sixteenth centuries Englishmen who did not live by the trade of
war had made war with success and glory. Were the English of the
seventeenth century so degenerate that they could not be trusted
to play the men for their own homesteads and parish churches?

For such reasons as these the disbanding of the forces was
strongly recommended. Parliament, it was said, might perhaps,
from respect and tenderness for the person of His Majesty, permit
him to have guards enough to escort his coach and to pace the
rounds before his palace. But this was the very utmost that it
would be right to concede. The defence of the realm ought to be
confided to the sailors and the militia. Even the Tower ought to
have no garrison except the trainbands of the Tower Hamlets.

It must be evident to every intelligent and dispassionate man
that these declaimers contradicted themselves. If an army
composed of regular troops really was far more efficient than an
army composed of husbandmen taken from the plough and burghers
taken from the counter, how could the country be safe with no
defenders but husbandmen and burghers, when a great prince, who
was our nearest neighbour, who had a few months before been our
enemy, and who might, in a few months, be our enemy again, kept
up not less than a hundred and fifty thousand regular troops? If,
on the other hand, the spirit of the English people was such that
they would, with little or no training, encounter and defeat the
most formidable array of veterans from the continent, was it not
absurd to apprehend that such a people could be reduced to
slavery by a few regiments of their own countrymen? But our
ancestors were generally so much blinded by prejudice that this
inconsistency passed unnoticed. They were secure where they ought