The greater he made that establishment, the stronger he expected to stand in argument: but, whatever he expected or proposed, he should have stated the matter fairly.

He tells us that this establishment is nearly 1,500,000_l._ more than it was in 1752, 1753, and other years of peace.

This he has done in his usual manner, by assertion, without troubling himself either with proof or probability.
For he has not given us any state of the peace establishment in the years 1753 and 1754, the time which he means to compare with the present.

As I am obliged to force him to that precision, from which he always flies as from his most dangerous enemy, I have been at the trouble to search the journals in the period between the two last wars: and I find that the peace establishment, consisting of the navy, the ordnance, and the several incidental expenses, amounted to 2,346,594_l._ Now is this writer wild enough to imagine, that the peace establishment of 1764 and the subsequent years, made up from the same articles, is 3,800,000_l._ and upwards?
His assertion however goes to this.

But I must take the liberty of correcting him in this gross mistake, and from an authority he cannot refuse, from his favorite work, and standing authority, the "Considerations." We find there, p.