148 
THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 
court, fighting on the Oder, the Saale, the Elbe and the Danube. A 
very well known incident and a very satisfactory incident in the opinion 
of the House of Austria, was the murder of Wallenstein, the most 
singular and ablest soldier of the period—next to Gustavus Adolphus. 
There was not to be found in all the empire any man brave enough 
to beard him and to murder him except an Irishman or a Scotchman, 
and accordingly Wallenstein met his death at the hands of five Britons, 
Fitzgerald, Butler, Devereux, Leslie and Gordon. Three Irish and 
two Scotch soldiers of fortune killed Wallenstein and they were 
liberally rewarded by the Emperor of Germany, not a German being 
found to volunteer for the task. However, we need not bo too proud 
of this particular incident. 
Now, gentlemen, I come to the time of Cromwell, I do not know 
what the feelings of gentlemen present are about his politics, but how¬ 
ever we may look at them, merely from the interior point of view, wo 
must admit, I think, that he was a true blue Englishman, having 
regard to the interests of his country abroad. The puritans of his 
time had not the slightest sympathy with the interest of any 
foreign country. Cromwell made a league with France against 
Spain. The very bravest infantry in the world, which was supposed 
to be invincible, was the Spanish infantry. It is specially commended 
by Lord Bacon in one of his essays; but that Spanish infantry was not 
invincible against the soldiers we had triumphed both at Dunbar and at 
Drogheda. Lockhart’s brigade of Cromwell’s soldiery beat the Spanish 
at the battle of the Dunes near Dunkirk. In the time of Charles 
II. abroad Britons, sometimes under Turenne against theDutch, at other 
times for them—in 1G72 against them, in 1678 for them—and upon 
each occasion the fame of the British soldiery was enhanced. Soldiers 
manned our ships during the great sea fights. 
We come to the reign of William III., and from the time of William 
III. till the days of Queen Victoria it is easy to prove that the policy of 
the British nation influenced the policy of all Europe from the Neime to 
the Channel and from Cadiz to Copenhagen. 1 am about to try to 
show how the nation secured the balance of power from 1689 to 
the outbreak of the French Revolution, which cast to the wind the 
whole policy of the past ages, only to establish a reign of license 
under the name of liberty, which was followed by a tremendous 
military despotism. 
In the year 1689 was passed the Mutiny Act, and that Mutiny Act 
allowed a standing army (I direct your attention to that phrase in the 
Mutiny Act) to be tolerated as against the old prejudice that existed 
against such a force. Before the Mutiny Act the British Parliament 
preferred the old militia and abhorred a standing army. En passant , 
I may say, that in the late autumn manoeuvres the militia seemed to 
be recovering its ancient prestige. But however that may be, in the 
year 1689 the new clause was that the standing army was to be 
supported for the defence of the possessions of Her Majesty’s Crown 
for the safety of the kingdom and for the preservation of the balance of 
power in Europe . 
