uently happened that they
could not disclose without violating the constitutional and political
secrecy necessary to the well-being of their country.

Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence might become a vice, and
jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all
public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an House of
Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable,--- especially where
the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the
question.

That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army was declared to be for
the purpose of preserving the balance of power in Europe. The propriety
of its being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon the true state
of that balance. If the increase of peace establishments demanded of
Parliament agreed with the manifest appearance of the balance,
confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be very proper. If
the increase was not at all supported by any such appearance, he thought
great jealousy might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.

That he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically, we
stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it
contained, nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies were
likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in the scale.

That France had hitherto been our first object in all considerations
concerning the balance of power. The presence or absence of France
totally varied every sort of speculation relative to that balance.

That France is at this time, in a political light, to be considered as
expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in
it again, as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but at present
be considered France as not politically existing; and most assuredly it
would take up much time to restore her to her former active existence:
_Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus_ might possibly be the
language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was
our duty to keep our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation
by the symptoms of her recovery.

That it was to her _strength_, not to her _form of government_, which we
were to attend; because republics, as well as monarchies, were
susceptible of ambition, jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.

But if, while France continued in this swoon, we should go on increasing
our expenses, we shou