chickenfeet

I owne that let any War be ever so successful if persons will set down and weigh the Expences they will find... that it has impoverished he State, enriched individuals, and perhaps raised the Name only of the Conquerors, but this is only weighing such events in the Scale of a Tradesman behind his Counter; it is necessary for those in the Station it has pleased Divine Providence to place me to weigh whether expences though very great are not sometimes necessary to prevent what might be more ruinous to a Country than the loss of money.

Sir John Fortescue, The Correspondence of King George the Third, IV, (London 1928) pp. 350-1, the king to Lord North, 11 June 1779. The rest of the letter advances the king's own 'domino theory' to justify the use of force against the revolting American colonists.