providing for the defence of the
kingdom, and asked of them an additional number of English troops, it is
not improbable that he might have carried his point; it is certain
that, if he had failed, there would have been nothing ignominious in his
failure. Unhappily, instead of raising a great public question, on which
he was in the right, on which he had a good chance of succeeding, and on
which he might have been defeated without any loss of dignity, he chose
to raise a personal question, on which he was in the wrong, on which,
right or wrong, he was sure to be beaten, and on which he could not
be beaten without being degraded. Instead of pressing for more English
regiments, he exerted all his influence to obtain for the Dutch guards
permission to remain in the island.

The first trial of strength was in the Upper House. A resolution was
moved there to the effect that the Lords would gladly concur in any plan
that could be suggested for retaining the services of the Dutch brigade.
The motion was carried by fifty-four votes to thirty-eight. But
a protest was entered, and was signed by all the minority. It is
remarkable that Devonshire was, and that Marlborough was not, one of the
Dissentients. Marlborough had formerly made himself conspicuous by the
keenness and pertinacity with which he had attacked the Dutch. But he
had now made his peace with the Court, and was in the receipt of a
large salary from the civil list. He was in the House on that day;
and therefore, if he voted, must have voted with the majority. The
Cavendishes had generally been strenuous supporters of the King and the
junto. But on the subject of the foreign troops Hartington in one House
and his father in the other were intractable.

This vote of the Lords caused much murmuring among the Commons. It was
said to be most unparliamentary to pass a bill one week, and the next
week to pass a resolution condemning that bill. It was true that the
bill had been passed before the death of the Electoral Prince was known
in London. But that unhappy event, though it might be a good reason for
increasing the English army, could be no reason for departing from
the principle that the English army should consist of Englishmen. A
gentleman who despised the vulgar clamour against professional soldiers,
who held the doctrine of Somers's Balancing Letter, and who was prepared
to vote for twenty or even thirty thousand men, might yet well ask why
any of those men should b