vain their wishes have been; and as for my natural life, I have lived long enough to learn to be as easy about parting with it, as any man can well be.

As to those clamours which have been raised without doors, and which are now so much insisted on, it is very well known by whom and by what methods they were raised, and it is no difficult matter to guess with what views; but I am very far from taking them to be the sense of the nation, or believing that the sentiments of the generality of the people were thereby expressed. The most part of the people concerned in those clamours did not speak their own sentiments. They were played upon by others like so many puppets; it was not the puppets that spoke, it was those behind the curtain that played them, and made them speak whatever they had a mind.

There is now a most extraordinary concourse of people at our door. I hope it will not be said that all those people came there of themselves naturally, and without any instigation from others, for to my certain snowledge some very odd methods were used to bring such multitudes hither. Circular letters were wrote, and sent by the beadles in the most public and unprecedented manner, round almost every ward in the city, summoning them upon their peril to come down this day to the house of commons. This I am certain of because I have now one of those letters in my pocket, signed by a deputy of one of the greatest wards in the city of London, and sent by the beadle to one of the inhabitants of that ward; and I know that such letters were sent in the same manner almost to every liveryman and tradesman in that ward; and by the same sort of unwarrantable methods have the clamours been raised almost in every other part of the nation.

Gentlemen may say what they please of the multitudes now at our door, and in all the avenues leading to this house; they may call them a modest multitude, if they will; but whatever temper they were in when they came hither, it may be very much altered now,

after having waited so long at our door. It may be a very easy matter for some designing seditious person to raise a tumult and disorder among them; and when tumults are once begun, no man knows where they may end. He is a greater man than any I know in the nation, that could with the same ease appease them. For this reason I must think, that it was neither prudent nor regular to use any methods for bringing such multitudes to this place, under any pretence whatever. Gentlemen may give them what name they think fit; it may be said, that they came hither as humble supplicants; but I know whom the law calls sturdy beggars, and those who brought them hither could not be certain but that they might have behaved in the same manner.

JOHN LORD CARTERET,

(Afterwards Earl of Granville,)

He

Succeeded his father George lord Carteret, when very young. was educated at Oxford, and took his seat in the house of lords in 1711, where he distinguished himself by his zeal for the Hanover succession. In 1719, he went ambassador to Sweden, and in 1724, was appointed viceroy of Ireland, where his administration, at a very trying period, was generally applauded for its wisdom and moderation. He died in 1763. He was a man of abilities, an highly amiable character, and a great encourager of learned men. To him it was that the celebrated Huctheson dedicated his elegant treatise on beauty and virtue.

Lord Carteret's Speech on the Number of Land Forces.. My Lords,

So many lords have spoke so well in favour of the reduction proposed, and have so fully answered all the objections made against it, that I should not have given your lordships any trouble on the present occasion, if it had not been that I now find, that not only a standing VOL I. 42

army, but an army of the full number we have at pre, sent on foot, seems to be made a part of our constitu tion: the old pretence of continuing the same number of regular forces for one year longer, seems now to be laid aside. His majesty in his speech from the throne told us, that the public tranquillity was now so fully es tablished, that he had no other reason for calling us together but only for the ordinary dispatch of the public business; and must this, my lords, be looked on as a part of the ordinary business of the year? Must the continuing of a standing army of 18,000 men, in time of peace, be a part of that business which is yearly to pass of course in parliament? It has been a long time continued from year to year; but if it once comes to be an affair which is yearly to pass of course, wherein will it differ from those standing armies by which the liberties of other countries have been undone ?

A standing army alone may not perhaps be sufficient forbringing so great a misfortune upon a people; there must be other causes concurring; but it may be averred, that in all countries where arbitrary power and abject slavery have been introduced, the fatal change in the constitution has been owing to a numerous standing army, a great number of officers of the revenue, and a prostitute clergy; and even these three concurring together, must require some time before they can get the better of the liberties of a brave people. The army must be so long kept up, and modelled in such a manner, as to be entirely dependent on the crown. It is not to be supposed, that the officers and soldiers of an army raised from among a free people, can be immediately divested of all those notions of liberty, with which they were endowed when they first listed in the army; but if they have a brave and cunning commander, this may be done in a few years; the generality of them may be soon made regardless of every thing but the will and pleasure of him who can prefer them to a superior command a large revenue and many officers cannot be

at once established upon a free people; this must be done by slow degrees, and requires many plausible pretences; and it is to be hoped that the honour and virtue of the clergy would stand some little shock; they could not at once be brought to that degree of prostitution, which is necessary for the establishment of arbitrary power.

At present, my lords, we may depend upon his majesty: we are convinced that he will not attempt to encroach upon the liberties of his people; we may likewise depend on it, that our present army would not support any such measures, were they to be attempted; his majesty has been so good as to employ men as of ficers in the army, whose honour and integrity we may depend on; but we are not sure of having always a king so wise and good, or an army of so much virtue and honour; and under the best of kings we ought to provide against the worst.

I do not say, my lords, that we are now in any immediate danger of losing our liberties; but I say, that we are getting into that way by which the liberties of every country have been undone: we are establishing the custom of keeping up a standing army in time of peace; we are every year increasing the number of the officers of the revenue; what will the consequence be? I tremble to think of it! We are not indeed under any danger while his present majesty lives to reign over us: but will not every succeeding king say, Why will you treat me worse than my predecessor? Why will you refuse to grant me that number of regular forces, or that revenue, which in the same circumstances you granted to my father? And we well know, my lords, how complaisant parliaments generally are in the beginning of a reign; they are generally more apt to increase both the revenue and the army of the crown, than they are to diminish either; and if an ambitious prince should succeed to the crown, supported by such a numerous standing army as what is now proposed, so long kept up as to have

formed themselves into a different body from the people to whom they belong, and with such a crowd of officers of the revenue as we have at present, all depending upon him and removeable at his pleasure, what may he

not do?

I am surprized, my lords, to hear it said, that standing armies have had no hand in the overturning the li berties of the several countries of Europe. It is true that the most numerous army can be of no dangerous consequence to the liberties of any country, as long as it depends upon a great many heads; an army can ne ver be of dangerous consequence, till it comes to be entirely dependent upon one man; and that it generally does when it is long kept up, more especially if any one man comes to get the whole power into his hands both of paying the army, and of naming and preferring the several officers employed therein. Julius Cæsar had too long a head not to be sensible of this, and therefore he procured himself to be sent into Gaul; there he continued for several years at the head of numerous conquering armies, and having got into his own hands both the power of paying and preferring in his army, he soon managed it so as to make them entirely obedient to him; then he commanded them to march against, and with them he conquered his country. If there had been no standing armies of either side, the consequence could not have been the same, though a civil war had broke out; the armies newly raised by each side must have had a dependence upon a great many chiefs, and which ever side had got the victory, the chiefs would have taken eare of the liberties of their country; they would have settled them upon the ancient foundation, or upon a better, if any better could have been contrived.

In Spain it was likewise by such an army that their liberties were destroyed; the inquisition, it is true, was set up much about the same time, and in all countries. an inquisition of some kind or another generally accompanies arbitrary power; there may be courts of inqui