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A63118
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A letter from the author of the Argument against a standing army to the author of the Balancing letter
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Trenchard, John, 1662-1723.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing T2113; ESTC R16213
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6,417
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16
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A LETTER From the AUTHOR of the ARGUMENT AGAINST A Standing Army To the AUTHOR of the Balancing Letter A False Balance is an Abomination to the Lord but a Just Weight is his Delight Prov. xi I. Vendidit hic auro patriam Dominumque potentem Imposuit Leges fixit pretio atque refixit Virgil. Æn. L. 6. LONDON Printed in the Year 1697. A LETTER from the Author of the Argument against a STANDING ARMY to the Author of the Balancing Letter SIR THO the Journy-men Scriblers with all their Scurrility can't provoke me to give them an Answer yet when I see my self levell'd at in such soft Language and Gentleman-like Behaviour I am the more afraid Timeo Danaos dona ferentes You have been pleas'd in your last Paragraph to own the Matter to be so nice and important that it ought to be severely examin'd without false Colours and popular Rhetorick and you are pleas'd to give your self the Character of one zealous for Liberty a great Adventurer for it and to have great Stake in it If you are the Gentleman I guess you to be I believe your Stake is now considerable but you being a great Adventurer in getting it it is not worth magnifying your self for it which gives me occasion to say I am not of a desperate Fortune and what Stake I have being provided for me by my Ancestors I am more afraid of losing it than if it were my own Acquisition And after this short Preface I will proceed to examine into the matter without false Colours or popular Rhetorick I think your Letter has shew'd these three things 1. What you would have 2. How long you would have it 3. For what Reasons 1st I perceive you would have us believe we have an Honourable Peace to the wonder of the World and that nothing can hurt us but A nimosities and Jealousies amongst our selves And secondly you would have a Land Force to maintain this Peace Now Sir I must beg your Pardon if my Faith differs from yours for I can't believe we have an Honourable Peace in case we are oblig'd to keep up a Standing Force to maintain it Peace is a Cessation of the Exercise of the use of Arms that we may with Safety turn our Swords into Plough-shares and Spears into Pruning-hooks and the Prayers of the Church commanded by his Majesty for Thanksgiving for this Peace have taken in that very Text And if this our Peace will not answer this Character it is not such a Peace as you would have us believe we are bless'd with But since we have not such a Peace for you know better than I I will go on for Argument-sake with yours to supply this Imperfection in it You are pleas'd to say Page 3. when you seem to prepare us to consider of the Necessity of a Land Force You are far from the thought of a STANDING ARMY Now I 'll tell you Sir what I apprehend a STANDING ARMY to be Horse and Foot rais'd under Commission granted by the King with Swords and Pistols Pikes and Muskets Powder and Ball to kill Men. If you by your Land Force mean none of all these I am very impertinent in differing with you But till you are pleas'd to distinguish your Land Force from this Description I believe all Men will think you mean the same by a LAND FORCE as I do by a STANDING ARMY which if you do then you have declar'd your Thoughts against it and made your self guilty of the most apparent Contradiction that ever I saw wrote in so good a Stile The next thing you shew is How long you would have these LAND FORCES continue and that is from Year to Year which puts me in mind of a Covenant us'd in conveying Lands in Holland whereby the Seller warrants the Land to the Purchaser for a Year and a Day which according to their Law is for ever and so I suppose when you say from Year to Year you mean in secula seculorum as will appear by and by The third thing is for what Reasons you would have this And first you abhor to give his Majesty a Jealousy of his People as if he were not safe amongst them without Guards But you say the Case at present is Whether considering the Circumstances that we and our Neighbours are now in it may not be prudent and necessary for us to keep up a reasonable Force from Year to Year and so you seem to lay a great stress upon the Fashion of other Countries You say Pag. 4. The whole World more particularly our Neighbours have now got into the mistaken Notion of keeping up a mighty Force and the most powerful of these happens to be our next Neighbour who will very probably keep up great Armies and we may appear too inviting if we are in an unguarded Condition Now Sir as to the Fashion of other Countries I remember that God having declared Laws to the Israelites commanded them to keep them and not to follow or hanker after the Fashions of other Nations either in Worship or Government And if we are in the Fashion of our Neighbours in having an Army we must have their fashioned Government too It is the Fashion of the F. K. to have a STANDING ARMY and it is the Fashion of his Subjects to be Slaves under that STANDING ARMY I observe Men that are addicted to Fashions follow them in every thing Now to be Freemen under a STANDING ARMY is not the Fashion of our Neighbours And I am afraid we shall never think our selves compleatly in the Fashion till we have got Wooden Shoes too But I see Sir you are not so much a Fop as to be in the Fashion for fashion sake but that you think there is a necessity for it for you are afraid of being invaded by our Neighbours the next and greatest of whom will probably keep up great Armies And here by the way before I forget it I would put you in mind of your Tenure from Year to Year for I think by this Argument you would have our Land Force to continue as long as the French King is in a mistaken notion of keeping up great Armies so that from Year to Year is already become a Phrase for ever For my part I should be unwilling to stay for any thing I wish for till the French King disbands his Army Therefore Sir don't draw Men into your Proposals by sowing Pillows under them by soft Language of a Land Force not Standing Army from Year to Year under the Consideration of Parliament Let us have plain words and then your Proposals according to your own Reasons must be for a Standing Army in England as long as the French King or any of his Successors keep up a Standing Army in France you had as good open your Matter fairly at first for every thing else is but flourish till you come to the Point Now Sir I confess I give as little credit to the Words and Leagues of Princes as
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