exposed to danger.

Those who brought in these foreign troops have still something further
to say in their defence, and of no honest plea is it our intention to
defraud them. They grant, that the terrour of invasion may, possibly, be
groundless; that the French may want the power, or the courage, to
attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewise, that an
invasion is possible, that the armies of France are so numerous, that
she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself
exposed; that she is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and
would be willing to do us mischief, at her own peril. They allow, that
the invaders may be intercepted at sea, or that, if they land, they may
be defeated by our native troops. But they say, and say justly, that
danger is better avoided than encountered; that those ministers consult
more the good of their country, who prevent invasion, than repel it; and
that, if these auxiliaries have only saved us from the anxiety of
expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and distress which
an invasion, how soon soever repressed, would have produced, the publick
money is not spent in vain.

These arguments are admitted by some, and by others rejected. But even
those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of necessity; for
they consider the reception of mercenaries into our country, as the
desperate "remedy of desperate distress;" and think, with great reason,
that all means of prevention should be tried, to save us from any second
need of such doubtful succours.

That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely
entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and skill, and
courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the