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have exposed yourselves for its service, and how little you have improved your own fortunes, I think it is but justice to your merits to make your encomiums the preface to the following discourse. "Tis you that have abated the pride, and reduced the luxury of the kingdom you have been the physicians and divines of the Commonwealth, by purging it of that dross and dung, which corrupts the minds and destroys the souls of men. You have convinced us that there is no safety in Counsellors, nor trust to be put in ships under your conduct. You have cleared the seas, not of pirates, but of our own merchants, and by that means have made our prisons as so many store-houses to replenish your troops. In fine, to use the expression of the psalmist, your hearts are unsearchable for wisdom, and there is no finding out your understanding. When I consider all this, and compare your merits with your preferments, how you came by them, and your behaviour in them, I cannot but think a standing army a collateral security to your title to them, and therefore must commend your policy in promoting it. For by these kings reign, and princes decree justice. These will be our magistrates, who will not bear the Sword in vain. These, like the sons of Aaron, will wear their Urim and Thummim on their backs and breasts, and will be our priests, who will hew the sinners to picces, as Samuel did Agag before the Lord in Gilgal. By these you will be able to teach us passive obedience, as men having authority, and not as the scribes. You will have your reasons in your hands against resisting the higher powers, and will prove your jus divinum by the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

"Your honours most obedient slave and vassal,

"A. B. C. D. E. F. G."

Our author then, after speaking of the advantage which England had always held over other nations, which he attributes to our insular condition, and the advantage of a good fleet, well manned with able-bodied scamen, gocs on to ob

serve:

"And if we enquire how these unhappy nations have lost that precious jewel Liberty, and we as yet preserved it, we shall find their miseries and our happiness proceed from this, That their necessities or indiscretion have permitted a standing army to be kept amongst them, and our situation rather than our prudence, hath as yet defended us from it, otherwise we had long since lost what is the most valuable thing under heaven: for, as I said before, our constitution depending upon a due balance between King, Lords, and Commons, and that balance depending upon the mutual occasions and necessities they have of one another; if this cement be once broke, there is an actual dissolution of the government. Now this balance can never be preserved but by an union of the natural and artificial strength of the kingdom, that is, by making the militia to consist of the same persons as have the property; or otherwise the Government is violent and against nature, and cannot possibly continue, but the

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constitution must either break the army, or the army will destroy the constitution for it is universally true, that wherever the militia is, there is or will be the government in a short time; and therefore the institutors of this Gothic balance (which was established in all parts of Europe) made the Militia to consist of the same parts as the Government, where the king was General, the Lords by virtue of their castles and honours, the great commanders and the freeholders by their tenures the body of the army; so that it was next to impossible for an army thus constituted to act to the disadvantage of the constituAnd here I tion, unless we could suppose them to be felons de se. will venture to assert that upon no other foundation than this, can any nation long preserve its freedom, unless some very particular accidents contribute to it; and I hope I shall make it appear, that no nation ever preserved its liberty, that maintained an army otherwise constituted within the seat of their government; and let us #latter ourselves as much as we please, what happened yesterday, will come to pass again; and the same causes will produce like effects in all ages.

Again, after contending against the objections to his argument, that such a king as William would not make a bad and improper use of his army, he introduces the following observations and examples:

"But since no virtue nor pitch of glory will exempt him from paying the common debt to nature, but death has a scythe which cuts off the most noble lives, we ought not to entrust any power with him, which we do'nt think proper to be continued to his successors: and doubtless, our great benefactor will not regret this, or any thing else that can reasonably be demanded, in order to complete the deliverance so far advanced by his invincible courage and conduct; for to set us, like Moses, within view of the promised land, with a ne plus ultra, is the greatest of all human infelicities; and such I shall always take our case to be, whilst a standing army must be kept up to prey upon our entrails; and which must, in the hands of an ill prince, (which we have the misfortune frequently to meet with) infallibly destroy our Constitution. And this is so evident and important a truth, that no legislator ever founded a free government, but: avoided this Charibdis, as a rock against which his commonwealth must certainly be shipwrecked, as the Israelites, Athenians, Corinthians, Achaians, Lacedemonians, Thebans, Samnites, and Romans; none of which nations, whilst they kept their liberty, were ever known to maintain any soldiers in constant pay within their cities, or ever suffered any of their subjects to make war their profession; well knowing that the sword and sovereignty always march hand in hand; and therefore they trained their own citizens and the territories about them, perpetually in arms; and their whole commonwealths by this means, became so many several formed militias. A general exercise of the best of their people in the use of arms, was the only bulwark

of their liberties; this was reckoned the surest way to preserve them both at home and abroad, the people being secured thereby as well against the domestic affronts of any of their own citizens, as against the foreign invasions of ambitious and unruly neighbours. Their arms were never lodged in the hands of any who had not an interest in preserving the public peace, who fought pro aris & foeis, and thought themselves sufficiently paid by repelling invaders, that they might with freedom return to their own affairs. In those days there was no difference between the citizen, the soldier, and the husbandman, for all promiscuously took arms when the public safety required it, and afterwards laid them down with more alacrity than they took them up; so that we find amongst the Romans, the best and bravest of their generals came from the plough, contentedly returning when the work was over, and never demanded their triumphs till they had laid down their commands, and reduced themselves to the state of private men. Nor do we find that this famous commonwealth ever permitted a deposition of their arms in any other hands, till their empire increasing, necessity constrained them to erect a constant stipendiary soldiery abroad in foreign parts, either for the holding or winning of provinces. Then, luxury increasing with dominion, the strict rule and discipline of freedom soon abated, and forces were kept up at home, which soon proved of such dangerous consequence, that the people were forced to make a law to employ them at a convenient distance; which was, that if any general marched over the river Rubicon, he should be declared a public enemy; and in the passage of that river, this following inscription was erected:-Imperator sive miles, sive tyrannus armatus quisquis sistito, vexillumq; armaq; deponito, nec citra hunc amnem trajicito: and this made Cesar, when he had presumed to pass this river, to think of nothing but pressing on to the total oppression of the empire, which he shortly after obtained. Nor, as I said before, did any nation deviate from these rules, but they lost their liberty; and of this kind there are infinite examples, out of which I shall give a few in several ages, which are most known, and occur to every ones reading. The first example I shall give is of Pisistratus, who artificially prevailing with the Athenians to allow him fifty guards for the defence of his person-he so improved that number, that he seized upon the castle and government, destroyed the commonwealth, and made himself tyrant of Athens. The Corinthians being in apprehension of their enemies, made a decree for four hundred men to be kept to defend their city, and gave Tymophanes the command over then, who overturned their government, cut off all the principal citizens, and proclaimed himself king of Corinth. Agathocles being the captain-general of the Syracusians, got such an interest in the army, that he cut all the senators to pieces, and the richest of the people, and made himself their king. The Romans, for fear of the Teutones and Cimbri, who, like vast inundations, threatened their empire, chose Marius their general, and, contrary to the constitution of their government, continued him five

years in his command, which gave him such opportunity to insinuate, and gain an interest in their army, that he oppressed their liberty: and to this were owing all the miseries, massacres, and ruins which that city suffered under him and Sylla, who made the best blood in the world run like water in the streets of Rome, and turned the whole city into a shambles of the nobility, gentry, and people. The same thing enabled Cesar totally to overthrow that famous commonwealth; for the prolongation of his commission in Gaul, gave him an opportunity to debauch his army; and then, upon a pretended disgust, he marched to Rome, drove out the senators, seized the treasury, fought their forces, and made himself perpetual dictator. Olivarotto di Fermo desired leave of his fellow-citizens, that he might be admitted into their town with a hundred horse of his companions, which being granted, he put to the sword all the principal citizens, and proclaimed himself their prince. Francis Sforza being general of the Milanese, usurped upon them, and made himself duke of Milan. After Christiern, the second king of Denmark, had conquered Sweden, he invited all the senators and nobility to a magnificent entertainment, where, after he had treated them highly for two days, he most barbarously butchered them. None escaped this massacre but the brave Gustavus Ericson, who was then a prisoner; but he afterwards, cscaping through a thousaud difficulties, by his good fortune, courage, and conduct, drove the Danes out of Sweden, and restored. the Swedes to their ancient kingdom. Nothing then was thought too great for their generous deliverer; every mouth was full of his praises, and by the universal voice of the people, he was chosen their king; and to consummate the last testimony of their gratitude, they trusted him with an army; but they soon found their mistake, for it cost them their liberty; and having granted that unum magnum, it was too late to dispute any thing else; his successors having been pleased to take all the rest, and now they remain the miserable examples of a too credulous generosity. The story of Denmark is so generally known, and so well related by a late excellent author, that it would be impertinence in me to repeat it; only this I will observe, that if the king had not had an army at his command, the nobles had never delivered up their government. Our countryman, Oliver Cromwell, turned out that parliament under which he served, and who had got immortal honour through the whole world by their great actions; and this he effected by the assistance of an army, which must be allowed to have had as much virtue, sobriety, and public spirit, as hath been known in the world since, amongst that sort of men. The last instance I shall give, is of a French colony, as I remember in the West Indies, who, having war with the neighbouring Indians, and being tired in their march with the extremity of heat, made their slaves carry their arms, who, taking that opportunity, fell upon them, and cut them to pieces-a just punishment for their folly. And this will always be the fate of those that trust their arms out of their own hands; for it is a ridiculous imagination to conceive men will be servants, when they can be masters;

and, as Mr. Harrington judiciously observes, whatever nation suffers their servants to carry their arms, their servants will make them hold their trenchers."

After answering some few objections which are not applicable here, our author goes on with his example and argument as follows:

"And though some princes, as the family of the Medices, Lewis the XIth, and others laid the foundation of their tyrannies without the immediate assistance of an army, yet they all found an army necessary to establish them; or otherwise a little experience in the people of the change of their condition, would have made them disgorge in a day that ill-gotten power they had been acquiring for an age. This subject is so self-evident, that I am almost ashamed to prove it: for if we look through the world, we shall find in no country, liberty and an army stand together; so that to know whether a people are free or slaves, it is necessary only to ask, whether there is an army kept amongst them? and the solution of that preliminary question resolves the doubt: as we see in Chira, India, Tartary, Persia, Ethiopia, Turkey, Morocco, Muscovy, Austria, France, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Tuscany, and all the little, principalities of Germany and Italy, where the people live in the most abandoned slavery; and in countries where no armies are kept within the seat of their government, the people are free, as Poland, Biscay, Switzerland, the Grisons, Venice, Holland, Genoa, Geneva, Ragusa, Algiers, Tunis, Hamborough, Lubeck, all the free towns in Germany, and England and Scotland, before the late reigns. This truth is so obvious, that the most barefaced advocates for an army do not directly deny it, but qualify the matter by telling us, that a number not exceeding fifteen, or twenty thousand men are a handful to so populous a nation as this: now [ think that number will bring as certain ruin upon us, as if they were as many millions, and I will give my reasons for it. It's the misfortune of all countries, that they sometimes lie under an unhappy necessity to defend themselves by arms against the ambition of their governors, and to fight for what's their own; for if a prince will rule us with a rod of iron, and invade our laws and liberties, and neither be prevailed upon by our miseries, supplications, or tears, we have no power on earth to appeal to, and therefore must patiently submit to our bondage, or stand upon our own defence; which if we are enabled to do, we shall never be put upon it, but our swords may grow rusty in our hands: for that nation is surest to live in peace, that is most capable of making war; and a man that hath a sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it. Now I say, if the King hath twenty thousand men before hand with us, or much less than half that number, the people can make no effort to defend their liberties, without the assistance of a foreign power, which is a remedy most commonly as bad as the disease; and if we have not a power within ourselves to defend our laws, we are no government, For England being a small country, few strong towns in it, and those in