Review upon that subject while it was making, I printed it in plainer words than other men durst speak it at that time, that I did not like the peace, nor did I like any peace that was making since that of the partition, and that the protestant interest was not taken care of either in that or the treaty of Gertrudenburgh before it.
It is true that I did say, that since the peace was made, and we could not help it, that it was our business and our duty to make the best of it, to make the utmost advantage of it by commerce, navigation, and all kind of improvement that we could, and this I say still; and I must think it is more our duty to do so than the exclamations against the thing itself, which it is not in our power to retrieve. This is all that the worst enemy I have can charge me with. After the peace was made, and the Dutch and the emperor stood out, I gave my opinion of what I foresaw would necessarily be the consequence of that difference, viz., that it would inevitably involve these nations in a war with one or other of them; any one who was master of common sense in the public affairs might see that the standing out of the Dutch could have no other event. For if the confederates had conquered the French, they would certainly have fallen upon us by way of resentment, and there was no doubt but the same councils that led us to make a peace would oblige us to maintain it, by preventing too great impressions upon the French.
On the other hand, I alleged, that should the French prevail against the Dutch, unless he stopped at such limitations of conquest as the treaty obliged him to do, we must have been under the same necessity to renew the war against France; and for this reason, seeing we had made a peace, we were obliged to bring the rest of the confederates into it, and to bring the French to give them all such terms as they ought to be satisfied with.
This way of arguing was either so little understood, or so much maligned, that I suffered innumerable reproaches in print for having written for a war with the Dutch, which was neither in the expression, nor ever in my imagination; but I pass by these injuries as small and trifling compared to others I suffer under.
However, one thing I must say of the peace, let it be good or ill in itself, I cannot but think we have all reason to rejoice in behalf of his present majesty, that at his accession to the crown he found the nation in peace, and had the hands of the king of France tied up by a peace so as not to be able, without the most infamous breach of articles, to offer the least disturbance to his taking a quiet and leisurely possession, or so much as to countenance those that would.
Not but that I believe, if the war had been at the height, we should have been able to have preserved the crown for his present majesty, its only rightful lord; but I will not say it should have been so easy, so bloodless, so undisputed as now; and all the difference must be acknowledged to the peace, and this is all the good I ever yet said of it.
I come next to the general clamour of the ministry being for the pretender. I must speak my sentiments solemnly and plainly, as I always did in that matter, viz., that if it was so, I did not see it, nor did I ever see reason to believe it; this I am sure of, that if it was so, I never took one step in that kind of service, nor did I ever hear one word spoken by any one of the ministry that I had the honour to know or converse with, that favoured the pretender; but have had the honour to hear them all protest that there was no design to oppose the succession of Hanover in the least.
It may be objected to me, that they might be in the interest of the pretender for all that; it is true they might, but that is nothing to me. I am not vindicating their conduct, but my own; as I never was employed in anything that way, so I do still protest I do not believe it was ever in their design, and I have many reasons to confirm my thoughts in that case, which are not material to the present case. But be that as it will, it is enough to me that I acted nothing in any such interest, neither did I ever sin against the protestant succession of Hanover in thought, word, or deed; and if the ministry did, I did not see it, or so much as suspect
them of it.
It was a disaster to the ministry, to be driven to the necessity of taking that set of men by the hand, who nobody can deny, were in that interest; but as the former ministry answered, when they were charged with a design to overthrow the church, because they favoured, joined with, and were united to the dissenters; I say they answered, that they made use of the dissenters, but granted them nothing (which, by the way, was too true;) so these gentlemen answer, that it is true they made use of jacobites, but did nothing for them.