The elector of Bavaria expressed to Elliot, the
Chap. LVII.} |
On the last day of February, the treaties with Brunswick and Hesse were considered in the house of commons. Lord North said: ‘The troops are wanted; the terms on which they are procured, are less than we could have expected; the force will enable us to compel America to submission, perhaps without any further effusion of blood.’ He was answered by Lord John Cavendish: ‘The measure disgraces Britain and humiliates the king; it also impoverishes the country by its extravagance.’ ‘Our business will be effected within the year,’ replied Cornwall; ‘and if so, of which there is no reason to doubt, the troops are all had on lower terms than was ever known before.’ Lord Irnham took a broader view: ‘The landgrave of Hesse and the duke of Brunswick render Germany vile and dishonored in the eyes of all Europe, as a nursery of men for those who have most money. Princes who thus sell their subjects, to be sacrificed in destructive wars, commit the additional crime of making them destroy much better and nobler beings than themselves. The landgrave of Hesse has his prototype in Sancho Panza, who said that if he were a prince, he should wish all his subjects to be blackamoors, so that he could ’
