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for though Burleigh was styled prime minister, yet he was only so in name, He had indeed, a greater share of business, and greater fatigue, than any of the rest; but the affairs of the government were never left to him alone. Commissaries were always appointed, upon every urgent crisis of affairs; and the administration was composed of many, who, though they bore the utmost animosity against him in their private capacity, yet all united in the common cause; they laid aside all other considerations when the interests of their mistress were concerned, when the honour of the nation was at stake. They strenuously entered into warlike measures, rather than suffer any insults; and as their cause was founded on equity, success attended their arms,

To conclude, I entirely concur with the noble lord who first spoke against the address. If it be presented, the event will be dangerous, the consequence fatal. Many other instances I might produce from history to justify my assertions; but as I have already taken up too much of your time, I will only say-these sentiments proceed from an honest and impartial heart.

Duke of Argyle's Speech on the Army.
My Lords,

As the present situation of our affairs may require an augmentation of our forces, and as the success of our arms and the preservation of our liberties may equally depend upon the manner in which the new forces shall be raised, there is, in my opinion, no question more worthy the attention of this august assembly, than what may be the most proper method of increasing our army.

On this question, my lords, I shall offer my own sentiments with greater confidence, as there are few men who have had more opportunities of being acquainted with it in its whole extent, as I have spent a great part of my life in the field and the camp. I commanded a regiment under king William, and have long been either the first, or almost the first man in the army.

I hope, my lords, it will be allowed without difficulty, that I have at least been educated in the best school of war, and that nothing but natural incapacity can have hindered me from making some useful observations upon the discipline and government of armies, and the advantages and inconveniences of the various plans upon which other nations regulate their forces.

I have always maintained, my lords, that it is necessary in the present state of the neighbouring countries, to keep up a body of regular troops, that we may not be less able to defend ourselves, than our enemies to attack us.

It is well known, my lords, that states must secure themselves by different means, as they are threatened by dangers of different kinds: policy must be opposed by policy, and force by force; our fleets must be increased when our neighbours grow formidable by their naval power, and armies must be maintained at a time like this, in which every prince on the continent estimates his greatness by the number of his troops.

But an army, my lords, as it is to be admitted only for the security of the nation, is to be so regulated, that it may produce the end for which it is established; that it may be useful without danger, and protect the people without oppressing them.

To this purpose, my lords, it is indispensibly necessary, that the military subordination be inviolably preserved, and that the discipline be indiscriminately exercised without any partial indulgence, or malicious severities; that every man be promoted according to his desert, and that, military merit alone give any pretensions to military preferments,

To make the army yet more useful it ought to be under the sole command of one man, exalted to the important trust by his known skill, courage, justice, and fidelity, and uncontroled in the administration of his province by any other authority; a man enabled by his experience to distinguish the deserving, and invested with power to reward them.

Thus, my lords, ought an army to be regulated, to which the defence of a nation is entrusted; nor can any other scheme be formed which will not expose the public to dangers more formidable than revolutions or invasions. And yet, my lords, how widely those who have assumed the direction of affairs have deviated from this method, is well known. It is known equally to the highest and meanest officers, that those who have most opportunities of observing military merit, have no power of rewarding it; and therefore every man endeavours to obtain other recommendations than those of his superiors in the army, and to distinguish himself by other services than attention to his duty, and obedience to his commanders.

Our generals, my lords, are only colonels with a higher title, without power, and without command; they can neither make themselves loved nor feared in their troops, nor have either reward or punishment in their power. What discipline, my lords, can be established by men, whom those who sometimes act the farce of obedience, know to be only phantoms of authority, and to be restrained by an arbitrary minister from the exercise of those commissions which they are invested with? And what is an army without discipline, subordination, and obedience? What, but a rabble of licentious vagrants, set free from the common restraints of decency, exempted from the necessity of labour, betrayed by idleness to debauchery, and let loose to prey upon the people? Such a herd can only awe the villages, and bluster in the streets; but can never be able to oppose an enemy, or defend the nation by which they are supported.

They may, indeed, form a camp upon some of the neighbouring heaths, or pass in review with tolerable regularity; they may sometimes seize a smuggler, and sometimes assist a constable with vigour and success. But unhappy would be the people who had no other force to oppose against an army habituated to discipline, of which every one founds his hopes of honour and reward upon the approbation of the commander.

That no man will labour to no purpose, or undergo the fatigue of military vigilance, without an adequate motive; that no man will endeavour to learn superflu. ous duties, and neglect the easiest road to honour and to wealth, merely for the sake of encountering difficulties, is easily to be imagined. And therefore, my lords, it cannot be conceived, that any man in the army will very solicitously apply himself to the duties of his profession, of which, when he has learned them, the most accurate practice will avail him nothing, and on which he must lose that time which might have been employed in gaining an interest in a borough, or in forming an alliance with some orator in the senate.

For nothing, my lords, is now considered but parliamentary interest, nor is any subordination desired but in the supreme council of the kingdom. For the esta blishment of this new regulation the honours of every profession are prostituted, and every commission is become merely nominal. To gratify the leaders of the ministerial party, the most despicable triflers are exalted to an authority, and those whose want of understanding excludes them from any other employment, are selected for military commissions.

No sooner have they taken possession of their new command, and gratified, with some act of oppression, the wantonness of new authority, but they desert their charge with the formality of demanding a permission to be absent, which their commander dares not deny them. Thus, my lords, they leave the care of the troops, and the study of the rules of war, to those unhappy men

who have no other claim to elevation than knowledge and bravery; and who, for want of relations in parliament, are condemned to linger out their lives at their quarters, amuse themselves with recounting their actions and sufferings in former wars, and with reading, in the papers of every post, the commissions which are bestowed on those who never saw a battle.

For this reason, my lords, preferments in the army, instead of being considered as proofs of merit, are looked on only as badges of dependence; nor can any thing be inferred from the promotion of an officer, but that he is, in some degree or other, allied to some member of parliament, or the leading voters of a borough.

After this manner, my lords, has the army been modelled, and on these principles has it subsisted for the last and the present reign: neither myself, nor any other general officer, have been consulted in the distribution of commands, or any part of military regulations. Our armies have known no other power than that of the secretary of war, who directs all their motions, and fills up every vacancy without opposition, and without appeal.

But never, my lords, was his power more conspicuous than in raising the levies of last year; never was any authority more despotically exerted, or more tamely submitted to; never did any man more wantonly sport with his command, or more capriciously dispose of posts and preferments; never did any tyrant appear to set censure more openly at defiance, treat murmurs and remonstrances with greater contempt, or with more confidence and security distribute posts among his slaves, without any other reason of preference, than his own uncontrolable pleasure.

And surely no man, my lords, could have made choice of such wretches for military commands, but to shew, that nothing but his own private inclinations should influence his conduct, and that he considered himself as supreme and unaccountable. For we have seen, my VOL. I

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