TO THE Annonimus Author Of the Argument against a Standing ARMY.  
SIR,  
HAving in the Country received your Argument against a Standing Army, and your Letter to the Author of the Balancing Letter, as also that, all in Print, I had the Curiosity of desiring to discourse with you, if possible, or at least to be Informed who the Author is; but being hindered on my Journey to London, I take this way of Correspondence; I own your said Letters make me doubt your being the Person I thought you to be, deserving thanks from those that are against a Standing Army; for one would have expected at least a Civil, and Gentlemanlike Answer to One, who you say had levelled at you in Soft Language and Gentlemanlike Behaviour. But you therein show yourself such a Master of the Art of Ridiculing, that you'll deserve the Doctor's Chair.  
Now I desire leave to ask you some plain Questions. Whether Ratifications of Peace, Exchanged between those Crowned Heads, States and Princes, that have been Engaged in the late War, The French King's Restoring those many Towns, Provinces, Forts, and Castles, to those from whom they had been unjustly taken, The Ceasing Hostilities, Dismissing, Retrenching, and Disbanding many of the Forces, may not be sufficient Demonstrations of Peace, without an Article of Faith? For it seems by your Supposition, Page the 4th. that you cannot discern it to be an Honourable Peace. In the next place you make a great pother, and Chuck yourself, as if you had gained the Garland of a Martial Dance, before Ammozonian Ladies! When you wrangle at the Balancers calling an Army a Land Force: Pray of what Composition is a Regulated Militia, without Swords and Pistols, Pikes and Muskets, Powder and Ball, to kill Men? These are you say, the Instruments and Materials of a Standing Army. And now you have three Names for one and the same thing; and your Regulated Militia may for aught you and I know, be as dreadful as a Standing Army.  
Your next Simile is pleasant, but your Consequence wrong; and every Law Conveyancer in England will tell you, that 'tis usual to incert a Covenant for further Insurance, in the space of seven Years; and the Warranty for a Year, and a day, in Holland, is to the same purpose: And good reason that the Purchaser should have his Land for Ever. But you may as well suppose, that because the Commons in Parliament gave Aids of Four shillings in the Pound from Year to Year, that therefore the People of England must pay Four shillings in the Pound for Ever.  
Next after your Civil way of Quibbling upon Modes, and Fashions, Page 6. and 7. you say, Nature hath Armed all Creatures with Weapons to oppose those that assault them; And, That the sole Debate is in whose Hands these Weapons should be put; of which you have, it seems, discoursed from the 18th to the 26th Page of your Argument.  
Come, Sir, if instead of this, you had proposed how a Regulated Militia shall be maintained, and that less grievous to the People, than such Supplies as may serve to maintain such Troops and Companies of the Army as the King Lord and Commons shall agree to keep up, your Argument would have had some Weight: But I had almost said you know little of the matter.  
Are they only Mercenary Soldiers whom you call Butchers, that profess to kill Men for Six pence a day? What do you call those Militia Footmen, and Horsemen, who make their Masters Pay Three shillings a Day to Carry their Arms, and Five shillings a day to Ride their Horses with Arms, all bouncing in words to Kill Men, or Run away?  
Are the Mercenary Soldiers Robbers of Henroosts, and their Officers Damn Blades, Ravishers of Women, Debauchees, and other dreadful Names, by which you are pleased to call them.  
Then pray, What are those Militia Soldiers and Officers, against whom (when they had been drawn out of several Inland to the Maritime Counties, upon apprehension of Invasion not long since) there were Complaints of many Victuallers, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and other honest Housekeepers, that not only their Poultry, but their Pigs, Sheep, and Goods were taken away, and Quarters left unpaid? Ay, and the good People would have made Hue and Cry after several of those Officers, to have kept certain Males, and Females, begotten of their Daughters, and Servants, were it not that thereby they must have brought some Scandal to their Family: Now pray Sir tell the World wherein the Militia Soldiers appear more Virtuous (or less to be feared) then a Standing Army.  
There is no doubt but the Militia of England may be made more useful than it is, or ever was, and I hearty wish it may be Effected: But this will be a Work of Time, and may be a Matter of great Debate, how Money shall be Levied to defray the Annual Charges; for although the Number should be reduced to Sixty thousand, as you propose, yet that Number will be more Chargeable than Twenty thousand of the present Standing Army.  
And what's to be done in case of Invasion in the mean time? You have not given such Rules, and Methods, as can be relied on.  
To be plain, there is some Snake in the Grass, though your popular Topick is Liberty and Property, and to avoid Arbitrary Power and Slavery. It looks very like a Design to Grasp the Power, the Government, and the Dominion of this now happy Kingdom, or else you would have let these Weighty Matters alone to whom it Rightly belongs, The King, Lords and Commons in Parliament, whom God Almighty Bless and Direct.  
December the 16th 1697. And let all the People say, Amen. As doth your Humble Servant.