If it be necessary to ascertain the price, is it not necessary, at the same time, to ascertain the species and quantity of provisions to be allowed for it?  Is a soldier to fatten on delicacies, and to revel in superfluities, for fourpence a-day?  Ought not some limits to be set to his expectations, and some restraints prescribed to his appetite?  Is he to change his fare, with all the capriciousness of luxury, and relieve, by variety, the squeamishness of excess?

Such demands as these, sir, may be thought ludicrous and trifling, by those who do not reflect on the insolence of slaves in authority, who do not consider that the license of a military life is the chief inducement that brings volunteers into the army; an inducement which would, indeed, make all impresses superfluous, were this proposal to be adopted:  for how readily would all the lazy and voluptuous engage in a state of life which would qualify them to live upon the labour of others, and to be profuse without expense?

Our army may, by this method, be increased; but the number of those by whom they are to be maintained, must quickly diminish:  for, by exaction and oppression, the poorer innkeepers must quickly become bankrupts; and the soldiers that lose their quarters, must be added to the dividend allotted to the more wealthy, who, by this additional burden will soon be reduced to the same state, and then our army must subsist upon their pay, because they will no longer have it in their power to increase it by plunder.

It will then be inevitably necessary to divide the army from the rest of the community, and to build barracks for their reception; an expedient which, though it may afford present ease to the nation, cannot be put in practice without danger to our liberties.

The reason, for which so many nations have been enslaved by standing armies, is nothing more than the difference of a soldier’s condition from that of other men.  Soldiers are governed by particular laws, and subject to particular authority; authority which, in the manner of its operation, has scarcely any resemblance of the civil power.  Thus, they soon learn to think themselves exempt from all other laws; of which they either do not discover the use, and, therefore, easily consent to abolish them; or envy the happiness of those who are protected by them, and so prevail upon themselves to destroy those privileges which have no other effect, with regard to them, but to aggravate their own dependence.

These, sir, are the natural consequences of a military subjection; and if these consequences are not always speedily produced by it, they must be retarded by that tenderness which constant intercourse with the rest of the nation produces, by the exchange of reciprocal acts of kindness, and by the frequent inculcation of the wickedness of contributing to the propagation of slavery, and the subversion of the rights of nature; inculcations which cannot be avoided by men who live in constant fellowship with their countrymen.