What a dreadful thing is a standing army, for the conduct of the whole or any part of which, no man is responsible! In the present state of the French crown army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is there any general who can be responsible for the obedience of a brigade? Any colonel for that of a regiment? Any captain for that of a company? And as to the municipal army, reinforced as it is by the new citizen-deferters, under whose command are they? Have we not feen them, not led by, but dragging their nominal commander with a rope about his neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied, proceeded to the most atrocious acts of treason and murder? Are any of these armies? Are any of these citizens? We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a standing army to the state, he conceived, done much better. We have not diftracted our army by divided principles of obedience. We have put them under a fingle authority, with a simple (our common) oath of fidelity; and we keep the whole under our annual inspection. This was doing all that could be fafely done. He felt fome concern that this strange thing called a Revolution in France, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the Revolution in England; and the conduct of the foldiery, on that occafion, compared with the behaviour of fome of the troops of France in the present instance. At that period the Prince of Orange, a prince of the blood royal in England, was called in by the flower of the English aristocracy to defend its antient constitution, and not to level all distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the ariftocratick leaders who commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies, to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratick leaders brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlifted in this cause. Military obedience changed its object; but military difcipline was not for a moment interrupted in its principle. The troops were ready for war, but indisposed to mutiny. fent But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at that time. In truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the cafe of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power-in France it is the cafe of an arbitrary monarch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalise his authority. The one was to be refifted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither cafe was the order of the state to be changed, left government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalised. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There they C2 they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took folid securities; we fettled doubtful questions; we corrected, anomalies in our law. In the stable fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. Perhaps it might be shewn that we strengthened it very confiderably. The nation kept the fame ranks, the fame orders, the fame privileges, the fame franchises, the fame rules for property, the same subordinations, the fame order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy; the fame lords, the fame commons, the fame corporations, the same electors. The church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendour, her orders and gradations continued the fame. She was preferved in her full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was her weakness and disgrace. The church and the state were the fame after the revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part. Was little done because a revolution was not made in the constitution? No! Every thing was done; because we commenced with reparation not with ruin. Accordingly the ftate flourished. Instead of lying as dead, in a fort of trance, or exposed as fome others, in an epileptick fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous convulfive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains againft the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard, even of her former self. An æra of a more improved domestick profperity then commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired, but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All the energies of the country were awakened. England never preserved a firmer countenance, or a more vigorous arm, to all her enemies, and to all her rivals. Europe under her respired and revived. Every where she appeared as the protector, affertor, or avenger of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty of Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon after made: the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of mankind. The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own peace at home, or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbours. pofed Mr. Burke faid he should have felt very unpleafantly if he had not delivered these sentiments. He was near the end of his natural, probably still nearer the end of his political career; that he was weak and weary; and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to controverfies, or what is called a detailed opposition. That at his time of life, if he could not do fomething by some fort of weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was ufeless and indecorous to attempt any thing by mere struggle. Turpe fenex miles. That he had for that reason little attended the army business, or that of the revenue, or almost any other matter of detail for fome years past. That he had, however, his task. He was far from condemning such oppofition; on the contrary, he most highly applauded it, where a just occasion existed for it, and gentlemen had vigour and capacity to pursue it. Where a great occafion occurred, he was, and while he continued in parliament, would be amongst the most active and the most earneft, as he hoped he had shewn on a late event. With respect to the constitution itself, he wished few alterations in it. Happy if he left it not the worse for any share he had taken in its service. Mr. Fox then rofe, and declared, in substance, that fo far as regarded the French army, he went no farther than the general principle, by which that army shewed itself indisposed to be an inftrument in the servitude of their fellow citizens, but did not enter into the particulars of their conduct. He declared, that he did not affect a democracy. That he always thought any of the fimple, |