Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A37422
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A brief reply to the History of standing armies in England with some account of the authors.
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing D829; ESTC R9669
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14,515
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32
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is straining a Text a Trade without reflection which our Adversaries are very ready at but which is more useful for them in their Socinian Principles than in their Politicks By this I must beg leave to tell the Gentlemen it most plainly appears that they drive at Villifying the present Establishment rather than at the Liberty they talk so much of The next absurdity I find is Page 23. Where tho' they do not affirm because like cunning Disputants they won't hamper themselves in Argument yet they plainly intimate that all the omissions of our Fleet were design'd to produce this Argument from it that a Fleet is no Security to us As if his Majesty or his Ministers should Order our Fleet to do nothing Considerable and spend Six or Seven Years and as many Millions of Mony only to be able to say to the Parliament that a Fleet is no Security to us This is such a thing that I cannot pass over without desiring these Gentlemen to Examine a little whether his Majesty has not on the contrary more improv'd our Fleet and Shipping than any King before him ever did Whether he has not built more Ships and by his own Fancy peculiar in that way better Ships than any of his Predecessors Whether the Docks the Yards the Stores the Saylors and the Ships are not in the best Condition that ever England knew Whether the King has not in all his Speeches to the Parliament and in all the state of the Navy laid before them put forward to his utmost the greatness of the Navy Whether the Decoration of the Navy and Stores are not regulated by him to a degree never before put in practice and whether now the war is over he has not taken care to have the greatest Fleet in the World and in the best posture for Action And is all this to let us know that a Fleet is no Security to us I blush for these Gentlemen when I think they should thus fly in the Faces of their own Arguments and abuse the Care his Majesty has taken for that Security which they ought to look on with as much satisfaction as our Enemies do with Concern Besides I do not remember that ever the King or any of his Ministers offered to lessen the value of a good Fleet in any of their Speeches or Discourses if so to what end have they been so careful of it and why have we a Registring Act to secure Men for it and a Royal Foundation at Greenwich Hospital to incourage them why so many Bounties given to the Sea-men and such vast Stores laid in to increase and continue them But must we not distinguish things Our Defence is of two sorts and so must be our Strength Our Fleet is an undeniable defence and security for us and we will grant to oblige them whether so or no that both the Fleet and our Militia which they are so fond of are as great a Security at home as they can desire but 't is plain and they cannot pretend to deny it they are neither of them any thing to Fianders which all the World will own must be the Scene of a War when ever it begins To say we may assist with Mony is to say nothing for Men may be wanting as much as Mony and are so too and have been so this War at an unusual rate These Arguments might be inlarg'd even to a Twelve-penny Book like the Author's if the Printer desir'd it but short as they are they cannot be rationally confuted The Gentlemen who argue thus against Force have taken upon them to lay down a Method how to assist Spain in case of a War by bringing Soldiers from Final not leting us know if we did not enquire that those Forces must Sail by Thoulon and that we must have a great Fleet in the Straights for that Service or they will be prevented nor not enquiring which Montferrat way those Troops shall come at Final while the Duke of Savoy possesses and all the higher part of Italy for the French If they could argue no better than they can guide a War if their Logic was not better than their Geography they would make poor work of their Argument But because they seem to understand such things I would fain ask these Gentlemen if a War should break out now in the Empire between the Papists and the Protestants which a Man without the Spirit of Prophesie may say is very likely pray which way would these Gentlemen have the King aid the Protestants in the Palatinate what Service could our Fleet and Militia do in this Case Why say our Gentlemen we may aid them with Mony So did King James the First after a most wretched manner tho' his own Daughter was to lose her Patrimony by it and the Protestant Interest in Germany which now is in more hazard than ever it was since Gustavus Adolphus his time must be supported by the Leagues and Confederacies which our King must make and our Forces uphold or 't is a great question whether it will be supported at all England is to be considered in several Capacities though these Gentlemen seem to confine themselves to England within it self England is at this time the Head of two Leagues both which are essentially necessary to the preservation of our Welfare One a League of Property and the other of Religion One a League against French Slavery and the other a League against German Popery and we can maintain neither of these without some Strength I could tell these Gentlemen That while they would disarm us to protect our Liberties they strike a fatal Stroke at our Religion which I confess I ought not to expect they should value because I know their Principles to be both Irreligious and Blasphemous After all that has been said 't were not amiss to examine what this Army is we speak of and how to be maintain'd for these Gentlemen argue all along upon a great Army enough to subject a Kingdom and to raise it up to a magnitude they have gone into Ireland and Scotland and rak'd into the Settlement of those Kingdoms to muster up a great Army though after all their Calculations are wrong almost a third part In short they have reckon'd up small and great to make up the number To which it is conveninient to reply First What Forces are maintain'd in Scotland and Ireland is nothing to the purpose for both the Parliaments of those Kingdoms have concurr'd and found it necessary though these Gentlemen think otherwise Secondly If the King does see it proper to have some Forces ready on such Occasions as we have discours'd but to ease us of our Jealousies and Fears keeps them in other Kingdoms and with consent of those Kingdoms is not the English Nation so much the more oblig'd to him for his tenderness of their Safety and Satisfaction Thirdly Why do not the Gentlemen as well argue against his having the Stad-holdership of Holland by virtue of which
Two Thousand Men there routed them I appeal to all Men to judge what could the Militia have done to him Now I 'le suppose the Duke of Monmouth had been a French Man or any thing he had time to Land and Invade us and unlade his Arms and might have sent his Ships away again and never have been hindred by our Fleet and had he been but 5000 Regular Men he had beat King James out of his Kingdom Again his Men were raw a meer Militia and you see what came of it they were Defeated by a quarter of their Number tho' I must say they were better than any of our Militia too by much Again the Prince of Orange Landed his whole Army quickly notwithstanding a Fleet and had leisure enough to have sent away all his Ships again So that'tis a mistake to say we cannot be Invaded if we have a Fleet for we have been Invaded tho' we have had a good Fleet and Demonstration is beyond Argument And I would undertake without Vanity to Invade England from any part beyond Sea without any fear of the Fleet unless you will have a Fleet able to block up your Neighbours Ports and when you hear of any Ships fitting out any where send and forbid them as Queen Elizabeth did to Henry the 4th of France Now if I could come safe on Shore notwithstanding the Fleet then if you have no Army to oppose me with but your Country Militia I would but ask any understanding Soldier how many Men he would require to Conquer the whole Nation Truly not a great many for I dare say 40000 of the best Militia we have back'd with no disciplin'd Troops would not Fight 8000 old Soldiers The Instance of the Iniskilling Men in Ireland will not bear here for on the one hand they were Men made desperate by the ruin of their Families and Estates and exasperated to the highest degree and had no recourse for their Lives but to their Arms and on the other hand the Irish were the most despicable scandalous Fellows the World ever saw Fellows that shut their Eyes when they shot off their Musquets and tied Strings about their right Hands to know them from their left These are wretched Instances and only prove what we knew before that the Militia are always brave Soldiers when they have to do with Children or Fools but what could our Militia have done to the P. of O. old Veteran Troops had they been willing to have opposed him truly just as much as King James did run away The Story of making them useful has been much talk'd of and a Book was printed to that purpose it were a good Project if practicable but I think the Attempt will never be made by any wise Man because no such will go upon Impossibilities War is no longer an Accident but a Trade and they that will be any thing in it must serve a long Apprenticeship to it Human Wit and Industry has rais'd it to such a Perfection and it is grown such a piece of Manage that it requires People to make it their whole Employment the War is now like the Gospel Men must be set apart for it the Gentlemen of the Club may say what they please and talk fine things at home of the natural Courage of the English but I must tell them Courage is now grown less a Qualification of a Soldier than formerly not but that 't is necessary too but Mannagement is the principle Art of War An Instance of this may be had no farther off than Ireland what a pitiful piece of Work the Irish made of a War all Men know now 't is plain the Irish do not want Courage for the very same Men when sent abroad well Train'd and put under exact Discipline how have they behav'd themselves in Piemont and Hungary they are allow'd to be as good Troops as any in the Armies And if the state of Things alter we must alter our Posture too and what then comes of the History of Standing Armies Tho' there had never been any in the World they may be necessary now and so absolutely necessary as that we cannot be safe without them We must now examine a little the Danger of a Standing Army at home in which it will appear whether the Gentlemen of the Club are in the right when they turn all the Stream of the Government into one Channel as if they all drove but one Whâ—el and as if the whole Design of the King and his Ministers were to obtain the despotick Power and to Govern by an Army They do indeed Caress the King sometimes with large Encomiums but on the other hand they speak it as directly as English can express They intimate to us that he design'd the Government by an Army even before he came over and therefore in his Declaration omited to promise the Disbanding it I wish these Gentlemen would leave out their Raillery as a thing that never helps an Argument as Mr. Dryden says For Disputants when Reasons fail Have one sure Refuge left and that 's to rail However we shall not treat them in the same manner I cannot think all those Artifices of the Court for a Standing Army are true and some of them are plain Forgories To tell us the Parliament thought they might have mannaged their part of the War by Sea That the word Authority of Parliament was urg'd to that Article of the Declaration of Right about Standing Armies by such as design'd so early to play the Game of a Standing Army That the Kingdom of Ireland was neglected and London Derry not Reliev'd that a pretence for a greater Army might be fram'd These are horrid suggessions and favour only of ill Nature and it may be very easy had I leisure to examine to prove to those Gentlemen that the Parliament had as great a Sense of the necessity of Force to reduce Ireland as the King had and were as forward to grant Supplies for it When the King told the House that 't was not advisable to attempt it without 20000 Men. If these Gentlemen had ask'd who advised his Majesty to say so I could ha' told them Duke Schomberge himself did it a Man who was much a Soldier and as honest as ever Commanded an Army a General of the greatest Experience of any of his Age who no Man could despise without our Reproach to his Judgment a Man us'd to Conquering of Kingdoms and Armies and yet he thought it very unsafe to Fight with that Army at Dundalk And we were beholding to his Conduct for the saving the whole Nation by that Caution tho' Thousands lost their Lives by it and some foolishly reflected on him for want of Courage which 't was thought cost him his Life at the Boyne King James had 50000 Men in Ireland furnished with every thing necessary but a General and can any body say that to attempt reducing them with less than 20000 was a pretence to get an Army This