The power of raising money at pleasure, has been hitherto denied to our kings, and surely we ought not to place that confidence in the lowest, that has been refused to the most exalted of mankind, or invest our soldiers with power, which neither the most warlike of our monarchs could constrain us, nor the most popular allure us to grant.

The power now proposed to be granted, is nothing less than the power of levying money, or what is exactly equivalent, the power of raising the money in their own hands, to any imaginary value.  A soldier may, if this motion be complied with, demand for a penny, what another man must purchase at forty times that price.  While this is the state of our property, it is surely not very necessary to raise armies for the defence of it; for why should we preserve it from one enemy only to throw it into the hands of another, equally rapacious, equally merciless, and only distinguished from foreign invaders by this circumstance, that he received from our own hands the authority by which he plunders us.

Having thus evinced the necessity of determining the soldier’s privileges, and the innkeeper’s rights, I think it necessary to recommend to this assembly an uncommon degree of attention to the regulation of our military establishment, which is become not only more burdensome to our fellow-subjects by the present famine, but by the increase of our forces; an increase which the nation will not behold without impatience, unless they be enabled to discern for what end they have been raised.

The people of this nation are, for very just reasons, displeased, even with the appearance of a standing army, and surely it is not prudent to exasperate them, by augmenting the troops in a year of famine, and giving them, at the same time, new powers of extortion and oppression.

Mr. WINNINGTON spoke to this purpose:—­Sir, I have heard nothing in this debate, but doubts and objections, which afford no real information, nor tend to the alleviation of those grievances, which are so loudly lamented.

It is not sufficient to point out inconveniencies, or to give striking representations of the hardships to which the people are exposed; for unless some better expedient can be proposed, or some method discovered by which we may receive the benefits, without suffering the disadvantages of the present practice, how does it appear that these hardships, however severe, are not inseparable from our present condition, and such as can only be removed by exposing ourselves to more formidable evils?

As no remedy, sir, has been proposed by those who appear dissatisfied with the present custom, it is reasonable to imagine that none will be easily discovered; and, therefore, I cannot but think it reasonable that the motion should be complied with.  By it no new imposition is intended, nor any thing more than the establishment of a practice which has continued for more than fifty years, and never, except on two occasions, been denied to be legal.  It is only proposed that the senate should confirm that interpretation of the act which has been almost universally received; that they should do what can produce no disturbance, because it will make no alterations; but may prevent them, because it may prevent any attempts of innovation, or diversity of opinions.