ministers, demanded an imposing attitude in negotiation, which an army, it was thought, could best give; the cabinet was for many years entangled in alliances, shifting sometimes rapidly, but in each combination liable to produce the interruption of peace. In the new system which rendered the houses of parliament partakers in the executive administration, they were drawn themselves into the approbation of every successive measure, either on the propositions of ministers, or as often happens more indirectly, but hardly less effectually, by passing a negative on those of their opponents. _Permanent military force._--The number of troops for which a vote was annually demanded, after some variations, in the first years of George I., was, during the whole administration of Sir Robert Walpole, except when the state of Europe excited some apprehension of disturbance, rather more than 17,000 men, independent of those on the Irish establishment, but including the garrisons of Minorca and Gibraltar. And this continued with little alteration to be our standing army in time of peace during the eighteenth century. This army was always understood to be kept on foot, as it is still expressed in the preamble of every mutiny bill, for better preserving the balance of power in Europe. The Commons would not for an instant admit that it was necessary as a permanent force, in order to maintain the government at home. There can be no question however that the court saw its advantage in this light; and I am not perfectly sure that some of the multiplied negotiations on the continent in that age were not intended as a pretext for keeping up the army, or at least as a means of exciting alarm for the security of the established government. In fact, there would have been rebellions in the time of George I., not only in Scotland, which perhaps could not otherwise have been preserved, but in many parts of the kingdom, had the parliament adhered with too pertinacious bigotry to their ancient maxims. Yet these had such influence that it was long before the army was admitted by every one to be perpetual; and I do not know that it has ever been recognised as such in our statutes. Mr. Pulteney, so late as 1732, a man neither disaffected nor democratical, and whose views extended no farther than a change of hands, declared that he "always had been, and always would be, against a standing army of any kind; it was to him a terrible thing, whether under the denomination of parliamentary or any other. A standing army is still a standing army, whatever name it be called by; they are a body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are governed by different laws; blind obedience and an entire submission to the orders of their commanding officer is their only principle. The nations around us are already enslaved, and have been enslaved by those very means; by means of their standing armies they have every one lost their liberties; it