Information of these events having been obtained, the QUEEN'S regiment of foot was suddenly ordered from its cantonments in the city of Malines to embark for England. It marched to Sas Van Ghent, where it went on board of transports, and sailed to Flushing, from whence a convoy of Dutch men-of-war accompanied the fleet to England. In the mean time the conspirators had been discovered, a British fleet was sent to blockade the French ports, and the designs of Louis XIV. were frustrated. The greater part of the forces which were ordered home on this occasion returned to Flanders without landing in England; but the QUEEN'S was one of the corps which disembarked at Gravesend, and was selected to remain on home service that year. [Sidenote: 1697] In the summer of 1697 the regiment again embarked for the Netherlands; and having joined the army commanded by King William near Brussels on the 14th of July, was reviewed by His Majesty on the 16th. Soon afterwards the King had the satisfaction of seeing his exertions in behalf of the liberties of, and balance of power in, Europe, crowned with a treaty of peace, which was concluded at Ryswick in September; and in the succeeding month this regiment was ordered to return to England. It landed in the beginning of December at Woolwich; from whence it marched to Plymouth and Penryn, where its establishment was reduced from nine hundred and twenty-five to five hundred and seventy-two officers and soldiers. [Sidenote: 1698] The danger arising from the exercise of so unconstitutional a prerogative as the raising of troops and the maintaining of a large army on the authority of the Crown only, as practised in the reign of King James II., was provided against at the Revolution. In the Bill of Rights, the raising or keeping of a standing army within the kingdom, in time of peace, unless with the consent of parliament, was declared to be contrary to law, and from that period to the present time the army has been maintained under the authority of an Act, annually renewed, called an "Act for punishing mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters." This Act specifies the number of soldiers to be kept up; the conditions under which they are enlisted, paid, billeted, &c.; and lays down a system of martial law for their government. Owing to the jealousy with which a standing army was regarded, and the cost of its maintenance, it was confined, after the peace of Ryswick, within very narrow limits; and in 1699 it was reduced, in opposition to the most obvious considerations of expediency, and in despite of the efforts of the King, to so few as seven thousand men. These troops were limited to "His Majesty's natural born subjects," and King William, who had been the instrument, under Divine Providence, of establishing a free government in these realms, and of fixing the balance of power in Europe, was obliged to submit to the mortification, which