owledge have been nearly
the same, and who have all obtained a very great degree of reputation in
their profession, what can be inferred, but that the question is in its
own nature obscure and difficult? That it involves a multitude of
relations, and is diffused through a great variety of circumstances?
And that, therefore, it is prudent for every man, who can judge only
upon the authority of others, to suspend his opinion?

The chief argument, or that, at least, which impressed itself most
strongly on my mind, against any innovation in our military
constitution, was drawn from the success of our armies in their present
form, with that proportion of soldiers and officers, which the present
motion tends to abolish. Our forces, say the advocates for the present
establishment, have afforded us a sufficient testimony of the propriety
of their regulation, by their frequent victories over troops, whose
discipline has been studied with the utmost vigilance, and which have
been trained up to war with a degree of attention not disproportioned to
the mighty design for which they were raised, the subjection of the
world, and attainment of universal monarchy. These troops, who have been
taught, almost from their infancy, that cowardice and flight are the
greatest crimes, and persuaded, by national prejudices, and principles
studiously instilled, that no foreign forces could withstand them, have
fled before equal numbers of Britons, and been driven from one province
to another, till, instead of grasping at general dominion, they were
reduced to defend their wives and children.

How much of this success was to be ascribed to that part of the
regulation which this motion proposes to be changed, it is not, my
lords, within my province to determine; the great commander whom I have
the honour to oppose, can best explain to your lordships the province of
every officer in the field, and how far the number of inferiour officers
may influence the success of a battle and the fate of a kingdom.

But to me, my lords, the establishment of our armies, comprising
different views, and connecting various subordinate regulations, may be
compared to a medicine composed of different ingredients, and found
infallibly efficacious in a dangerous disease, in which, though some of
the parts may seem to physicians of the profoundest learning,
superfluous or improper, it would be no less than the folly of
preferring experiments to life, to make any alterati