It was imagined by that senate, that the electorate of Hanover, a
subordinate dignity, held by custom of homage to a greater power, ought
to be thought below the regard of the emperor of Britain, and that the
sovereign of a nation like this ought to remember a lower state only to
heighten his gratitude to the people by whom he was exalted. They were
far from imagining that Britain and Hanover would in time be considered
as of equal importance, and that their sovereign would divide his years
between one country and the other, and please himself with exhibiting in
Hanover the annual show of the pomp and dignity of a British emperor.

This clause, sir, however, a later senate readily repealed; upon what
motives I am not able to declare, having never heard the arguments which
prevailed upon their predecessors to enact it, confuted or invalidated;
nor have I found that the event has produced any justification of their
conduct, or that the nation has received any remarkable advantage from
the travels of our emperours.

There is another clause in that important act which yet the senate has
not adventured to repeal, by which it is provided, that this nation
shall not be engaged in war for the defence of the Hanoverian dominions;
dominions of which we can have no interest in the protection or
preservation; dominions, perhaps, of no great value, into whatever hands
chance and negligence may throw them, which their situation has made
entirely useless to a naval power; but which, though they cannot
benefit, may injure us, by diverting the attention of our sovereign, or
withholding his affections.

Whether this clause, sir, has not sometimes been eluded, whether the six
thousand Hessians, which we once supported, were of use to any of the