This also hath been the occasion that your Majesty hath been straitened in your convoys for trade; your coasts have been exposed, for want of a sufficient number of cruisers to guard them; and you have been disabled from annoying the enemy, in their most beneficial commerce with the West Indies, from whence they received those vast supplies of treasure, without which they could not have supported the expenses of this war.
"That part of the war which hath been carried on in Flanders, was at first immediately necessary to the security of the States General, and hath since brought them great acquisitions, both of revenue and dominion; yet even there the original proportions have been departed from, and, during the course of the war, have been sinking by degrees on the part of Holland; so that in this last year, we find the number in which they fell short of their three-fifths, to your Majesty's two-fifths, have been twenty thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven men: we are not unmindful, that in the year one thousand seven hundred and three, a treaty was made between the two nations, for a joint augmentation of twenty thousand men, wherein the proportions were varied, and England consented to take half upon itself.

But it having been annexed as an express condition to the grant of the said augmentation in Parliament, that the States General should prohibit all trade and commerce with France, and that condition having not been performed by them, the Commons think it reasonable, that the first rule of three to two ought to have taken place again, as well in that as in other subsequent augmentations, more especially when they consider, that the revenues of those rich provinces which have been conquered, would, if they were duly applied, maintain a great number of new additional forces against the common enemy; notwithstanding which, the States General have raised none upon that account, but make use of those fresh supplies of money, only to ease themselves in the charge of their first established quota.
"As in the progress of the war in Flanders, a disproportion was soon created to the prejudice of England; so the very beginning of the war in Portugal, brought an unequal share of burden upon us; for although the Emperor and the States General were equally parties with your Majesty in the treaty with the King of Portugal, yet the Emperor neither furnishing his third part of the troops and subsidies stipulated for, nor the Dutch consenting to take an equal share of his Imperial Majesty's defect upon themselves, your Majesty hath been obliged to furnish two-thirds of the entire expense created by that service.

Nor has the inequality stopped there; for ever since the year one thousand seven hundred and six, when the English and Dutch forces marched out of Portugal into Castile, the States General have entirely abandoned the war in Portugal, and left your Majesty to prosecute it singly at your own charge, which you have accordingly done, by replacing a greater number of troops there, than even at first you took upon you to provide.

At the same time your Majesty's generous endeavours for the support and defence of the King of Portugal, have been but ill seconded by that Prince himself; for notwithstanding that by his treaty he had obliged himself to furnish twelve thousand foot, and three thousand horse, upon his own account, besides eleven thousand foot, and two thousand horse more, in consideration of a subsidy paid him; yet, according to the best information your Commons can procure, it appears, that he hath scarce at any time furnished thirteen thousand men in the whole.
"In Spain the war hath been yet more unequal, and burdensome to your Majesty, than in any other branch of it; for being commenced without any treaty whatsoever, the allies have almost wholly declined taking any part of it upon themselves.

A small body of English and Dutch troops were sent thither in the year one thousand seven hundred and five, not as being thought sufficient to support a regular war, or to make the conquest of so large a country; but with a view only of assisting the Spaniards to set King Charles upon the throne; occasioned by the great assurances which were given of their inclinations to the House of Austria: but this expectation failing, England was insensibly drawn into an established war, under all the disadvantages of the distance of the place, and the feeble efforts of the other allies.