_Jealousy of the Commons._--The House of Commons which sat at the conclusion of the treaty of Ryswick, chiefly composed of whigs, and having zealously co-operated in the prosecution of the late war, could not be supposed lukewarm in the cause of liberty, or indifferent to the aggrandisement of France. But the nation's exhausted state seemed to demand an intermission of its burthens, and revived the natural and laudable disposition to frugality which had characterised in all former times an English parliament. The arrears of the war, joined to loans made during its progress, left a debt of about seventeen millions, which excited much inquietude, and evidently could not be discharged but by steady retrenchment and uninterrupted peace. But, besides this, a reluctance to see a standing army established prevailed among the great majority both of whigs and tories. It was unknown to their ancestors--this was enough for one party; it was dangerous to liberty--this alarmed the other. Men of ability and honest intention, but, like most speculative politicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rather too fond of seeking analogies in ancient history, influenced the public opinion by their writings, and carried too far the undeniable truth, that a large army at the mere control of an ambitious prince may often overthrow the liberties of a people.[204] It was not sufficiently remembered that the bill of rights, the annual mutiny bill, the necessity of annual votes of supply for the maintenance of a regular army, besides, what was far more than all, the publicity of all acts of government, and the strong spirit of liberty burning in the people, had materially diminished a danger which it would not be safe entirely to contemn.