party with rare tact and address. No expression indicating
disrespect to the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels was suffered
to escape. The western insurrection was always mentioned with
abhorrence. Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and
Jeffreys. It was admitted that the heavy expenditure which had
been occasioned by the late troubles justified the King in asking
some further supply: but strong objections were made to the
augmentation of the army and to the infraction of the Test Act.

The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have
carefully avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on
the great superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them
tauntingly asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be
entrusted to the beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad
to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion
before Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household
troops of Lewis. But these arguments had little effect on
Cavaliers who still remembered with bitterness the stern rule of
the Protector. The general feeling was forcibly expressed by the
first of the Tory country gentlemen of England, Edward Seymour.
He admitted that the militia was not in a satisfactory state, but
maintained that it might be remodelled. The remodelling might
require money; but, for his own part, he would rather give a
million to keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear,
than half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever be
afraid. Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be
strengthened; and the country would be secure. A standing army
was at best a mere drain on the public resources. The soldier was
withdrawn from all useful labour. He produced nothing: he
consumed the fruits of the industry of other men; and he