....

Hardwicke's uncompromisingly negative reply5 produced a second plea from Newcastle in which he argued: 'France will outdo us at sea when they have nothing to fear by land .... I have always maintained that our marine should protect our alliances upon the Continent; and they, by diverting the expense of France, enable us to maintain our superiority at sea.'6 Even this argument seems to have left both Hardwicke and Pelham un .... impressed. What in the end made it possible for Newcastle to convert his reluctant colleagues to his objective of securing a new Grand Alliance against France, buttressed by subsidies to the princes of Germany, was the twist given to the purposes of the subsidy treaties by the rising diplomatic star, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.