ear dissatisfied
with the present custom, it is reasonable to imagine that none will be
easily discovered; and, therefore, I cannot but think it reasonable that
the motion should be complied with. By it no new imposition is intended,
nor any thing more than the establishment of a practice which has
continued for more than fifty years, and never, except on two occasions,
been denied to be legal. It is only proposed that the senate should
confirm that interpretation of the act which has been almost universally
received; that they should do what can produce no disturbance, because
it will make no alterations; but may prevent them, because it may
prevent any attempts of innovation, or diversity of opinions.

Sir John BARNARD spoke next, to the following effect:--Sir, whether the
interpretation of the act which is now contended for, has been
universally admitted, it is impossible to know; but it is at least
certain, that the practice which is founded upon it, has in many places
never been followed, nor, indeed, can it be made general without great
impropriety.

Many of those, sir, who are styled keepers of publick-houses, and on
whom soldiers are quartered under that denomination, have no conveniency
of furnishing provisions, because they never sell them; such are many of
the keepers of livery stables, among whom it is the common method to pay
soldiers a small weekly allowance, instead of lodging them in their
houses, a lodging being all which they conceive themselves obliged to
provide, and all that the soldiers have hitherto required; nor can we
make any alteration in this method without introducing the license and
insolence of soldiers into private houses; into houses hitherto
unacquainted with any degree of riot, incivility, or uproar.

The reason for which publick-houses are assigned for the quarters of
soldiers, is partly the greater conveniency of accommodating them in
families that subsist, by the entertainment of strangers, and partly the
nature of their profession, which, by exposing them to frequent
encounters with the rude and the debauched, enables them either to bear
or repress the insolence of a soldier.

But with regard, sir, to the persons whom I have mentioned, neither of
these reasons have any place; they have not, from their daily
employment, any opportunities of furnishing soldiery with beds or
victuals, nor, by their manner of life, are adapted to support intrusion
or struggle with perverseness. Nor