The Hertford Correspondence. 221 
out of the very question we are discussing, his Lordship having 
applied to that gentleman the appellation of “clerk,” though 
recently elevated by the Government to the Colonelship of a regi- 
ment of the line, a position for which Mr. Fullarton’s previous 
habits by no means qualified him, and which was designed (or 
supposed at least) to place him in invidious rivalry with certain 
gentlemen of fortune in the country. Lord Shelburne, though 
unable to attend the aforesaid meeting at Devizes, owing to a wound 
received in the duel, addressed a long letter to the chairman, in 
which the following reference to the Militia occurs :— 
“‘ Though no one,” observes his Lordship, ‘‘ feels with more concern the abuses 
which have taken place in the Militia, and particularly the departure from the 
ancient, true, fundamental, and till of late years, invariable, Militia-principles 
of keeping them within their Counties, except in case of actual invasion, (their 
present distant and unnecessary removals serving only to assimilate them to the 
standing army, in principle and in habit, not in discipline,) I still have that 
confidence in our army as well as Militia, as at present constituted, that I hope 
neither are yet so estranged from a love of the constitution as to give any just 
apprehension of danger.” 
An expression occurring in one of the following letters may seem 
at first sight to impute a national character to the service of which 
it treats. Mr. Duckett in Letter IX is urged by Lord Hertford. 
to the prompt acceptance of his office on the ground of obedience 
to the King and the public good of his country: but it is well 
known by those conversant with the phraseology of the 17th cen- 
tury, that the term country when thus employed had reference 
simply to aman’s particular district or province. A member of 
Parliament, for instance, is frequently spoken of as “repairing to 
his country,” that is, to his country-seat or constituency. Lord 
Hertford’s expostulation with Mr. Duckett, therefore, in behalf of 
his country, is just nothing more than an appeal to his local 
prejudices. Of course it would be absurd to represent that any 
thing like a rivalry existed, at the time Hertford wrote, between the 
County forces and those of the State, for before the period of the 
Civil wars of Charles I. there was no such thing as a standing 
army in England. All that is designed to shew is that the safety of 
the realm was formerly based on the practice of the self-government 
of boroughs and provinces, in contradistinction to the modern 
