Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to various arguments, which had been insisted upon by Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence, subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to the well-being of their country. Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable,--- especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question. That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon the true state of that balance. If the increase of peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be very proper. If the increase was not at all supported by any such appearance, he thought great jealousy might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject. That he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it contained, nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies were likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in the scale. That France had hitherto been our first object in all considerations concerning the balance of power. The presence or absence of France totally varied every sort of speculation relative to that balance. That France is at this time, in a political light, to be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again, as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but at present be considered France as not politically existing; and most assuredly it would take up much time to restore her to her former active existence: _Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus_ might possibly be the language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery. That it was to her _strength_, not to her _form of government_, which we were to attend; because republics, as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition, jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war. But if, while France continued in this swoon, we should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it became our concern to arm.