BILL FOR LIMITING THE TERM OF A SOLDIER’S SERVICE.

Immediately after the mutiny-bill had passed the lower house, another fruitless effort was made by the opposition. The danger of a standing army, on whose virtue the constitution of Great Britain seemed to depend, did not fail to alarm the minds of many who were zealously attached to the liberties of their country, and gave birth to a scheme, which if executed; would have enabled the legislature to establish a militia that must have answered many national purposes, and acted as a constitutional bulwark against the excesses and ambition of a military standing force, under the immediate influence of government. The scheme which patriotism conceived, was, in all probability, adopted by party. A bill was brought in, limiting the time beyond which no soldier, or non-commissioned officer, should be compelled to continue in the service. Had this limitation taken place, such a rotation of soldiers would have ensued among the common people, that in a few years every peasant, labourer, and inferior tradesman in the kingdom, would have understood the exercise of arms; and perhaps the people in general would have concluded that a standing army was altogether unnecessary. A project of this nature could not, for obvious reasons, be agreeable to the administration, and therefore the bill was rendered abortive; for, after having been twice read, it was postponed from time to time till the parliament was prorogued, and never appeared in the sequel. Such were the chief subjects of debate between the ministry and the opposition, composed, as we have already observed, of the prince’s servants and the remains of the country party, this last being headed by lord Strange, son of the earl of Derby, and sir Francis Dashwood; the former, a nobleman of distinguished abilities, keen, penetrating, eloquent and sagacious; the other frank, spirited, and sensible.