which, in reality, I can
easily show to be no more than fifteen thousand.

For the sake of this important sum, our army is to be modelled by a new
regulation, and the success of the war is to be impeded, the security of
our commerce to be hazarded, and our colonies are to be endangered.

Frugality is, undoubtedly, a virtue, but is, like others, to be
practised on proper occasions: to compute expenses with a scrupulous
nicety, in time of war, is to prefer money to safety, and, by a very
perverse kind of policy, to hazard the whole for the preservation of a
part.

The gentlemen, sir, who have most endeavoured to distinguish themselves
as the constant opponents of the administration, have charged it, on all
occasions, with giving encouragement to the Spaniards, but can charge it
with nothing so likely to raise the confidence and confirm the obstinacy
of the enemy, as the objections which they themselves have made to the
present scheme of levying forces; for to how great a degree of poverty
must they believe that nation reduced, of which the warmest patriots
struggle to save a sum so inconsiderable, by an experiment of so much
uncertainty? And how easily will the Spaniards promise themselves, that
they shall gain the victory only by obliging us to continue in a state
of war, a state which, by our own confession, we are not able to
support?

Had any other argument, sir, been produced than the necessity of
parsimony, it had been less dangerous to have agreed to this new scheme;
but to adopt it only for the sake of sparing fifteen thousand pounds,
would be to make ourselves contemptible, to intimidate our allies, and
to unite all those against us, who are inclined to trample on misery,
and to plunder weakness.

I am inclined to judge so favourably, sir, of the intentions of those
whom I am now opposing, that I believe they have only used this
argument, because they were able to produce no other, and that if either
reason or experience had been on their side, the poverty of the nation
had not been mentioned.

But the honourable gentleman, who has been so long engaged in military
employments, has shown that all our success has been obtained by the
present establishment, and that the battle in which we suffered most,
was lost by our unfortunate deficiency of officers.

Nor do his reasons, sir, however modestly offered, deserve less regard
than his experience, for he has shown that a greater number of officers
naturally