s, and were convicted of high treason; but their
lives were spared. The rest were merely ordered to return to their duty.
The regiment, lately so refractory, went submissively to the Continent,
and there, through many hard campaigns, distinguished itself by
fidelity, by discipline, and by valour. [47]

This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a change
which, it is true, could not have been long delayed, but which would not
have been easily accomplished except at a moment of extreme danger. The
time had at length arrived at which it was necessary to make a legal
distinction between the soldier and the citizen. Under the Plantagenets
and the Tudors there had been no standing army. The standing army
which had existed under the last kings of the House of Stuart had been
regarded by every party in the state with strong and not unreasonable
aversion. The common law gave the Sovereign no power to control his
troops. The Parliament, regarding them as mere tools of tyranny, had not
been disposed to give such power by statute. James indeed had
induced his corrupt and servile judges to put on some obsolete laws a
construction which enabled him to punish desertion capitally. But this
construction was considered by all respectable jurists as unsound,
and, had it been sound, would have been far from effecting all that was
necessary for the purpose of maintaining military discipline. Even James
did not venture to inflict death by sentence of a court martial. The
deserter was treated as an ordinary felon, was tried at the assizes by a
petty jury on a bill found by a grand jury, and was at liberty to
avail himself of any technical flaw which might be discovered in the
indictment.

The Revolution, by altering the relative position of the prince and the
parliament, had altered also the relative position of the army and the
nation. The King and the Commons were now at unity; and both were alike
menaced by the greatest military power which had existed in Europe
since the downfall of the Roman empire. In a few weeks thirty thousand
veterans, accustomed to conquer, and led by able and experienced
captains, might cross from the ports of Normandy and Brittany to our
shores. That such a force would with little difficulty scatter three
times that number of militia, no man well acquainted with war could
doubt. There must then be regular soldiers; and, if there were to be
regular soldiers, it must be indispensable, both to their e