(and those are where the By-Laws are least restrictive) but most throughout England fall to visible Decay, whilst new Villages not incorporated, or more liberal of their Privileges, grow up in their stead; till, in Process of Time, the first Sort will become almost as desolate as Old Sarum, and will as well deserve to lose their Right of sending Representatives to Parliament.  For certainly a Waste or a Desert has no Right to be represented, nor by our original Constitution was ever intended to be:  yet I would by no means have those Deputies lost to the Commons, but transferr’d to wiser, more industrious, and better peopled Places, worthy (thro their Numbers and Wealth) of being represented.

A Whig is against the raising or keeping up a Standing Army in Time of Peace:  but with this Distinction, that if at any time an Army (tho even in Time of Peace) shou’d be necessary to the Support of this very Maxim, a Whig is not for being too hasty to destroy that which is to be the Defender of his Liberty.  I desire to be well understood.  Suppose then, that Persons, whose known Principle and Practice it has been (during the Attempts for arbitrary Government) to plead for and promote such an Army in Time of Peace, as wou’d be subservient to the Will of a Tyrant, and contribute towards the enslaving the Nation; shou’d, under a legal Government (yet before the Ferment of the People was appeas’d) cry down a Standing Army in Time of Peace:  I shou’d shrewdly suspect, that the Principles of such Persons are not changed, but that either they like not the Hands that Army is in, or the Cause which it espouses; and look upon it as an Obstruction to another Sort of Army, which they shou’d like even in Time of Peace.  I say then, that altho the Maxim in general be certainly true, yet a Whig (without the just Imputation of having deserted his Principles) may be for the keeping up such a Standing Army even in Time of Peace, till the Nation have recover’d its Wits again, and chuses Representatives who are against Tyranny in any Hands whatsoever; till the Enemies of our Liberties want the Power of raising another Army of quite different Sentiments:  for till that time, a Whiggish Army is the Guardian of our Liberties, and secures to us the Power of disbanding its self, and prevents the raising of another of a different Kidney.  As soon as this is done effectually, by my Consent, no such thing as a mercenary Soldier should subsist in England.  And therefore The arming and training of all the Freeholders of England, as it is our undoubted ancient Constitution, and consequently our Right; so it is the Opinion of most Whigs, that it ought to be put in Practice.  This wou’d put us out of all Fear of foreign Invasions, or disappoint