SHORT BUT SERIOUS

REASONS

FOR A

NATIONAL MILITIA.

N this age of levity and ridicule, it is extremely

IN

difficult to procure a serious attention to any proposal, however important, or however wifely calculated for the public benefit; but fure if there ever was a propofition deferving attention from every true Englishman, it is this for the establishment of a National Militia, now under the confideration of the legiflature; on the fuccefs of which I fincerely think, that our glory abroad, our fecurity at home, and our very being as a nation, intirely depend.

So manifeft is the truth of this to the meaneft and most abfurd understandings, that I never met with one of that kind who has not been clearly convinced of it; to fuch therefore I fhall not here address myself, but to the wife and fagacious only, many of whom, to my great furprize, I have

found

found of a very different opinion: to these then-I shall endeavour to prove, in as few words as poffible, the truth of the following propofitions:

ift, That such a militia may foon be rendered not at all inferior to our present regular forces.

2dly, That it will effectually fecure our liberties, properties, and religion.

3dly, That it will strengthen the hands of go

vernment.

4thly, That it will reduce the price of our provifions, and manufactures, and extend our trade.

5thly, That it will increase the number of our people; and,

Lastly, That it may be carried into execution without any expence to the public.

FIRST, then, I fhall endeavour to prove that a militia may very foon be rendered not at all inferior to our present regular forces: and whoever will look back on the behaviour of thefe forces for fome years paft both by land and fea, will be convinced that this is no very arduous undertaking; nor be under any doubt, but that after a few days exercise they will behave as valiantly as our regiments at Falkirk, Prefton Pans, or Oswego; or

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Nor can I

Your fleets in the Mediterranean. indeed comprehend from whence their inferiority fhould proceed; unless strong-beer should inspire lefs true courage than gin; or being trained in a country church-yard, produce a lefs familiarity with death than performing the fame exercise in the gay scenes of Hyde-Park or St. James's. If it be objected that they will be deficient in military knowledge and experience; I anfwer, they will fight the better: the utility of these qualifications in the day of battle is a vulgar error, propagated like all others, for want of reafoning; for all fighting being in its own nature contradictory to common fenfe, it can never be promoted by knowledge: military knowledge therefore can never be that fort of knowledge which enables men to fight; but that which enables them to find out good reafons for not fighting; or if they should be bad, to call in the affiftance of councils of war and court-martials to make them better. Much less fure will experience induce men to fight, unless we can believe that wounds and bruifes, like coffee and tobacco, though difagreeable at first tafting, grow pleasant by frequent repetitions.

a Since the writing of this, the bravery and conduct of our regular forces, both by fea and land, in every quarter of the globe, have been fo unexampled, that, notwithstanding the author's partiality for the Militia, he is candid enough to acknowledge, that he begins to have fome small doubts, whether thofe corps may ever be able altogether to equal them.

SECONDLY,

SECONDLY, That such a militia will secure our liberties, properties, and religion. The liberties we so justly value in this country are these, that every one may think and write, and say and do whatever he pleases; our properties comprehend all things of which we are in poffeffion, by whatever means they have been acquired; these can certainly no way be so effectually secured to us as by the use of arms, by which we may at all times defend ourselves from the attacks of judges and juries, from writs and ejectments, from goals and pillories, with all the tyranny of justices, and impertinence of constables, grievances not to be en-dured in a free country. As to our religion, a scheme of this kind must have most falutary effects, fince a bill only for its establishment has already produced unanimity between our church divines and diffenters in one fenfible and pious opinion an event perhaps not eafy to be remembered on any other occasion.

THIRDLY, That it will strengthen the hands of government, which in this nation being, by the consent of all true patriots, allowed to be the fole right of the lowest of the people, or mob, with whom such patriots wonderfully agree in their political fentiments, what can fo effectually fecure to them the dominion they now exercise over us, as

In opposing that part of it which enacted, that the Militia fhould be exercifed on Sundays.

putting

putting arms into their hands, and teaching them how to use them? This must certainly strengthen the hands of these our governors, and confequently of government itself.

FOURTHLY, It will reduce the price of our provifions and manufactures, and extend our trade; because when the good people of England are thus armed and disciplined, they will be enabled to take away meat, corn, and malt, and all other provifions, from foreftallers and ingroffers, butchers, millers, and farmers, at a reasonable price, of which they themselves must always be the best and most impartial judges. When the price of provisions is thus happily reduced, that of our manufactures must inevitably fall in due proportion; and the reduction of these must as certainly carry more of them to foreign markets, and consequently extend our trade. The truth of this has been so often demonstrated by all writers on trade, and all whose trade is writing, that it is here needless to say any more on the fubject.

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FIFTHLY, That it will increase the number of our people to be convinced of which, gentle reader, figure to thyself all the handsomest young fellows in every county, each armed like the hero in a romance, dreft, powdered, and toupeed by the reforming hand of a genteel ferjeant; then turn thy eyes to the numerous groupe of fair spec

tators