ment of a state can ever become a subject of re- rather like that adviser of Pyrrhus, whose advice *presentation, since nothing surely is so completely was not taken,-instead of proceeding to the conan internal concern, as what any nation does with quest of new worlds, will be willing to sit down its own military or naval forces, upon its own soil, contented in the enjoyment of those which he has or in its own barbours. But setting aside these already-Sir, the great objection to this hope, to smaller objects, suppose France was to re-invade say nothing of its baseness, is its utter extravaEgypt; was, without waiting even for the form of gance. On what possible ground do we believe a surrender from the Order, to take forcible pos- this? Is it in the general nature of ambition? Is ⚫ session of Malta; was to land a body of troops in it in the nature of French ambition? Is it in Greece, and either that way, or by succours to the nature of French revolutionary ambition ? Paswan Oglow, was to overset the government of Does it happen commonly to those, whether nathe Porte; would you be able, on any of these tions or individuals, who are seized with the spirit occasions, to satisfy those by whose opinions it is of aggrandizement and acquisition, that they are now the fashion to guide the counsels of states, inclined rather to count what they possess, than that an interest existed sufficiently strong to call to look forward to what yet remains to be acquir for the interference of this country, to prevent the ed? If we examine the French Revolution, and mischief, much less to redress and vindicate it when trace it correctly to its causes, we shall find that done? Why, Sir, we know that in the present state the scheme of universal empire was, from the beof opinions and feelings, and upon the principles ginning, that which was looked to as the real conon which the present peace has been made, not summation of its labours; the object first in view, only no one, but hardly all of these put together, though last to be accomplished; the primum mobile would drag the country into a renewal of hostili- that originally set it in motion, and has since guidties, though, as is evident, its very existence might ed and governed all its movements.-The authors depend upon it. The consequence is, that France of the Revolution wished to destroy morality and 'is our mistress; that there is nothing she can ask, religion. They wished those things as ends: but which she must not have; (she has only to threat- they wished them also, as means, in a higher and en war, and her work is done ;)-that all the ob- more extensive design. They wished for a double jects of interest and ambition which France can empire; an empire of opinion and an empire of have in view, lie open before her, to be taken pos-political power: and they used the one of these, session of whenever she pleases, and without a as a means of effecting the other. What reason struggle: her establishments will accumulate round have we to suppose, that they have renounced us, till we shall be lost and buried in them; her those designs, just when they seem to touch the power will grow over us, till, like the figures in moment of their highest and fullest accomplishsome of Ovid's Metamorphoses, we shall find all ment? When there is but one country, that our faculties of life and motion gradually failing remains between France and the empire of the and deserting us : world, then is the moment, when we choose to suppose that all opposition may be withdrawn, and that the ambition of France will stop of its own accord. It is impossible not to ses in these feeble and sickly imaginations, that fatal temper of mind, which leads men to look for help and comfort from any source rather than from their own exertions. We are become of a sudden great hopers. We hope the French will have no inclination to hurt us :-we hope, now Peace is come, and the pressure of War, as it is called, taken off, that the French Empire will become a prey to dissensions, and finally fall to pieces; we hope, that the danger to have been apprehended from the example of the Revolution, is now worn out; and that Buonaparte, being now monarch himself, will join with us in the support of monarchical principles, and become a sort of collateral security for the British constitution. One has heard to be sure, that magni animi est separe; but the maxim, to have any truth in it, must be confined, I appre

Torpor gravis alligat artus; Mollia cinguntur tenui præcordia libro. If, in this last extremity, we should make any desperate efforts and plunges, that might threaten to become troublesome, and give us a chance of extricating ourselves, she will call in the aid of her arms, and with one blow put an end at once to our sufferings and our existence.-Sir, are these idle dreams, the phantoms of my own disordered imagination? or are they real and serious dangers, the existence of which no man of common sense, let his opinions of the peace be what they may, will attempt to deny? The utmost that any man will pretend to say, is, that he hopes, (and so do 1) that the evils apprehended will not happen; and that, great as the risk may be, he thinks it preferable to these risks, which would attend a continuation of the war. None but the most weak or inconsiderate, if they are not disaffected, or absorbed and lost in the sense of some imme-hend, to those hopes which are to be prosecuted diate personal interest, will feel, when they shall well understand the subject, that there is any cause of joy or rejoicing. Here it is then, that I must advert again to that topick of consolation, (miserable indeed must our state be, when such are our topicks of consolation,) to which, in order to make out a case not perfectly hopeless, we are willing to have recourse and which, more I believe than any reliance upon our wealth, does really support us, in the situation to which we are reduced. This is the idea, that from some cause or other, from some combination of passions and events, such as no philosophy can explain, and no history probably furnish an example of,the progress of the Revolution will stop where it is: and that Buonaparte, like another Pyrrhus,-or

through the medium of men's own exertions, and not be extended to those, which are to be independent of their exertions, or rather, as in the present instance, are meant to stand in lieu of them.

Of this description are all those expectations which I have just enumerated; one of which is, that the French will fall into dissensions.-Why, Sir, they have had nothing else but dissensions from the beginning. But of what avail have such dissensions been to the safety of other countries? One of their first dissensions was a war of three years, called the war of La Vendée; in which, according to some of their calculations, the Republick lost, between the two sides, to the number of 600,000 souls. This was surely pretty well, in the way of dissensions. Yet when did this in

been carrying on for nine years has proved only an impediment!-Such is the state of our hopes and opinions on that side.

terrupt for a moment, even if it might in some, degree have relaxed, the operations of their armies on the frontiers, and the prosecution of their plans for the overthrow of other countries? As for changes of But we have another hope, founded on rather a government, they have be in a continued course of contrary supposition, namely, that Buonaparte, them. Since the beginning of the Revolution, the now that he is a King himself-and a King he is. government has been overturned at least half a so far as power can make one,-will no longer be dozen times. They have turned over in the air, as in an encourager of those absurd and mischievous sport, like tumbler pigeons ;-but have they ever doctrines, which, however they may have helped in consequence ceased their flight? The internal him to the throne, will be as little pleasing "to state of the country has been in the most violent him, now that he is fairly seated there, as to any commotion. The ship has been in mutiny ;-there the most legitimate Monarch. Sir, I agree, that has been fighting in the waist and on the fore- Buonaparté, like other demagogues and friends of castle-but in the midst of the confusion some- the people, have deluded and gulled the people body has always been found to tend the helm, and sufficiently to make them answer his purpose, to trim the sails; the vessel has held her course. will be ready enough to teach them a different les-For one, therefore, I have no great confidence son, and to forbid the use of that language toin the effect of these internal commotions; which wards himself, which he had before instructed every day become less and less likely, in propor- them in, as perfectly proper towards others. tion as the power of the present government be- Never was there any one, to be sure, who used comes more confirmed, and as the people of France less management in that respect, or who left all become more and more bound together by the com- the admirers of the French Revolution, within and mon feeling of national glory, and by the desire of without,-all the admirers of it, I mean, as a sysconsolidating the empire which they have seen tem of liberty,-in a more whimsical and laughestablished. Such commotions may undoubtedly able situation. Every opinion for which they happen, and may of a sudden, when it is least ex have been contending, is now completely trodden pected, bring about some change favourable to the down, and trampled upon, or held out in France world. But it is curious to hear these chances to the greatest possible contempt and derision. gravely brought forward, as the best foundation The Honourable Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches of our hopes, and by those too, who a few weeks have really great reason to complain of having ago, while the war continued, would never hear been so completely left in the lurch. There is of them, as entering at all into calculation. It not even a decent retreat provided for them.seems, that the chapter of accidents, as it is But though such is the treatment, which the princalled, which could do nothing for us in war, may ciples of "the Rights of Man," and of the" Holy do every thing for us in time of peace. Whereas Duty of Insurrection," meet with in France, and I should have thought just the contrary; that on the part of him who should be their natural chances, such as are here intended, were not only protector, it is by no means the same, with remore likely to happen in war, but, what is a little spect to the encouragement which he may choose material, might then be better improved and turn- to give them in other countries. Though they ed to account. While war subsists, while armies use none of these goods in France for home conare ready to act, while confederacies are in force, sumption, they have always a large assortment by while intelligences are going on, while assistance them ready for foreign markets. Their Jacobin may be lawfully and avowedly given, every chance Orators are not to be looked for in the clubs at of this sort may, if properly improved, lead to Paris, but in the clubs of London. There, they consequences the most decisive. In peace, all that may talk of cashiering Kings, with other language fortune can do for us, falls dead and still-born. of that sort: but should any orator more flippant Nobody is ready, nobody is authorized to move a than the rest choose to hold forth in that strain, step, or stretch forth a hand, to rear and foster in the city where the Great Consul resides, in the those chances, however promising, which time metropolis of liberty, he would soon put him to and accident may bring forth. It is not an answer silence, in the way that we see adopted in the sign to say, that such never have been improved. In of the Silent Woman. Buonaparte, being investregulating plans of future conduct, we must con-ed, in virtue of the Rights of Man, with desposider not what men have done, but what they may and ought to do. The only rational idea that 1 could ever form of resistance to that power, which unresisted must subdue the world, was, that it must be the joint effect of an internal and an external war, directed to the same end, and mutually aiding and supporting each other. All the powers of Europe could not subdue France, if France was united; or force upon it a government, even were such an attempt warrantable, really in opposition to the wishes of the people. On the other hand, no internal efforts, unassisted by force from without, seemed capable of rescuing the country from the yoke imposed upon it, so long as the several factions that governed in succession, could find means of securing to themselves the support of the armies. We are now required to believe, that what has hitherto failed to be performed by both these powers together, is to be effected by one alone: and that with respect to any hope of a change of government in France, the war that has

tick power, can afford to sanction the preaching of those doctrines in other countries, of which he will not suffer the least whisper in his own. While he is at the head of an absolute Monarchy in France, he may be the promoter and champion of Jacobin insurrection every where else. The abject as well as wicked nature of Jacobinism in this country, which, while it would rebel against the lawful authority of its own government, is willing to enslave itself to France, finds no difficulty of allowing to him these two opposite characters: and I know no reason why we should suppose him disinclined to accept them.-I must confess, therefore, that I see as little hope for us on this side, as I do on the other. In fact, if I could belive, in spite of all probability, that there was any remisson of that purpose, which has never yet ceased for an instant, the purpose of destroying this country,-such belief, however produced, must be instantly done away by a view of the conduct of France, in the settlement of

this very treaty. There is not a line of it, that every other species of guilt; but pass on to the does not either directly point to the destruction question, which meets us at every turn, and seems of this country, or, by a course a little circuitous, to stop the progress of all argument, the great but not less certain, equally tend to the same ob- question-" What are we to do? The danger is ject. What can France want with any of the pos- " great, but how are we to avoid it? War cansessions which she has compelled us to surrender, “not be eternal, and what prospect have we of but with a view of rivalling our power, or of sub- "reaching a period, when it may be terminated verting it, or of removing out of our hands the "in circumstances upon the whole more favourmeans of controulling her further projects of am- "ble than the present?"-Sir, the word, eterbition-Of the first sort are all her stipulations nal, which in any use of it is sufficiently awful, for settlements in South America and the West- will undoubtedly not be least so, when associated Indies of the second, her demand of the Cape with the idea of war. But I must beg leave to and Cochin; and of the last, that most marked remind the House of a circumstance, of which and disgraceful condition on our part, the surren- they and the country seem never to have been at der of Malta. What upon earth could France all aware, that the question of eternal War, is have to do with Malta, but either as a means of one, which it is not left for us to decide. It is a humbling us in the eyes of all the world, by the question which must be asked of our enemies : surrender of it, or of depriving us of a port in and is not less proper to be asked, if we could the Mediterranean, that might stand in the way hope that they would answer us at the present of designs which she is meditating against the moment, than it was before the signature of the countries bordering upon that sea? The miserable preliminaries. The war depends neither upon pretexts which are formed to palliate this sur- conventions to be entered into between the two render, and the attempt to cover it, in part, by governments, nor upon acts of hostility which the show of delivering that fortress to the Order, may be committed between the two people, by though much the greater part of the Order are land or on the high seas; but on the existence or nonnow living in the dominions of Buonaparté, and existence of that fixed, rooted, determined purpose, which many of them actually serving in his armies, are France has hitherto had, and which we have no reason wholly insufficient, either to conceal our shame, whatever to think she has relinquished—of accomplishing or to disguise the purpose of the French in making the final overthrow of this country. While that purpos this demand. But the circumstances of the nego- exists, and shall be acted upon, we are at war, call our tiation, not less than the treaty resulting from it, state by what name you please: and the only question is, shew, in another way, the folly of those hopes, whether France cannot work as effectually to her purpue which are founded upon the supposed intentions in peace; and if peace is made in a certain way, infor characters of the persons with whom it is made. | nitely more effectual than she can in what is professedly and It does not augur very favourably for the inten- declaredly war. I would really wish to ask, whetions of a party in any transaction, that there ther gentlemen have never heard of a people appear in every stage of it the clearest proofs of called the Romans, a set of republicans who conduplicity and fraud.-What do we think of the quered the world in the old time; and whom the artifice, which signs a treaty with us, guarantee-modern Romans take as their model in every respect, ing the integrity of Portugal; but previously to that, at a period so late, as to make it sure that the knowledge of the transaction shall not reach this country in time, signs another treaty, totally altering the nature of that guaranty? What shall we think of the candour and fairness, which in a treaty with us, proposes, as a joint stipulation, the evacuation of Egypt, at a time when the proposers knew, though we did not, that every soldier of theirs in Egypt was actually a prisoner to our troops? Where was their good faith to the Turks, when, in the same circumstances, they knowing the fact and the Turks not, they took credit from the Turks for this very evacuation? Why, Sir, it is a fraud upon a level with any of those practised at a lottery-office. They insure the ticket, at the moment when they know it to be drawn. And are these the people, to whose generosity and forbearance, to whose good inten* The manner, in which people seem to have tions towards this country, and above all, to posed themselves with this question, has been the whose good faith, we are to deliver over, bound ruin of the country. They never seem to have hand and foot, the interests of the British Empire, got the length of discovering, that if France was to be destroyed or saved, as they, in their good bent upon their destruction, they were and must pleasure, shall think fit?-I say nothing here on a be, in an eternal war, unless either France should topick, however closely connected with the pre-change her purpose, or they would submit to be sent subject, the character of the First Consul himself a character hitherto as much marked by frauds of the most disgraceful kind, as by

The note referred to here is a description of the character of Buonaparte. It will be found in Register, Vol. 1. p. 959.

but in none more than in what relates to the overthrow of this country? Among the nations that fell under the Roman yoke, there were but few whom they were able to fetch down at a blow,— to reduce in the course of a single war. All their greater antagonists, particularly the state whose fate is chosen as a prototype of our own, were not reduced till after repeated attacks, till after several successive and alternate processes of war and peace: a victorious war preparing the way for an advantageous peace; and an advan tageous peace again laying the foundation of a successful war. This was at least the conduct of a great people; a people not to be put aside from their purposes by every transient blast of fortune. They had vowed the destruction of Carthage;

destroyed. With all their fears and complainings, they have never been sensible to above half their danger. They seem always to have supposed, that like the contests in use among our common people, (till the wisdom of magistrates extin guished those remains of rustick chivalry,) they could terminate this war at any time, by only de claring that they had enough..

and they never rested from their design, till they ling to suppose.-This brings us at once to the had seen it finally accomplished. The emulators point. If we are to come at last only to an armed of their fortune in the present day, are, in no less truce, would it not have been a shorter and better a degree, the emulators of their virtues; at least course, to turn our war into an armed truce, into of those qualities, whatever they may be, that which in fact it had pretty much turned itself, give to man a command over his fellows. When rather than to take the round about way which I look at the conduct of the French Revolutionary has been now adopted, of making peace by the rulers, as compared with that of their opponents; sacrifice of all the means of future war, in order when I see the grandeur of their designs; the afterwards to form an armed truce out of that wisdom of their plans; the steadiness of their ex- peace? Let us state the account, and consider the ecution; their boldness in acting; their con loss and profit on either side. The evits of war stancy in enduring; their contempt of all small are, generally speaking, to be comprized under obstacles and temporary embarrassments; their three heads: the loss of lives and the consequent inflexible determination to perform such and such affliction brought upon friends and families; the things; and the powers which they have display- loss of money, meaning, by that, money expended, in acting up to that determination; when I ed in a way not to be beneficial to the country contrast these with the narrow views, the paltry that raises it; and the loss of money in another interests, the occasional expedients, the desultory sense, that is to say, money not got; by which I wavering conduct, the want of all right of feeling mean the interruption given to national industry, and just conception, that characterize so gene- and the diminution of the productions thence rally the governments and nations opposed to arising, either by the number of hands withdrawn them, I confess I sink down in despondency, and from useful labour, (which is probably however am fain to admit, that if they shall have conquer- but little material), or by the embarrassments ed the world, it will be by qualities by which and restraints which in a state of war impede and they deserve to conquer it. Never were there clog the operations of commerce. I do not mean, persons, who could shew a fairer title to the in- that there are not in war, evils which may be said heritance which they claim. The great division not to be included properly under any of the of mankind made by a celebrated philosopher of above heads; among which may be numbered, the old, into those who were formed to govern, and distress arising from sudden changes of property, those who were born only to obey, was never even when the persons who lose, and those who acmore strongly exemplified than by the French na- quire, are equally parts of the same community. tion, and those who have sunk, or are sinking, This, however, is an evil that will be more felt at under their yoke. Let us not suppose, therefore, the beginning, than in the later periods of a war; that while these qualities, combined with these and will in fact be likewise felt, though in a less purposes, shall continue to exist, they will ever degree, by a transition even from war to peace. cease, by night or by day, in peace or in war, to The enumeration, now made, however, may be work their natural effect, to gravitate towards sufficiently correct for the present purpose. And, their proper centre; or that the bold, the proud, with this in our hands, let us consider, in what so the dignified, the determined, those who will great very violent a degree, the present armed truce, or things, and will stake their existence upon the peace, if you choose to call it so, differs from what accomplishment of what they have quilled, shall might have been our state, in the case so much not finally prevail over those, who act upon the dreaded and deprecated, of a continuation of the very opposite feelings; who will never push war.-To take the last first,-the loss of national their resistance beyond their convenience;" who wealth by the interruption given to commerce -ask for nothing but ease and safety; who look and industry; such is the singular nature of this only to starve off the evil for the present day, and war, such the unexampled consequences with will take no heed of what may befal them on the which it has been attended, that it becomes a morrow. We are therefore, in effect, at war at question, and one in itself of the most anxious this moment: and the only question is, whether and critical importance, on which side of the acthe war, that will henceforward proceed under the count the consequences of peace in this respect name of peace, is likely to prove less operative are to be placed: whether, instead of balancing and fatal, than that which has hitherto appeared the dangers of peace, if such there are, by acces in its natural and ordinary shape. That such issions which it will bring to our wealth and comour state, is confessed by the authors themselves merce, we are not rather called upon to prove of the present treaty, in the measures which they some great advantages which peace will give us in feel it necessary to recommend to the House.respect of security, in order to balance the dimi When did we ever hear before of a military esta- nution likely to be produced by it in our comblishment necessary to be kept up in time of mercial opulence. That our commerce will sufpeace? The fact is, that we know that we are not fer at the long run, admits, I fear, of no doubt. at peace; not such as is fit to be so called, nor If my apprehensions are just, it is in the diminuthat in which we might hope to sit down, for tion of our manufactures and commerce, that the some time at least, in confidence and security, in approaches of our ruin will first be felt: but is the free and undisturbed enjoyment of the bles- any one prepared to say that this may not happen sings which we possess. We are in that state, in in the first instance? We have at present, subject which the majority, I believe, of those who hear to the inconveniences which war produces, nome, are in their hearts more desirous that we thing less than the commerce of the whole world. should be, than, in our present prostrate and de- There is no part of the world to which our goods fenceless situation, they may think it prudent to do not pass freely in our own ships; while not a avow-in a state of armed truce; and then the single merchant ship, with the enemy's flag on only questions will be, at what price we purchase board, does at this moment swim the ocean. Is this truce; what our condition will be while it this a state of things to be lightly hazarded? Jasts; and in what state it is likely to leave us, Does the hope of bettering this condition, even in should it terminate otherwise than as we are wil- the minds of those most sanguine, so much outVOL. II.

Z z

:

weigh the fear of injuring it, that these opposite | example, with which Jamaica, and all our Westchances can upon the whole be stated otherwise India islands are threatened by the establishment than as destroying each other: and that of con- of the French in Saint-Domingo, and other parts sequence, in the comparison of war and peace, the in that quarter of the world: the new dangers to prospect of increased industry and commerce, which our empire in the East is exposed. by the which in general tells so much in favour of peace, re-entry of the French into the peninsula of India, must not here be struck out of the account? On and the cession to them, for such in effect it as, of this head the question between peace and war the Cape and Cochin in general, by the free stands, to say the least of it, evenly balanced.-passage now given to their ships and armies into The next of these heads, the first, indeed, in every part of the world, and the establishment of point of consequence, but the next in the order in then every where in the neighbourhood of our which it is here convenient to consider them, is most valuable possessions.Against all these danthe loss of lives, and the effect which war is likely gers war provided, as it were, by its own single to have on private and individual happiness. No act. The existence of our fleets upon the ocean, man can pretend to say, that war can continue with an Admiralty order "to burn, sink, and upon any footing, however restricted the circle destroy," shut up at once, as under lock and key, of hostilities, without the lives of men being all those attempts, which are now let loose, and liable to be sacrificed; and no such sacrifice can require as many separate defences as there are be justified, or reconciled to the feelings of any parts liable to be attacked. A fleet cruising beone, but by that which must justify every such fore Brest, therefore, was not to be considered as sacrifice, however great the extent the safety so much clear expense, to be charged to the acand essential interests of the state. But if ever count of the war; without deducting the expense there was a war in which such sacrifices seemed of additional troops and additional ships, which likely to be few, not as an effect of any choice of the absence of the fleet might require to be kept, ours, but by the necessary course of events, it for instance, in the West-Indies. was that which we should have had to carry on With respect to home defence. Considering the in future with the Republic of France. The great little reliance to be placed upon the government in and destructive operations of war, the conflict of France, now subsisting; the still greater uncerfleets or armies, or the consumption of men in tainty with respect to any future government unwholesome climates and distant expeditions, (such as may arise at any moment); and the inhad ceased of themselves. I know not what ex- creased defence necessary on land, in proportion peditions we should have had to prosecute, unless to the diminution of our force by sea; I know new cases should have arisen, similar to that of not, how we can remain secure with a military the ever-memorable one of Egypt; where, the establishment much less considerable, than that same motives existing, we should be sorry indeed which we should have had to maintain here in the not to have the means of acting upon them. But case of war.-So much for the expenses of peace.— in general, our fleets would have remained quietly On the other hand, we must consider, what the at their stations, and our armies have lived at reductions are that might be made to the expense home: the whole question reduces itself to a of war, beyond those, which the very scheme and mere question of expense; and that again pretty shape of the war itself would unavoidably promuch to a mere question of establishment.-The duce.-The expenses of our army, as at present great heads of war expenditure, the army extraor- established, are excessive: but what should hindinaries, would, in most parts, have ceased; and der us from adopting some of those expedients, in the rest, have been greatly reduced. The chief by which a country not more considerable than question will be, not between an ordinary peace Prussia, under the regulations introduced by a establishment and a war, such as, from circum- former great monarch, is made capable of mainstances, ours has hitherto been, involving expedi- taining a military establishment superior to that tions to all parts of the globe; but between a of Great-Britain?-The chief of those expedients, peace establishment, such as that which is now and that which we could best imitate, is, the declared to be necessary, and a war, which had putting at all times the half of the army upon the become, and was likely to continue, merely de-footing of militia, to be exercised only for a month fensive; in which we should have had nothing to do, but to maintain a competent force, with little prospect of being obliged to make use of it. The advocates for the present peace must find themselves always in an aukward dilemma, between economy and safety. We make peace in order to save our money: if we reduce our establishments, what becomes of our security? if we keep up our establishments, what becomes of our savings? Whatever you give to one object, is unavoidably taken from the other. The savings of the present peace, therefore, can be looked for only be-ably, the absolute difference, which is what we tween the narrow limits of a high peace and a low war establishment; or, to state the case more correctly, between a high peace establishment and a war, reduced in the manner that I have described. I wish that a correct estimate were formed of the difference, in point of expense, between these two states; recollecting always that among the expenses of peace are to be counted the provisions necessary against the new dangers brought by the peace itself; the new dangers for

or two, and to be at home for the remainder of the year. Other expedients might be suggested, if this were the proper occasion for discussing them.-It is true, as may be observed, that such a reduction of expense, if it can be at all effected, may be applied not less in time of peace than in time of war; and in a comparison, therefore, between the two, must be counted on both sides. But that circumstance, as is plain, does not do away the effect of what is here stated. If both sides are reduced, and reduced at all proportion

are here considering, will be reduced also; not to mention that, with a view to what will be the effect of the measure in other ways, such a reduction may be better applied to a large establishment, than it can to a small one. If an army of 80,000 men, for instance, may, for the moment, be reduced to half, because the remaining 40,000 will still be a sufficient force, it is not to be concluded, that a proportionate reduction might be made in an army of only half that number, when