2

HISTORY OR ENGLAND.

chap, peace. But that they had done this in violation of the"leinT - fundamental laws of England was acknowledged by alljurists, and had been expressly affirmed in the Bill ofBights. It was therefore impossible for William, now thatthe country was threatened by no foreign and no domesticenemy, to keep up even a single battalion without thesanction of the Estates of the Bealm; and it might well bedoubted whether such a sanction would be given.

It is not easy for us to see this question in the light inwhich it appeared to our ancestors.

No man of sense has, in our days, or in the days of ourfathers, seriously maintained that our island could be safewithout an army. And, even if our island were perfectlysecure from attack, an army would still be indispensablynecessary to us. The growth of the empire has left us nochoice. The regions which we have colonized or con-quered since the accession of the House of Hanover con-tain a population exceeding twenty-fold that which theHouse of Stuart governed. There are now more Englishsoldiers on the other side of the tropic of Cancer in time ofpeace than Cromwell had under hfs command in time ofwar. All the troops of Charles II. would not have beensufficient to garrison the posts which we now occupy in theMediterranean Sea alone. The regiments which defendthe remote dependencies of the Crown cannot be dulyrecruited and relieved, unless a force far larger than thatwhich James collected in the camp at Hounslow for thepurpose of overawing his capital be constantly kept up