plantations in America, that treaties alone would not bind those Powers which might seem to have advantages in prospect from opportune aggression, and that 'the interposition of a British Parliament would be more respected and more effectual than the occasional expedients of fluctuating and variable negotiations, which in former times have been often more adapted to the present necessities of the ministers than to the real honour and lasting security of the nation'. The second Protest[1] was framed on the rejection of a motion that a secret committee, consisting of those Peers who were Privy Councillors, be appointed to inquire into the conduct of the war against Spain towards the close of Walpole's ministry. 'The so-often urged argument of secrecy', which in another Protest of the same times[2] was termed 'the stale objection', is an argument, it was said, that 'proves too much, and may as often without as with reason be used in bar of all inquiries, that any Administration, conscious either of their guilt or their ignorance, may desire to defeat'. Secrecy of this 'timorous' and 'scrupulous' kind was 'much oftener the refuge of guilt than the resort of innocence'. The case for inquiry and for openness in the conduct of foreign policy was ably presented in the House of Commons by Wyndham in the session 1733–4, when the Polish Succession—or Election—War was in progress. A motion that the letters and instructions to British ministers in France and Spain be produced was rejected by 195 votes to 104. Wyndham argued that Parliament, if denied such knowledge, could not sustain its part in upholding the interests of the nation abroad, and could not comprehend the extent of the interests of Britain in the war which was at that time being fought on the Continent without her. Even if we were to take no part in the war, it was necessary to provide for the safety of the nation;
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Diplomacy and the
