xpense should be spared in a time of
general poverty, if it be politick to carry on war in the manner most
likely to produce success, if it be just, that those who have served
their country should be preferred to those who have no merit to boast,
this motion cannot be rejected.

Sir William YONGE answered to this purpose:--Sir, to the motion now
made, it will not, I believe, be objected, that it is unreasonable, or
unjust, but that it is unnecessary, and that it is not drawn up with
sufficient consideration.

It is unnecessary, because his majesty is advised by it to no other
measures than those which he has already determined to pursue; for he
has declared to me, sir, his intention of conferring the new commissions
upon the officers who receive half-pay, before any other officers shall
be promoted.

The motion appears to me not to be very attentively considered, or drawn
up with great propriety of expression; for it supposes all the half-pay
officers fit for the service, which cannot be imagined by any man, who
considers that there has been peace for almost thirty years; a space of
time, in which many vigorous constitutions must have declined, and many,
who were once well qualified for command, must be disabled by the
infirmities of age. Nor is the promotion of one of these gentlemen
considered always by him as an act of favour; many of them have, in this
long interval of peace, engaged in methods of life very little
consistent with military employments, many of them have families which
demand their care, and which they would not forsake for any advantages
which a new commission could afford them, and therefore it would not be
very consistent with humanity to force them into new dangers and
fatigues which they are now unable to support.

With regard to these men, compassion and kindness seem to require that
they should be suffered to spend their few remaining days without
interruption, and that the dangers and toils of their youth should be
requited in their age with ease and retirement.

There are others who have less claim to the regard of the publick, and
who may be passed by in the distribution of new preferments without the
imputation of neglecting merit. These are they who have voluntarily
resigned their commissions for the sake of half-pay, and have preferred
indolence and retreat to the service of their country.

So that it appears, that of those who subsist upon half-pay, some are
unable to execute a co