ts, I should think it of great advantage to the
despatch of publick affairs, if they would content themselves with
voting for their pay, without any ambition of other service, or adding
the praise of volubility to that of steadiness.

Having this opportunity, sir, of declaring my opinion of the measures
pursued in regulating our military preparations, I shall not confine
myself entirely to the present question, but lay before the house my
thoughts upon some parts of the establishment, which may, perhaps,
require a reform, and which are at least proper objects of
consideration, though not absolutely necessary to the determination of
our opinion upon the present motion.

I have long ago, sir, declared, what, therefore, it is scarcely of any
use to repeat, that I know not any advantage to be hoped from a standing
army, nor can discover why the ablest and most vigorous of the
inhabitants of this kingdom should be seduced from the loom, the anvil
and the plough, only to live at ease upon the labour of industry, only
to insult their landlords, and rob the farmers. I never could find why
any body of men should be exempt from the common labour of social
duties, or why they should be supported by a community, who contribute
neither to its honour nor its defence.

I doubt not, sir, but I shall hear, on this occasion, of the service of
our troops in the suppression of riots; we shall be told, by the next
pompous orator who shall rise up in defence of the army, that they have
often dispersed the smugglers; that the colliers have been driven down
by the terrour of their appearance to their subterraneous
fortifications; that the weavers, in the midst of that rage which hunger
and oppression excited, fled at their approach; that they have at our
markets bravely regulated the price of butter, and, sometimes, in the
utmost exertion of heroick fury, broken those eggs which they were not
suffered to purchase on their own terms.

Some one, perhaps, of more penetration, may inform us of the use which
has been made of them at elections, where the surly burgesses have been
sometimes blind to the merit of those worthy gentlemen, whom the
soldiers have known how to esteem according to their desert; nor,
indeed, do I see how those can refuse their votes in favour of our
troops, who are indebted for the power of giving them, to their kind
interposition.

To these arguments, sir, I shall content myself with answering, that
those who are vers