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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A63118 A letter from the author of the Argument against a standing army to the author of the Balancing letter Trenchard, John, 1662-1723. 1697 (1697) Wing T2113; ESTC R16213 6,417 16

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are sure without this Army that our Neighbours will invade us and that it is impossible our Fleets or Militia however managed can be able to defend us whether there is such a necessity or not I refer you to my Argument and if there is not you have given up the Question For you in effect admit a certain Slavery on one side and if there is but contingent Ruin on the other it is easy to determine of which side the Balance lies But you say that the Parliament shall overlook it but will you be Security the Army shall not overlook the Parliament O but that can't be if they are kept up from Year to Year Caesar with all his Genius could not work his Army to it in less than ten Years Sir If that be the exact time of corrupting an Army pray consider that ours hath been kept up nine Years already But I am as far from any Jealousie of His present Majesty as you are and yet I am not afraid to say that Army which can do no hurt can do no good It is impossible to consider of a STANDING FORCE which shall be sufficient to oppose a Foreign Power without considering it at the same time sufficient to suppress the Subject at home for they must beat those who you suppose can beat us and I must confess I am unwilling to depend on their good Will Sir Page 15. you seem to think me a Jealous Melancholy and Timorous Man overrun with the Spleen but I fancy my self as free from all this without a Place as perhaps you are with one Come don't fear your Stake I dare give you Land Security that you will come off a Winner And as for the Gallant Gentlemen of the Army whom you fear will be Losers I shall be as ready as you to recompense them for their Bravery But to suppose our Fleets to be surprized and betrayed our Militia to be recreant and all our Intelligence Fidelity and Courage to be lodged in a Standing Army I must confess is out of my power In Page the 8th you say You can't see some Men grow all on a suddain such wonderful Patriots so jealous of the Prerogative such Zealots for publick Liberty without remembring what their Behaviour was in the late Reigns Now I must own to you I am better pleased to see this than to see some Men who were such wonderful Patriots c. in the last Reigns act the same part now as much as in them lies as the others are said to have done formerly Before I have done I must take notice of one Passage in your 10th Page You say Whenever the fatal time comes that this Nation grows weary of Liberty and has neither the Virtue the Wisdom nor the Force to preserve its Constitution it will deliver up all let all the Laws possible and all the Bars imaginable be put in the way to it It is no more possible to make a Government immortal than to make a Man immortal When I join this to the sensible Impressions you seem to have of the Danger of a Standing Army in the next Line and yet an indispensible Necessity of keeping one methinks you give broad Hints that you think our time is come But I doubt not there is Virtue enough yet in England to preserve our Constitution though a wiser Head than yours designed its Ruine I will conclude in telling you we have a happy Government where the King hath all the Power necessary to execute the Laws All Title arises upon an equal distribution of Power and he that gets an over-balance of Power for you and I are balancing takes away the Title from the rest and leaves them a Possession without a Right which is a Tenure at the Will of the Lord. Now Sir if a Parliament should subject all the Lands of England to this Tenure I make no doubt your Stake and mine would be as safe during His Majesty's Reign as in our own Possession and yet if you will promise me to bring in a Bill to that purpose I am contented that all I have said about a standing Army shall go for nothing Sir In hopes you will keep up your Correspondence I conclude my self Your most humble Servant FINIS