THE SECOND PART OF AN ARGUMENT, Showing, that a Standing Army Is inconsistent with A Free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy.  
With Remarks on the late published LIST of King James' Irish Forces in France.  Proximus ardet Ucalegon. Virgil. Aen. l. 2. 
London, Printed in the Year, 1697.   


The Preface.  
THE following Considerations were written, and designed to be published soon after the Argument against a Standing Army appeared. But a Report being given out, That the Advocates for a Standing Army would do Wonders on that Subject, 'twas thought convenient to expect Their Achievements, that if their Success should prove in any measure answerable to their Confidence, the Public might have been no farther importuned about the Matter. I think I may justly say, This Mountain, after all its Pangs and Convulsions, has brought forth nothing but a ridiculous Mouse. And therefore I shall submit to the Judgement of all impartial Englishmen, what is here said in confirmation of the Argument: Which I hope will be of the greater weight, because taken from our own History.   

An Argument, etc. PART II.  
WE have much talk of a Standing Army which is to be in time of Peace, but no body can tell us what they are to do: We know their usual Commission is to kill and slay; But where is the Enemy? Men talk of this with as much certainty, as if they were already established. Which is yet the more surprising, if we reflect on one of the Articles of Charge against the late King James. It is plain therefore that all this is Practice, and that these bold Forestallers of Parliaments would fain Enact that without Doors, which from the Foundation of this Kingdom was never attempted within.  
These Gentlemen are also pleased to affirm it necessary to have a vast Body of Forces continued on foot: Whereas the first Project we find for a Standing Army, in the Year 1629, requires only three thousand Foot in constant Pay, to bridle the Impertinence of Parliaments; to overaw the Parliament and Nation; to make Edicts to be Laws; to force upon the People vast numbers of Excises; and in short, to overturn the whole Frame of this noble English Government. Whoever has a mind to peruse that dangerous Scheme in Rushworth's Appendix, pag. 12. and what he says of it in his History, will see enough.  
I marvel whose Advocates these Men are in this Matter: For I am satisfied none of those brave Englishmen, who have fought honourably abroad, ever meant, when the Service was over, to be a Charge, Burden and Terror at home to their own Country; nor to disfranchise us of two of our Native Liberties, Freedom from Martial Law, and Billeting of Soldiers; and thereby directly to take away from themselves, as well as from their Fellow-subjects, one half of the Benefit of the Petition of Right, and in consequence the other half too, The Freedom of their Persons and Estates.  
I shall therefore consider of a Standing Army, without minding who is for it, or who is against it in this Age, and only show what are like to be the Consequences of it in future Reigns. And I have reason to do thus, because if the Parliament give the best King a Standing Army, the worst King shall hereafter claim and have it.  
We have many Instances where Parliaments in a kind Fit, by one sudden Grant, have entailed a World of lasting Misery upon the Nation. I will mention but one; The Kingdom was newly delivered from a bitter Tyrant, I mean King John, and had likewise got rid of their perfidious Deliverer the Dauphin of France; who after the English had accepted him for their King, had secretly vowed their Extirpation, which the 
* Daniel, pag. 148.  Viscount of Melun, a Frenchman, being at the point of Death, disclosed; they were moreover blessed with a young Prince, of whom they conceived mighty Hopes, in the Hands of a very wise and honest Council. This was Life from the Dead, and a true Revolution. In the Transport of all this Happiness, about the 7th Year of this new King Henr. 3. the Parliament granted him the Wardship of their Heirs. Knighton, pag. 2430, records it thus; Magnates Angliae concesserunt Regí Henrico Wardas' Haeredum & terrarum suarum, quod fuit initium multorum malorum in Anglia. He says this Grant was the beginning of many Mischiefs in England. In the Year 1222 these Mischiefs had their Rise and Beginning; but where they ended, no old Chronicle could ever tell: For after this intolerable Bondage had continued above four hundred Years, the Nation at last ransomed themselves in our time by giving the Excise. It is a grief to all after Ages to find a Parliament so miserably overseen, for they both mistook their Man; and the hopeful Prince proved as bad as if the very Soul of his Father John had passed into him, which is the common Character given him by all the Ancient Historians: And then they utterly mistook the Nature of the Grant, and did not foresee what a Misery and Vassalage it might prove to their Posterity. I appeal to all the Ancient Nobility and Gentry, who know any thing of the Affairs of their own Families, whether it was so or not: And yet these were honest and brave Men, who would rather have died than have been the Authors of so much Mischief: but they were led by false Appearances, that by having the King Guardian of their Children, they could not be wronged; they would have the best Education at Court, stand fair for future Preferment, and that a happier Provision for their Posterity could not be made: Neither could it, for the very Learning which this instructive Passage has given to their late Posterity, countervails all the Mischiefs that are past.  
But the Advocates for a Standing Army tell us, That though the Wards by being annexed to the Crown, and so becoming a Prerogative, could not be parted with, which was the cause of the long continuance of that Mischief, after it was known and felt to be so; yet all this is cured by making the Act Temporary, and settling a Standing Army only during his Majesty's Reign, or for Years, or they know not how. I find they have a great mind to their Cucumber, for they are content to have it dressed and pickled any way.  
I answer, That succeeding Princes, if they find an Army, will keep it, and will not trouble themselves whether the Law be Temporary or Perpetual. A plain Instance we have of this in the Customs: For though Tonnage and Poundage, and the other Impositions, are a Subsidy and free Gift, and the King's Answer to the Bill thanks the Subjects for their Good-wills. And though Parliaments have always used such Cautions and Limitations in those Grants, as might prevent any Claim, and heretofore limited them to a short time, as for a Year or two; and if they were continued longer, they have directed a certain space of Cessation, or Intermission, that so the Right of the Subject might be the more evident; at other times they have been granted upon occasion of War for a certain number of Years, with Proviso, that if the War were ended in the mean time, than the Grant should cease; and of course they have been sequestered into the hands of some Subjects for the guarding of the Seas:  
Notwithstanding all this, though the Parliament so carefully guarded their Grants, yet King Charles the First took this Subsidy without any Grant at all, for sixteen Years together; though several Parliaments in the mean time forbade the payment of it, and voted all those to be public Enemies that did not refuse it. The like did his Son the late King James till his Parliament gave it him: and in his first Speech to them he demanded it as his own, by the name of my Revenue. And why then shall not another Prince come and say the same, Give me my Army, if he ever have a Parliament to ask? To limit a Prince with Laws where there is an Army, is to bind Samson with his Locks on.  
Having made appear that an Army now will be an Army always, I come in the next place to show what the Consequences of it will be, both by the Experience of former Ages, and by the Nature of the Thing.  
In all Ages and parts of the World, a Standing Army has been the never-sailing Instrument of enslaving a Nation; which Richard the Second, (Walsing. pag. 354.) compassing to do here in England, accordingly used the Means. For the Safety of his Person, he assembled together (multos Malefactores) a great number of profligate Persons out of the County of Chester, who should keep watch and ward continually about him in their turns. This Lifeguard of his consisted of four thousand Archers; who committed such Outrages amongst the People, overawed the Parliament, and aided him in his Tyrannical Proceed in such a manner, as could not be believed, if it were not witnessed by a whole Parliament, and his own Confession, 
* Item, Tempore quo idem Rex in Parliamento suo fecit adjudicari Ducem Gloucestriae, & Comites Arundel & Warwick ut liberius possit exercere Crudelitatem in eosdem, & voluntatem suam injuriosam in aliis adimplere, sibi attraxit multitudinem magnam Malefactorum de Comitatu Cestriae, quorum quidam cum transeuntes per Regnum, tam infra Regis hospitium quam extra, Ligeos Regni crudeliter occiderunt, & quosdam verberaverunt, vulneraverunt, & depradarunt bona populi, & pro suis victualibus solvere recusarunt, & Uxores & alias mulieres rapuerunt, & violaverunt, & licet super eorum hujusmodi excessibus graves querimoniae deferebantur ad audientiam dicti Domini Regis; Idem tamen Rex super his justitiam, seu remedium facere non curavit, sed favebat iisdem gentibus in maleficiis eorum; Considens in iis & eorum praesidio, contra quoscunque alios Regni, propter quod fideles regni sui magnam commotionis & indignationis materiam habuerunt. Decem. Scrip. Col. 2748.  Artic. the 5th.  
In short, though many of those Cheshire-men plundered and lived upon Freequarter; beat, wounded, killed and ravished wherever they came: Yet because they enabled him to execute all his cruel and arbitrary Designs in Parliament, he countenanced them in all their Crimes, as confiding in them, and trusting in their defence of him against all the Realm beside: For which cause all the Liege's of his Realm had great matter of Commotion and Indignation.  
This Parliament was in the 21st of his Reign, and in it the Frame of this English Government was quite destroyed. I need not show in what Particulars, for that is done already by Bacon, and many other Lawyers. But in short, the King was made absolute, and the whole Power of Parliament, which might remedy things afterwards, was given up: For it was made Treason for any Man to endeavour to repeal any of the Arbitrary Constitutions that were then made.  
I am even ashamed, when I observe former Princes so zealous for oppressing and wronging a Nation, and so bend upon it, to reflect how cold and remiss many Subjects have been in all times, and how unconcerned to preserve their indispensible Rights, which are the very Being both of themselves and their Posterity: To see King John ready to pawn his Soul, and offer Miramolim the Emperor of Morocco to turn Turk, and to make his Kingdom tributary to him only, to get his Assistance to enslave this Nation, and Subjects to take no care of their English Liberties; which certainly are proved to be worth keeping by the eagerness of bad Princes to take them away.  
But to return to our Cheshire-men, and to the Parliament which they had in charge, Sagittariis inumerabilibus vallato, walled about with an infinite number of Archers, as it is described Artic. 4. The Parliament was hereby so overawed, that in what they did they were Magis timore Regis ducti quam mentium ratione, 
Walsing.  led more by fear of the King than their Consciences; their Souls were not their own. And besides the Standing Awe and Terror which this Guard was to both Houses during their Session, there happened a Passage at last which put them all into a very great Fright: It is thus set down by Stow, p. 316. And then licence being had to departed, a great stir was made, as is used; Whereupon the King's Archers, in number 4000, compassed the Parliament-House (thinking there had been in the House some Broil by fight) with their Bows bend, their Arrows notched, and drawing ready to shoot, to the terror of all that were there; but the King herewith coming, pacified them.  
These Men did the King such acceptable Service, that he could do no less than make some return to his Implements, which he did in honouring Cheshire for their sakes. In this Session of Parliament he made it a Principality, Cap. 9 and himself Prince of Chester: And so as Bacon is, Counties go up, and Kingdoms go down: This had never risen again but by a happy Revolution, which followed in less than two Years. So much for the Cheshire-men.  
But what signify the Proceed of this villainous Crew to an Army, who are all of them Men of Honour, and perhaps in Parliament-time shall be ordered a hundred miles off? these cannot wall in, surround, begirt and beset a Parliament, nor consequently hinder it from being a Free Parliament. That I deny, for I hope such an Army may differ in Judgement, and can petition a Parliament at that distance; and we very well know that their Desires are always Commands. The Parliament in 41, long before there was any breach with the King, were in a fair way to have been petitioned out of doors by an Army 150 miles off, though there was the Clog of a Scotch Army at the heels of them, who upon the least Motion would certainly have followed. And if Denzill Holles had not locked the Doors, and communicated the Matter to the House, who immediately fell upon the Officers that were Members, Colonel Ashburnham, Willmot, Pollard, etc. and quashed the Design, it had brought the whole Nation into great Confusion. The Petition of an Army is like that of the Cornish-men in Henry the Seventh's Time; it is always a strong Petition.  
Nay, an Army could not go out in this humble way to overrule a Parliament. If they are in being, they influence; and in Cesar's easy way they conquer, by looking on. The very Reputation of a Force to back them, will make all Court-Proposals speak big, though never so contrary to the Interest of the Nation. For there is no debating nor disputing against Legions. It will tempt them to do many things they durst not otherwise think of: What is much out of our reach, rarely is the Object of our Thoughts; but the Facility of Execution is generally the first Motives to an Attempt. Now it is abundantly the Interest of Court-Flatterers to live under a corrupt Reign. Then Bribes and Confiscations fill their Coffers. No Man's Wife or Daughter is free from their Lust, or Estate from their Avarice. They extort Presents from the Nobility, Goods from the Tradesmen, and Labour from the Poor. In short, all is their own. And 'tis to be feared, these Gentlemen (unless they have more Virtue than usually falls to their share) will put Princes upon such Counsels as promote their own Advantage. They will tell them how mean it is to be awed by a few Country Gentlemen, when all the Kings in Europe besides are got out of Pupilage, as Lewis XI called it. They will fill their heads with a thousand trifling Jealousies of Monsters, Commonwealths, and such like Bug-bears: and it hath been difficult even for the wisest Princes to free themselves from this sort of Cattle. False Prophets shall arise that shall deceive even the Elect. Nothing but the Fear of Punishment, and the being made a Sacrifice to the People's just Revenge, can make such Men honest: But if they have an Army to protect them, all these Considerations are laid aside, and all Arguments are answered in a word, The King has an Army. The King has an Army, stops all Mouths, and cuts off all Reply. It is as if it should be said, Set your hearts at rest, for the King has all Power in his hands, and you have none: He has all your Estates, Lives and Liberties, under his Girdle: Slaves, and talk! The King has an Army, is a confuting Answer to every thing but a better Army, which Thanks be to God and his present Majesty we have found. But as we are not to live upon Miracles, so we are not to tempt Dangers.  
I have stayed the longer upon this Point, in showing how inconsistent an Army is with the Freedom of Parliament, because they being the Keepers of our English Liberties, can ill perform that Office, when they have parted with their Power into other hands. They are the last Resort of the Subject for the Redress of their Grievances. But how shall they relieve the poor Royston-men, for instance, from the Oppression and Insolences of the Soldiery, when perhaps they shall be subject to the like themselves? The Projectors are ware of this terrible Inconvenience, and therefore they propose an Expedient, That it shall be the King's Army, but the Parliament shall have the paying of them; whereby they shall be as much the Parliament's humble Servants, as the Parliament their proper Masters.  
Much at one I believe. For the Long Parliament had not such a King and Parliament Army as this, but an Army that was all their own, their Creatures, as the Court-word is; raised, listed, commissioned, and paid wholly by themselves, and not in Partnership; and that had manfully fought all their Battles: And yet upon the first Distaste they were pleased to take, they distressed their own Masters, and with a high hand forced them to banish eleven of their principal Members, Denzil Holles, Sir Philip Stapylton, Glyn, and such other great Men. Sir Philip Stapylton died in his Banishment. At another time they would not suffer near a hundred Members to enter into the House, whom they thought not well affected to the Business then in hand, and at the same time evil entreated and imprisoned about forty Members. This they called purging the House. After they had thus handled them at several times, in conclusion, the Officers came and reprimanded the House, bid take away that Fool's Bauble the Mace, violently pulled the Speaker out of the Chair, drove out the Members, and locked up the Doors, and so good night to the Parliament. The Wisdom of that Parliament may have been very great, but it was Nonsense for them to think, that an Army does not know its own Strength. For without dear-bought Experience any body may know beforehand what will be the natural Consequences of a Standing Army. From the day you set them up, you set up your Masters; you put yourselves wholly into their hands, and are at their discretion. It is the Conquest of the Nation in the silentest, shortest, and surest way. They are able to dispose of your Lives and Estates at Will and Pleasure: And what can a foreign Conqueror do more? If after this we live and possess any thing, 'tis because they let us: and how long that shall be, neither we, no nor they themselves, know.  
Nay, in many respects an authorized Standing Army is far worse than a foreign Invasion, and a Conquest from abroad. For there we have a chance for it: but this is a Conquest in cold Blood, which may not be resisted. And we lose the inseparable Rights of the Conquered, which is to rescue and deliver themselves, and to throw off the Yoke as soon as they can. It is likewise a great Aggravation of our Misery, to be enslaved at our own Cost and Charges: Besides the bitter Resentments of Unkindness and Breach of Trust, if it be done by those who ought to protect us, and provide better for us; at least should not leave us in a worse Condition than they found us. But above all, if we contribute to our own Thraldom by our Folly, Flattery and little selfseeking; if the Destruction of us and our Posterity be of ourselves, that Reflection hereafter will have a Sting in it; and it will not be enough to say, Who would have thought it?  
Now in being overpowered and conquered by a Foreign Enemy, we contract none of this Gild, and suffer it as a bare Calamity. But there is no great fear of that, for the Duke de Rohan is our Guarantee that we cannot be conquered from abroad; who in a spiteful Description of England says, it is a great Animal that can be destroyed by nothing but itself. Every body must die when their time is come: and Empires as well as private Men must submit to Time and Fate; Governments have their Infancy, their Meridian, and their Decay; and the Preludes to their Destruction are generally Luxury, Pride, Sloth, Prodigality, Cowardice, Irreligion, Self-interest, and an universal Neglect of the Public. God grant this be not the Condition of a Nation I know.  
Well, 'tis all one; for let a Standing Army be what it will, still we must have it for this unanswerable Reason, viz. The Defence of the Nation from a sudden Invasion: for unless, say they, you have an Army to lie leiger, you are liable to be overrun by a foreign Enemy  you are ware; and you will show less Wit than Aesop 's Rhinoceros; you will have your Men to raise, and your Teeth to whet, when you should use them. This Thought I confess is very natural and obvious, and therefore could not possibly escape our wise Forefathers; yet we cannot learn that ever they put it in practice, which is a great sign they did not like it. No, we are well assured that they would not have suffered a Mercenary Army to defend the Nation if they would have done it gratis. They would rather have mistrusted it would double the Invasion, and make it as big again as it was. I do not speak this by guess, but have it from the wise Sir Robert Cotton, who being consulted, 3 Caroli, in a difficult State of Affairs, amongst other things gave this Advice at the Council-Table: Rushworth, pag. 469. There must be, to withstand a Foreign Invasion, a proportion of Sea and Land Forces. And it is to be considered, that no March by Land can be of that speed to make head against the landing of an Enemy: Then that follows, That there is no such Prevention as to be Master of the Sea.  
For the Land Forces, if it were for an offensive War, the Men of less Livelihood were best spared; and we used formerly to make such Wars Purgamenta Reipublicae, if we made no farther Purchase by it. But for the Safety of the Commonwealth, the Wisdom of all times did never intrust the Public Cause to any other than to such as had a Portion in the Public Adventure. And that we saw in eighty eight, when the Care of the Queen and of the Council did make the Body of that large Army no other than of the Trained Bands.  
In the same Advice to the King he lets him know how the People resented his keeping up an Army in the Winter, though we were then in War both with France and Spain. The words are these:  
And the dangerous Distastes to the People are not a little improved by the unexampled Course, as they conceive, of retaining an Inland Army in Winter Season, when former Times of general Fear, as in eighty eight, produced none such; and makes them in their distracted Fears conjecture idly, it was raised wholly to subject their Fortunes to the Will of Power rather than of Law, and to make good some farther Breach upon their Liberties and Freedoms at home, rather than defend us from any Force abroad. And tells the King the Consequences of these Jealousies is worthy a prudent and preventing Care.  
But what signify the Proceed of former Ages to us? say the Projectors, the World is strangely altered, and the Power of France is become so formidable, that it can never be opposed in the Elizabeth way. They still keep up an Army of three or four hundred thousand Men, and how shall us defend ourselves against all those, without ten or fifteen thousand disciplined Troops?  
I think the Author of the Argument, page 18 and 19, hath sufficiently showed the Difficulty, if not Impossibility, of a Foreign Invasion, whilst we are superior at Sea; the great improbability the French King should engage in such a Design, and much greater he should succeed in it. But that we may for ever lay this Goblin, we will admit our Fleets to be kidnapped by an unlucky Wind, whilst the French land twenty thousand Men in our Country. Tho in gratitude for this Concession, I hope my Adversaries will grant that their Fleet cannot get back again without our meeting with them, (since the same Wind that carries them home, will carry us out); or if they will not be so good-natured as to allow this, I will undertake for them (for we live in an undertaking Age) that they will agree we shall intercept their Supplies. Then the Case is thus, That twenty thousand Men, of which few can be Horse, are landed in England, without any humane probability of being supplied from abroad.  
I say, this Army shall never march twenty miles into the Country; for they cannot put themselves in a marching posture in less than a fortnight or three weeks; and by that time we may have 100000 Militia drawn down upon them, whereof ten thousand shall be Horse, and as many Dragoons as we please: And if this Militia does nothing else but drive the Country, cut off their Foragers and Stragglers, possess themselves of the Defilees, and intercept Provisions, their Army must be destroyed in a small time.  
Of this kind I could give many Instances out of History: but because Ancient ones, they say, will not fit our purpose, I will give you a late one out of Ireland.  
1st, I think it will be readily agreed, there are ten Men in England for one in Ireland.  
2dly, That King William had more English and Scotch to join with him in Ireland, than the F. K. hath Malcontents in England.  
3dly, That even our Militia have more Courage than Irishmen. And yet though we had eight thousand Horse, and above thirty thousand Foot in Ireland, and a great part of the Country in our possession, yet we were more than four Years in conquering the rest, and almost a Miracle we did it then. And I believe no Man will deny, if we could not have supplied our Army from England, but they had all there perished; such is the Advantage of fight upon one's own Dunghill.  
And to show what Treatment the French are like to meet with in England, I will put you in mind of the Purbeck Invasion, which was so private, that it was seen only by an old Man and a Boy: And yet though the Country thought the Government against them, we had above forty thousand Volunteers in Arms in two or three days time, who came thither on their own accord to give them the meeting; and if they had been there, I doubt not would have given a good account of them. Our Court when it was over, shown their dislike of it, and questioned the Sheriff of Dorsetshire about it. And though we have forgot it, yet I believe the French will remember Purbeck; for it shown the true Spirit and Genius of the English Nation.  
To conclude, The whole management of this Project is ridiculous; but the fatal Consequences of it require deeper thought: For when we have fooled ourselves into the Bondage of a Standing Army, how shall we ever get out of it again? Not as the Nation freed themselves from the Court of Wards. We cannot buy it off for two very good Reasons: No Money will be taken for it; and we shall have nothing to give which is not theirs already: Our Estates, Lives and Liberties will be all at their Command. They will have the Keys of our Money, and the Titles to our Lands in their Power.  
This last and irreparable Mischief and Misery the Projectors had prepared for us. But under a Gracious King and a Wise Parliament, I hope we shall never see it. His Majesty's Declaration is directly against a Standing Army, as a means to assist all Arbitrary Designs, and thereby enslave the Nation; directly against all wicked Attempts of Conquest, and all Despotic Government; 'tis full of Liberty and Property in every part: So that we are sure to be safe on that side. And this Declaration was so highly valued, and so wholly relied upon by the Parliament, that it is incorporated into our Laws as the only redress of our past Grievances and Oppressions, and the best Foundation of our future Happiness: And with entire confidence that his Majesty would continue to act in pursuance of that Declaration, the Parliament resolved that he should be, and be declared King. So that it is to be accounted the Pacta Conventa of this Government.  
Here I know the Projectors will say, That the Army condemned by the Declaration, was the late K. James' Army, kept up in time of Peace without Consent of Parliament; whereas this Standing Army is to be kept up with their Consent.  
True it was so, and therefore it was a Riot and unlawful Assembly every hour it stood; and having no Law for it, it might have been presented or indicted; to no purpose indeed: But as an Invasion upon the Subject it might be resisted and pulled down as a Nuisance,  the Nation found themselves able. But suppose this Army had been made part of the Constitution, and had obtained an Act of Parliament for it, which is as much as we can have for a King or a Queen; what then had become of us? They were Aids and Instruments of Arbitrary Government before, but then they had been legal Instruments, and had enslaved us by Authority. In short, we could not have relieved ourselves from them, nor any one else in our behalf, because our own ●ct and Deed would have always been good against us. The delightful Notion we know his Majesty by, is that of our Deliverer which he was upon this occasion. But these mischievous Projectors would turn it into such a Deliverance, as if we had been helped over a Ford, to be afterwards lost in the Sea. And as to the Parliament, we are safe on that side, for a Reason amongst others which is in the Declaration in these words; And it cannot be imagined that those who have invited us, or those that have already come to assist us, will join in a wicked Design of Conquest, to make void their own Titles to their Honours, Estates and Interests.   

A POSTSCRIPT, with Remarks on a late published LIST of Irish Papists now in the French King's Service.  
THE Advocates for a Standing Army having lately published a List of an Army of Irish and other Papists now in the French King's Service, which they say are ready when called for, I could not let that Paper go without some Remarks; because it informs us of some things, that, if I mistake not, deserve the Consideration of all true English Men, and are as followeth.  
1. That there is in France an Army of eighteen thousand Irish and other Papists, with K. James at the Head of them.  
2. That they are ready to be transported hither when called for.  
3. They give broad Hints that there is a sort of Men amongst us, who will call for them.  
4. That these Irish and their Correspondents will answer whatever has been or shall be written against a standing Army.  
To the first I answer, that though the Irish are the best Troops in the World to plunder, murder, and massacre the innocent and defenceless People, yet they are the worst of all Soldiers when they meet with Resistance. The late War in Ireland, particularly the Siege of , and the routing of Justin Maccarty, one of their best Officers, who was at the Head of a considerable Army, by a small Number of the despised Militia, has abundantly demonstrated this Truth. And it deserves the Resentment of the English Nation, to find the Enemies of their Country endeavouring at last to fright them with that despicable Crew, when the Terror they would have given us of the French Armies has proved ineffectual. Besides, the French King is in possession of these Irish Troops; they serve him, and are paid by him: and no Man but a Public Boutefeu would have the Confidence to say, He will lend them to King James to invade us: For what will that be less than declaring a new War? And they who think it in the Power of the French King to assist King James against us, without any Breach of the late Treaty, do in effect say, That due Care has not been taken of the Nation, than which there cannot be a more scandalous Reflection on his Majesty.  
To the second and third of their Menaces I shall only say, That 'tis somewhat extraordinary, that Men should dare publicly to avow their Correspondence with our Enemies, to own themselves acquainted with their Designs against us, to threaten the People with an Army of Irish Banditi, and to let us know that there are some amongst us ready to join them. But the Great Council of the Nation being now assembled, will undoubtedly make such Provision for our Safety, that neither they nor their Correspondents shall be able to hurt us.  
In the last place they tell us, that this is an Answer to the Argument against a Standing Army, and to all that has been or shall be written on that Subject. Here's thorough Work indeed: and 'tis pity it should want a Place in the next Edition of the Irish Wisdom. Mr. Bayes' fight singly against whole Armies is nothing to it: For he like a modest Man, was only for routing such as should be raised, and never once dreamt of destroying them before they had a Being.  
'Tis hoped therefore that this last Goblin will do us no more hurt than all the rest that have been industriously raised to terrify the People, and to disturb the Public Peace.   
THE END.