peace of the country; that
the number of the malcontents was altogether contemptible, though it
might be considerably augmented by maintaining a standing army, and
other such arbitrary measures; that other nations had been enslaved by
standing armies; and howsoever they might find themselves necessitated
to depend upon a military force for security against encroaching
neighbours, the case was very different with regard to Great Britain,
for the defence of which nature had provided in a peculiar manner; that
this provision was strengthened and improved by a numerous navy, which
secured her dominion of the sea; and, if properly disposed, would render
all invasion impracticable, or at least ineffectual; that the land-army
of Great Britain, though sufficient to endanger the liberties of an
unarmed people, could not possibly secure such an extent of coast, and
therefore could be of very little service in preventing an invasion;
that though they had all imaginable confidence in his majesty's regard
to the liberty of the subjects, they could not help apprehending, that
should a standing army become part of the constitution, another prince
of more dangerous talents, and more fatal designs, might arise, and
employ it for the worst purposes of ambition; that though many officers
were gentlemen of honour and probity, these might be easily discarded,
and the army gradually moulded into quite a different temper. By these
means, practised in former times, an army had been new modelled to such
a degree, that they turned their swords against the parliament for whose
defence they had been raised, and destroyed the constitution both in
church and state; that with respect to its being wholly dependent on the
parliament, the people of England would have reason to complain of
the same hardship, whether a standing army should be declared at once
indispensable, or regularly voted from year to year, according to the
direction of the ministry; that the sanction of the legislature granted
to measures which in themselves are unconstitutional, burdensome,
odious, and repugnant to the genius of the nation, instead of yielding
consolation, would serve only to demonstrate that the most effectual
method of forging the chains of national slavery, would be that of
ministerial influence operating upon a venal parliament. Such were the
reasons urged against a standing army, of what number soever it might be
composed; but the expediency of reducing the numbe