[Gray, in a letter to Wharton, gives the last sentence as follows: "My Lord (says he) for the two Kings and their Rights I cared not a Farthing which prevailed; but I was starving; and by God if Mahomet had set up his Standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Musselman for Bread, and stuck close to the Party, for I must eat."]
+Source.+--_The Marchmont Papers_, 1831. Vol. ii., pp. 314-319.
Our true interests require, that we should take few engagements on the Continent, and never those of making a land war, unless the conjuncture be such, that nothing less than the weight of Britain can prevent the scales of power from being quite overturned. This was the case surely, when we arrived in the Netherlands (1743) and when we marched into Germany. The first did some good, and as it was managed, some hurt. It divided the attention of France, and became a reason the more for recalling the army of Maillebois. But the fierce memorials, with which it was accompanied, and which breathed an immediate and direct war against France, frightened those, whom our arriving should have encouraged, and gave much advantage to the French in the Seven Provinces. The last, I mean our march to the Mayn [where the English encamped in May, 1744] and vast diversion we made by it, has had a full effect. The Bavarians are reduced to a neutrality, and the French, who threatened Vienna, to the defence of their own provinces. The defensive war the Queen of Hungary made on that side, is therefore at an end, strictly speaking; and your Lordship may think perhaps, that, this being so the case, wherein alone Great Britain ought to make war on the Continent, exists, no longer. It is, I own, very provoking to see, that the French are able at any time to invade their neighbours, to give law if they succeed, and not to receive it if they fail, but to retire behind their barrier, and defy from thence the just resentment of the enemies they have made; and yet we ought to consider very coolly, how far we suffer this provocation to have any share in determining our conduct in the present circumstances. I have seen the time, when the French would have given up the very barrier, that secures them now. We would not take it then. Can we force it now? I said once, that Bouchain had cost our nation above six millions; and they who were angry at the assertion [the Whigs] could not contradict it, since Bouchain was the sole conquest of 1711, and since the expence of that year's war amounted to little less. Are we able to purchase at such a rate? or do we hope to purchase at a cheaper, when my Lord Marlborough and Prince Eugene are no more?... We shall have a very nice game to play, for if our friends, the Austrians, would take advantage of too much facility to continue the war, our enemies, the Spaniards and the French, would certainly take advantage of too much haste to conclude it. This reflection becomes the more important, because the war we have with Spain, seems more likely to be determined in Italy than in America; and somewhere or other it must be determined to our advantage.... In all events, my dear Lord, and whatever peace we make, it will become an indispensable point of policy to be on our guard, after what has happened, against the joint ambition of the two branches of Bourbon, whom no acquisitions can satisfy, nor any treaties bind, and who have begun to act in late instances, as the two branches of Austria did in the last century. The treaty of quadruple alliance, and a long course of timid unmeaning negociations, unmeaning relatively to the interest of Great Britain, have encouraged this spirit. A contrary conduct must check it; and I will venture to say, that, the peace once made on terms less exorbitant, than some sanguine persons would expect, this may be done; and that vigor sufficient for this purpose will be found on the whole less expensive, with prudent management abroad, and honest economy at home, than the pusillanimity of that administration, which has made us despised by some of our neighbours, and distrusted by others, till France had a fair chance for giving the law to all Europe. But it is more than time that I should put an end to this political ramble. I mean it for you alone, and I am used to your indulgence. It is hardly possible, that you should write in answer to this letter, that is to come to me in France. It seemed to me, by the little conversation I had with some of your ministers when I was at London, that their way of thinking was not very distant from mine, about foreign affairs at least. Great Britain must have a peace, my Lord. Her ability to carry on this war, as little as it is, is greater, in my opinion, than that of France. But there are other invincible reasons against it.