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soldiers towards their country, the honour and integrity of the under officers, are not to be de pended on. By the military law, the administration of justice is so quick, and the punishment so severe, that neither officer or soldier dares to dispute the orders of his supreme commander; he must not consult his own inclinations. If an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of this house, he must do it; he dares not disobey; immediate death would be the sure consequence of the least grumbling; and if an officer were sent into the court of requests, accompanied by a body of musketeers with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we ought to do, and how we were to vote, I know what would be the duty of this house; I know it would be our duty to order the officer to be taken and hanged up at the door of the lobby. But, sir, I doubt much, if such a spirit could be found in the house, or in any house of commons that will ever be in England.

Sir, I talk not of imaginary things; I talk of what has happened to an English house of commons, and from an English army; not only from an English army, but an army that was raised by that very house of commons; an army that was paid by them, and an army that was commanded by generals appointed by them: therefore do not let us vainly imagine that an army raised and maintained by authority of parliament, will always be submissive to them. If an army be so numerous as to have it in their power to overawe the parliament, they will be submissive as long as the parliament does nothing to disoblige their favourite general; but when that case happens, I am

afraid, that instead of the parliament's dismissing the army, the army will dismiss the parliament, as they have done heretofore. Nor does the legality or illegality of that parliament, or of that army, alter the case: for with respect to that army, and according to their way of thinking, the parliament dismissed by them was a legal parliament; they were an army raised and maintained according to law; and at first they were raised, as they imagined, for the preservation of those liberties, which they afterwards destroyed.

It has been urged, sir, that whoever is for the protestant succession must be for continuing the army. For that very reason, sir, I am against continuing the army. I know that neither the protestant succession in his majesty's most illustrious house, nor any succession, can ever be safe, as long as there is a standing army in the country. Armies, sir, have no regard to hereditary successions. The first two Cæsars at Rome did pretty well, and found means to keep their armies in tolerable subjection, because the generals and officers were all their own creatures; but how did it fare with their successors? Was not every one of them named by the army, without any regard to hereditary right, or to any right? a cobler, a gardener, or any man who happened to raise himself in the army, and could gain their affections, was made emperor of the world. Was not every succeeding emperor raised to the throne, or tumbled headlong into the dust, according to the mere whim or mad frenzy of the soldiers?

We are told, "Oh! gentlemen, but this army is desired to be continued but for one year longer, it

is not desired to be continued for any term of years." How absurd is this distinction! Is there any army in the world continued for any term of years? Does the most absolute monarch tell his army, that he is to continue them for any number of years, or any number of months? How long have we already continued our army from year to year? And if it thus continues, wherein will it differ from the standing armies of those countries which have already submitted their necks to the yoke? We are now come to the Rubicon; our army is now to be reduced, or it never will. From his majesty's own mouth we are assured of a profound tranquillity abroad—we know there is one at home. If this is not a proper time, if these eircumstances do not afford us a safe opportunity for reducing at least a part of our regular forces, we never can expect to see any reduction; and this nation, already overloaded with debts and taxes, must be loaded with the heavy charge of perpetually supporting a numerous standing army, and remain for ever exposed to the danger of having its liberties and privileges trampled upon, by any future king or ministry who shall take it in their heads to do so, and shall take a proper care to model the army for that purpose.

SPEECH OF SIR G. HEATHCOTE, ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EXCISE OFFICERS. 1732.

SIR,

OTHER gentlemen have already fully explained and set forth the great inconveniences which must

be brought on the trade of this nation, by the scheme now proposed to us; those have been made very apparent, and from them arises a very strong objection against what is now proposed : but the greatest objection arises from the danger to which this scheme will most certainly expose the liberties of our country; those liberties, for which our ancestors have so often ventured their lives and fortunes; those liberties, which have cost this nation so much blood and treasure, seem already to be greatly retrenched. I am sorry to say it, but what is now in dispute, seems to me to be the last branch of liberty we have to contend for: we have already established a standing army, and have made it, in a manner, a part of our constitution; we have already subjected great numbers of the people of this nation to the arbitrary laws of excise; and this scheme is so wide a step towards subjecting all the rest of the people of England to those arbitrary laws, that it will be impossible for us to recover, or prevent, the fatal consequences of such a scheme.

We are told that his majesty is a good and a wise prince we all believe him to be so, but I hope no man will pretend to draw any argument from thence for our surrendering those liberties and privileges, which have been handed down to us by our ancestors. We have, indeed, nothing to fear from his present majesty he never will make a bad use of that power which we have put into his hands; but if we once grant to the crown too great an extent of power, we cannot recal that grant when we have a mind; and though his majesty should never make a bad use of it, some

of his successors may: the being governed by a wise and good king, does not make the people a free people; the Romans were as great slaves under the few good emperors they had to reign over them, as they were under the most cruel of their tyrants. After the people have once given up their liberties, their governors have all the same power of oppressing them, though they may not perhaps all make the same wicked use of the power lodged in their hands; but a slave that has the good fortune to meet with a good-natured and a humane master, is no less a slave than he that meets with a cruel and barbarous one. Our liberties are too valuable, and bave been purchased at too high a price, to be sported with, or wantonly given up even to the best of kings: we have before now had some good, some wise and gracious sovereigns to reign over us, but we find, that under them our ancestors were as jealous of their liberties, as they were under the worst of our kings. It is to be hoped that we have still the same value for our liberties: if we have, we certainly shall use all peaceable methods to preserve and secure them: and if such methods should prove incffectual, I hope there is no Englishman but has spirit enough to use those methods for the preservation of our liberties, which were used by our ancestors for the defence of theirs, and for transmitting them down to us in that glorious condition in which we found them. There are some still alive who bravely ventured their lives and fortunes in defence of the liberties of their country; there are many, whose fathers were embarked in the same glorious cause; let it never be

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