The House waited until Rose had fairly sailed and the session drew near its end, with embargo fastened upon the country, and no alternative visible but war; then slowly and unwillingly began its recantations. April 4 John Clopton of Virginia[166] admitted that in 1798 he had voted against the army. His excuse for changing his vote was that in 1798 he thought there was no ground for fearing war, while in 1808 he saw little ground for hoping peace. Yet he voted for the new regiments only because they were so few; and even in the event of actual war “he could scarcely imagine that he could be induced to admit the expediency of increasing the regular forces to a number much greater than they would be” under the present bill. Clopton was answered by Randolph, who warmly opposed the new army for the same reasons which had led him to oppose the old one. Randolph was followed by George M. Troup of Georgia,--a young man not then so prominent as he was destined to become, who declared that no one had more confidence than he felt in militia; but “it is well known that the present defective system of militia in our quarter of the country at least is good for nothing;” and a small standing army was not dangerous but necessary, because it would preserve peace by preparing for war.[167] Smilie of Pennsylvania added another reason. He argued that John Randolph had favored raising troops in the year 1805 to protect the Southern frontier “from Spanish inroad and insult.” Smilie had then opposed the motion and the House had rejected it, but to Smilie the argument that Randolph had once favored an increase of the army, seemed decisive. A much respected member from South Carolina--David R. Williams, one of Randolph’s friends--then took the floor.[168] He could not bring himself to vote for the bill, because no half-way measure would answer. War would require not six but sixty thousand men; defensive armies were worse than none, either in war or peace. Williams’s argument was so evidently weak that it failed to convince even Macon, who had voted against the twelve regiments in 1798, but meant to change his ground and believed himself able to prove his consistency. In contradiction to the bill itself he maintained that the new army was not a peace establishment; that if it were so he would not vote for it. He condemned the maxim that to preserve peace nations must be prepared for war, and asserted that no analogy existed between 1798 and 1808, for that in 1808 America was attacked by foreign powers, while in 1798 she attacked them.[169]