ey might have pleaded a
juster claim to employment, who had learned their profession in the
service of their country, and had long languished in penury, than those
who had neither knowledge nor capacity, who had neither acted nor
suffered any thing, and who might have been destined to the hammer or
the plough, without any disreputation to their families, or
disappointment to themselves.

I have been told, indeed, my lords, that to some of these officers
commissions were offered, which they refused, and for this refusal every
reason is alleged but the true: some, indeed, excused themselves as
disabled by age and infirmities from military service; nor can any
objection be made to so just a plea. For how could those be refused in
their age the comforts of ease and repose, who have served their country
with their youth and vigour?

Others there are, my lords, who refused commissions upon motives very
different, in which, nevertheless, some justice cannot be denied. They
who had long studied and long practised their profession; they, who had
tried their courage in the breach, and given proofs of their skill in
the face of the enemy, refused to obey the command of novices, of
tradesmen, and of schoolboys: they imagined, my lords, that they ought
to govern those whom they should be obliged to instruct, and to lead
those troops whom they must range in order. But they had forgot that
they had outlived the time when a soldier was formed by study and
experience, and had not heard, in their retreats, that a colonel or a
captain was now formed in a day; and, therefore, when they saw and heard
their new commanders, they retired back to their half-pay, with surprise
and indignation.

But, my lords, the follies of last year cannot be easily rectified, and
are only now to be exposed that they may not be repeated. If we are now
to make new levies, and increase the number of our land-forces, it is,
in my opinion, incumbent upon us to consider by what methods we may best
augment our troops, and how we may be able to resist our foreign
enemies, without exposing the nation to intestine miseries, and leaving
our liberties at the mercy of the court.

There are, my lords, two methods of increasing our forces; the first is,
that of raising new regiments; the other, of adding new men to those
which already subsist.

By raising new regiments, my lords, we shall only gratify the minister
with the distribution of new commissions, and the estab