in winter to
barracks. Then will the burden of a standing army be imposed for ever on
the nation; then may our liberties be openly invaded, and those who now
oppress us by the power only of money, will then throw aside the mask,
and deliver themselves from the constraint of hypocrisy; those who now
sooth us with promises and protestations, will then intimidate us with
threatenings, and, perhaps, revenge the opposition of their schemes by
persecution and sequestrations.

Mr. GAGE spoke next, to the following effect:--Sir, if the weakness of
arguments proved the insincerity of those who produce them, I should be
inclined to suspect the advocates for the establishment of new
regiments, of designs very different from the defence of their country;
but as their intentions cannot be known, they cannot be censured, and I
shall, therefore, confine myself to an examination of the reasons which
they have offered, and the authorities which they have cited.

The German general, who has been mentioned on this occasion with so much
regard, is not less known to me than to the honourable gentleman, nor
have I been less diligent to improve the hours in which I enjoyed his
friendship and conversation. Among other questions, which my familiarity
with him entitled me to propose, I have asked him to what causes he
imputed the ill success of the last war, and he frankly ascribed the
miscarriages of it to the unhappy divisions by which the German councils
were at that time embarrassed.

Faction produces nearly the same consequence in all countries, and had
then influenced the imperial court, as of late the court of Great
Britain, to dismiss the most able and experienced commanders, and to
intrust the conduct of the war to men unequal to the undertaking; who,
when they were defeated for want of skill, endeavoured to persuade their
patrons and their countrymen, that they lost the victory for want of
officers.

They might, perhaps, think of their countrymen, what our ministers seem
to imagine of us, that to gain belief among them, it was sufficient to
assert boldly, that they had not any memory of past transactions, and
that, therefore, they could not observe, that the same troops were
victorious under Eugene, which were defeated under the direction of his
successours; nor could discover that the regulation was the same, where
the effects were different.

Thus, in every place, it is the practice of men in power, to blind the
people by false