Yet among the genuine friends of their country, some individuals espoused the opposite maxims.

They observed that the military system of every government in Europe was now altered, that war was become a trade, and discipline a science not to be learned but by those who made it their sole profession; that therefore, while France kept up a large standing army of veterans ready to embark on the opposite coast, it would be absolutely necessary for the safety of the nation to maintain a small standing force, which should be voted in parliament from year to year.

They might have suggested another expedient which in a few years would have produced a militia of disciplined men.

Had the soldiers of this small standing army been enlisted for a term of years, at the expiration of which they might have claimed their discharge, volunteers would have offered themselves from all parts of the kingdom, even from the desire of learning the use and exercise of arms, the ambition of being concerned in scenes of actual service, and the chagrin of little disappointments or temporary disgusts, which yet would not have impelled them to enlist as soldiers on the common terms of perpetual slavery.

In consequence of such a succession, the whole kingdom would soon have been stocked with members of a disciplined militia, equal if not superior to any army of professed soldiers.