It was not only that he enjoyed their confidence as a successful leader; but that he commanded their affection. And others shared this feeling as strongly as the soldiers. In 1705 he narrowly escaped capture by a marauding party of French. On his arrival at the Hague after the incident the whole population, high and low, turned out to welcome him, the poor crowding round him with tears of joy and kissing even his horse and his boots. Of course there is a dark side to his character, and much has been made of his avarice and his treachery. But I have noticed that men who begin with nothing and rise to great estate, as did Marlborough, are apt to be careful of sixpences to the very end; and I do not know that it is to their discredit. It is certain too that he declined even to look at an enormous bribe offered by Louis XIV to obtain an advantageous peace. Moreover, you will find that at all times and in all countries while the issue of a struggle between two dynasties is still doubtful, men tend to keep upon friendly terms with both. I do not say that this trait is a beautiful or an honourable one; but that it is the rule and not the exception is beyond doubt; and we must take poor human nature as we find it. Fortunate are we when we find this weakness redeemed by such great qualities as were possessed by Marlborough. The Peace of Utrecht which brought the war to an end was, as you remember, the work of the Tories, who had succeeded in ousting the Whigs and disgracing Marlborough. Before the Treaty had been signed, they had reduced the British establishment to twenty-two thousand men; and, when the Whigs returned to power upon the accession of George I in 1714, they continued the evil work which the Tories had begun. By 1719 the establishment had been reduced to twelve thousand men, making with the same number in Ireland a nominal total of twenty-four thousand. Yet the Treaty had added to the Empire Gibraltar, Minorca, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, all of which required garrisons; there was no police in the British Isles; the organisation of the Militia was so antiquated that the force was absolutely useless; and there was always danger, as the country experienced in 1715, of a Jacobite rising in Scotland. Moreover, the original system of defence in the West Indies was rapidly becoming obsolete; and it was pretty evident that the burden must shortly be transferred to the Imperial forces. No consideration could move the British Parliament to accept the Army as a necessary institution. Walpole in 1722 at last insisted that the British Establishment should be raised permanently to eighteen thousand men; but even so it would have been impossible to collect ten thousand for any emergency without leaving the royal palaces and strong places unguarded. Yet Parliament, not content with keeping an inadequate army, insisted also that it should be inefficient. In Ireland, from want of billeting accommodation, barracks had