HISTORY OF EUROPE, 199 



public, as well as of Parliament. 

 The ministerial answer was, that it 

 were highly impolitic, and there- 

 fore improper to subject the in- 

 tended destination of tho^e troops 

 to a parliamentary debate. The 

 time of their stay depending on 

 contingencies, could not be ascer- 

 tained ; and as they were not all 

 arrived, the precise amount of the 

 force landed had not been regularly 

 stated. This answer did not how- 

 ever prove satisfactory to those 

 members in the House, ancj to 

 those numbers without, who highly 

 disapproved of this introduction of 

 an armed force into the kingdom, 

 without a previous application to 

 parliament. On the tenth of Fe- 

 bruary, opposition renewed its at- 

 tack. It was strenuously con- 

 tended by Mr. Grey, that however 

 expedient this measure might ap- 

 pear in a military light, it could 

 not anywise meet with their ap- 

 probation as constitutional. Mi- 

 nistry ought, in the King's name, 

 to have applied to parliament for 

 its consent, as it was manifestly 

 against law to raise or maintain a 

 standing military force in England 

 during either peace or war, with- 

 out the permission of the legisla- 

 ture ; it being expressly forbidden 

 by the very letter as well as the 

 spirit of the act framed to this in- 

 tent, thatar^y office of trust, civil 

 or military, should qn any account 

 whatever, be held by any but na- 

 tural subjects, horn wilhiq the 

 realm. The trust con;initted to 

 officers and commanderji was of 

 the most important nature, and 

 could i;ot therefore, consistently 

 with the obvious meaning of ^ht 

 law, be lodged in the h.inds of 

 loreigners. Such was the walch- 

 J'uliiejs of the wonsiitution, that 



it had provided not only against 

 the existence of an army, inde- 

 pendently of Parliament, but even 

 of a marine,by making it necessary 

 to pass annually a bill for subject- 

 ing both to military lawj without 

 which neither of them l»ad any 

 legal sanction. If no armed force 

 even of the natives could be suf- 

 fered in the realm without those 

 precautions, with how much more 

 vigilance ought the legislature to 

 provide against an army of fo- 

 reigners, used to despotic subjec- 

 tion in their own country, and 

 ever ready, for hire, implicitly to 

 obey any paymaster in th« execu- 

 tion of whatever projects he 

 might purpose to execute through 

 their means ? Parliament had by 

 various acts prohibited the intro- 

 duction of foreign mercenaries 

 into tlie kingdom. The principles 

 on which the revolution was 

 foundtd, militated against it in so 

 striking a manner, that no real 

 friend to that event could give the 

 least countenance to contrary ideas. 

 Parliament had constantly opposed 

 attempts of this nature, as evi- 

 dently subversive of their un- 

 doubted right to regulate all par- 

 ticulars relating to the existence 

 and support of the military and 

 naval departments of the kingdom. 

 Occasions indeed might arise when 

 dispatch, and perhaps secrecy, re- 

 quired so instantaneous an assist- 

 ance, that no time could be spared 

 for the usu.il forms of legislative 

 assent to its introduction ; but in 

 such cases ministers ought immc- 

 di£itely to apply for an act of in- 

 demnity ; otherwise they were 

 liable to a prosecution, as guilty of 

 the most dangtrous of all infringe- 

 ments upon the safety of national 

 freedom, that of putting the coiu>- 



04 ' t'-y 



