hundred thousand. The general sense of the House was that Harley
offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. At last,
on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved to
grant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be
otherwise provided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer
as well as a reward. The effect of this important vote therefore
was that, whenever a new war should break out, the nation would
be able to command the services of many gentlemen of great
military experience. The ministry afterwards succeeded in
obtaining, much against the will of a portion of the opposition,
a separate vote for three thousand marines.

A Mutiny Act, which had been passed in 1697, expired in the
spring of 1698. As yet no such Act had been passed except in time
of war; and the temper of the Parliament and of the nation was
such that the ministers did not venture to ask, in time of peace,
for a renewal of powers unknown to the constitution. For the
present, therefore, the soldier was again, as in the times which
preceded the Revolution, subject to exactly the same law which
governed the citizen.

It was only in matters relating to the army that the government
found the Commons unmanageable. Liberal provision was made for
the navy. The number of seamen was fixed at ten thousand, a great
force, according to the notions of that age, for a time of peace.
The funds assigned some years before for the support of the civil
list had fallen short of the estimate. It was resolved that a new
arrangement should be made, and that a certain income should be
settled on the King. The amount was fixed, by an unanimous vote,