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A37441
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Some reflections on a pamphlet lately published entituled An argument shewing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing D848; ESTC R29705
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20,562
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34
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SOME REFLECTIONS On a Pamphlet lately Publish'd Entituled AN ARGUMENT Shewing that A Standing Army Is inconsistent with A Free Government AND Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English MONARCHY Hard words Iealousies and Fears Sets Folks together by the Ears Hudibras Lib. 1. The Second Edition LONDON Printed for E. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall 1697. The PREFACE Mr. ABCDEFG SIR SInce I am to Address to you Incognito I must be excus'd if I mistake your Quality and if I treat you with more or less Civility than is your due with respect to the Names or Titles by which you may be Dignified or Distinguish'd but as you are in Print you give your self a just Title to the scandalous Name of a Pamphleteer a Scribler a seditious broacher of Notions and Opinions and what not for as is the Book such is the Author I confess you are something difficult to be known for your Note is so often chang'd and your Trumpet gives such an uncertain sound that no man can prepare himself to the Battle sometimes you talk like a Common Wealths Man sometimes you applaud our present Constitution sometimes you give high Encomiums of the King and then under the Covert of what Kings may be you sufficiently Banter him sometimes the Army are Ragamuffins sometimes Men of Conduct and Bravery sometimes our Militia are brave Fellows and able enough to Guard us and sometimes so inconsiderable that a small Army may Ruine us so that no Man alive knows where to have you Possibly I may not have made a particular Reply to a long Rapsody of Exclamatory Heads for indeed Sir Railing is not my Talent Had I more time to consult History possibly I might have illustrated my Discourse with more lively instances but I assure you I have not look'd in a Book during the Composure for which reason I desire to be excus'd if I have committed any Errors as to the Dates of any of my Quotations If I were a Member of the Army I wou'd thank you mightily for the fine sweet words you give them at the end of your Book you have a pretty way with you of talking of Kings and then you don't mean this King and then of Armies but you don't mean this Army no by no means and yet 't is this King that must not be trusted with Men nor Arms and 't is this Army that must be Disbanded and his Majesty is exceedingly obliged to you Sir for your usage of him as a Soldier for 't is plain you are for Disbanding him as well as the Army But of all things I magnifie you Dear Sir for that fine turn of Argument that not to Disband the Army is the way to bring in King James but to Disband them is the most effectual way to hinder them You have read no doubt of the Fable how the Sheep were perswaded to dismiss the Dogs who they had hired to defend them against the Wolves the Application Sir is too plain and this is the Clause makes me suspect you for a Iacobite Well you have driven furiously and like Jehu called all the World to see your Zeal for the Lord but like him too you have not Demolished the high Places you have Demolish'd the Army but you have not provided against Jacobitism you take care to leave the King naked to the Villany of Assassines for you are not for leaving him so much as his Guards and you take care to leave the Nation naked to the insults of an Enemy and the King and the People must defend themselves as well as they can This is the way indeed to teach us Obedience with a Rod of Iron and to make us pass under the Axes and Harrows of a barbarous Enemy All your Plea is Liberty an alluring word and I must tell you Liberty or Religion has been the Mask for almost all the Publick Commotions of the World but if Freedom be the English Man's Right you ought to have given the King and his Parliament the Freedom of Debating this matter by themselves without putting your self upon them to raise a Controversie where for ought you know there may be no occasion What is there no way but an entire Disbanding the whole Army Can no Expedient be found out to secure us from Enemies abroad and from Oppression at home c. no way but this Sir How do you know what a Parliament may do Parliaments are Magnipotent tho' they are not Omnipotent and I must tell you Sir the Commons of England are not a Body that can be Enslaved with 20000 Men and all that have ever attempted it formed their own Ruine in it and I hope ever will do so but the Wicked fear where no fear is and fly when none pursues Sir I wish you wou'd let us know your Character that we might judge of the Manners by the Man for I am sure we cannot judge well of the Man by the Manners Your most Humble Servant D.F. Reflections on a late Scandalous Pamphlet Entituled An Argument against a Standing Army SOME Men are so fond of their own Notions and so impatient in the Pride of their own Opinions that they cannot leave Business of Consequence to them to whom it specially and peculiarly belongs but must with as much Brass as Impertinence meddle with a Cause before it comes before them tho' it be only to show they have more Wit than Manners I observe this by the way before I enter the List of Argument which a Nameless Author of a most Scandalous Pamphlet call'd An Argument against a standing Army If the Author of that Pamphlet be as he wou'd be thought a true honest spirited English-man who out of his meer Zeal for the Safety Liberty and Honour of his Country has made this false Step he is the more to be consider'd But if so why shou'd he fear his Name The days are over God be thank'd when speaking Truth was speaking Treason Every Man may now be heard What has any Man suffer'd in this Reign for speaking boldly when Right and Truth has been on his side Nay how often has more Liberty been taken that way than consisted with good Manners and yet the King himself never restrain'd it or reprov'd it witness Mr. Stephen's unmannerly Books written to the King himself But since the Author Conceals himself from all the World how can we guess him any thing but a Male-content a Grumbletonian to use a foolish term a Person dissatisfied with his not being Rewarded according to his wonderful Merit a Ferg a Man or the like Or a down-right Iacobite who finding a French War won't do wou'd fain bring in Fears and Jealousies to try if a Civil War will I confess I cannot affirm which of these but I am of the Opinion he is the latter of the two because his Insinuations are so like the Common Places of that Party and his Sawcy Reflections on the King's Person bear so exact a Resemblance to their usual Treatment of him that
is not like what it has been I find our Author is but a Book Soldier for he says Men may learn to be Engineers out of a Book but I never heard that a Book Gunner could Bombard a Town the Philosophy of it may be Demonstrated in Scales and Diagrams but 't is the Practice that produces the Experiments 't is not handling a Musket and knowing the Words of Command will raise a Man's Spirit and teach him to Storm a Counterscarp Men must make the Terrors of the War familiar to them by Custom before they can be brought to those Degrees of Gallantry Not that there is an intrinsick Value in a Red Coat and yet the Argument is not at all enforced by the Foul Language he gives the Souldiers while they are fighting in Flanders and laying down their Lives in the Face of the Enemy to purchase our Liberty 't is hard and unkind to be treated by a rascally Pamphleteer with the scandalous Term of Ragamuffins and Hen-roost Robbers I am no Soldier nor ever was but I am sensible we enjoy the present Liberty the King his Crown and the Nation their Peace bought with the Price of the Blood of these Ragamuffins as he calls them and I am for being civil to them at least I might descend a little to examine what a strange Country England would be when quite dismantled of all her Heroes as he calls them truly were I but a Pirate with a Thousand Men I wou'd engage to keep the Coast in a Constant Alarm We must never pretend to bear any Reputation in the World No Nation would value our Friendship or fear to affront us Not our Trade Abroad would be secure nor our Trade at Home Our Peace which we see now establish'd on a good Foundation what has procur'd it a War and the Valour of our Arms speaking of Second Causes And what will preserve it truly nothing but the Reputation of the same Force and if that be sunk how long will it continue Take away the Cause and our Peace which is the Effect will certainly follow Let me now a little examine the History of Nations who have run the same risque this Gentleman would have us do and not to go back to remote Stories of the Carthaginians who the Romans could never vanquish till they got them to dismiss their Auxiliary Troops The Citizens of Constantinople who always deny'd their Emperor the Assistance of an Army were presently ruin'd by the Turks We will come nearer home The Emperor Ferdinand II. over-run the whole Protestant Part of Germany and was at the point of Dissolving the very Constitution of their Government and all for what of their having a Competent Force on foot to defend themselves and if they had not been deliver'd by the Great Gustavus Adolphus God Almighty must have wrought a Miracle to have sav'd them Next look into Poland which our Author reckons to be one of the Free Countries who defend themselves without a standing Army First he must understand for I perceive he knows little of the Matter that Poland has not defended it self or if it has it has been at a very sorry rate God knows much such a one as we should do without an Army or at much such a rate as we did of old when the Picts and Scots were our Hostile Neighbours Pray let us see how Poland which enjoys its freedom without a standing Army has defended it self First It has been ravag'd on the side of Lithuania by the Effeminate Muscovites and tho' the Poles always beat them in the Field yet they had devoured their Country first before the Polanders Militia could get together On the other hand the Tartars in several volant Excursions have over-run all Vpper Poland Vkrania and Volhinia even to the Gates of Crakow and in about Fifty years 't is allow'd they have carried away a Million of this wretchedly free People into Slavery so that all Asia was full of Polish Slaves On the East side Carolus Gustavus King of Sweden over-run the whole Kingdom took Warsaw Crackow and beat King Casimir out of the Country into Silesia and all in one Campaign and only indeed for want of a Force ready to meet him upon the Frontiers for as soon as Casimir had time to recover himself and Collect an Army he lookt him in the Face and with an Invinsible Resolution fought him wherever he met him But the ruin of the Country was irrepairable in an Age. To come nearer home and nearer to the Matter in hand our Neighbours the Dutch in the Minority of the present King and under the manage of Barnavelt's Principles reviv'd in the Persons of the De Witts to preserve their Liberties as they pretended they would suppress the Power of the House of Orange and Disband their old Army which had establish't their Freedom by the Terror of their Arms and to secure themselves they came to a regulated Militia the very thing this Gentleman talks of Nay this Militia had the Face of an Army and were entertain'd in Pay but the Commissions were given to the Sons of the principal Burghers and the Towns had Governors from among themselves This is just what our Gentleman wou'd have and what came of this These brave Troops were plac'd in Garrisons in the Frontier Towns And in the Year 1672. the French King this very individual French King now regnant during the continuance of the Sacred Peace of Westphalia enters the Country at the Head of two dreadful Armies and these Soldiers that were the Bulwark of the Peoples Liberties surrendred the most impregnable Towns garrison'd some with 2000 some 3000 Men nay some with 6000 without striking a stroke nay faster than the French cou'd well take Possession of them so that in about Forty days he had taken 42 strong Towns which would cost him Seven years to take now tho' no Army were in the Field to disturb him and then the People saw their Error and gave themselves the Satisfaction of Tearing to Pieces the Authors of that pernicious Advice And truly I think these Instances are so lively that I wonder our Author who I perceive is not so ignorant as not to know these things shou'd not have provided some Answer to it for he could not but expect it in any Reply to him These things may a little tell us what is the Effects of a Nations being disarm'd while their Neighbours are in Arms and all this must be answer'd with a Fleet and that may be answer'd with this We may be invaded notwithstanding a Fleet unless you can keep up such a Fleet as can Command the Seas in all parts at the same time or can as Queen Elizabeth did forbid your Neighbours to build Ships But the French King is none of those and his Power at Sea is not be slighted Nor is it so small but it may with too much ease protect an Invasion and it is not safe to put it to that hazard Another Necessity of an