So that what with forming new interests, and cultivating old, the heats and animosities never cease among the people. But once set the pretender upon the throne, and let the funds be but happily stopped, and paid into his hands, that he may be in no more need of a parliament, and all these distempers will be cured as effectually as a fever is cured by cutting off the head, or as a halter cures the bleeding at the nose. How infatuated then is this nation, that they should so obstinately refuse a prince, by the nature of whose circumstances, and the avowed principles of whose party, we are sure to obtain such glorious things, such inestimable advantages, things which no age, no prince, no attempt of parties, or endeavour, though often aimed at of ministers of state, have ever been able to procure for us. 2. This amassing of treasure, by the stopping the funds on one hand, and the receiving the taxes on the other, will effectually enable the pretender to set up, and effectually maintain, that glorious, and so often-desired method of government, au coup de canon, Anglice , a standing army. This we have the authority of the ancient borough of Carlisle, that it is the safety of the prince, and the glory of the nation, as appears by their renowned address to King James II. Then we should see a new face of our nation, and Britain would no more be a naked nation, as it has formerly been; then we should have numerous and gallant armies surrounding a martial prince; ready to make the world, as well as his own subjects, tremble; then our inland counties would appear full of royal fortifications, citadels, forts, and strong towns; the beauty of the kingdom, and awe of factious rebels: it is a strange thing that this refractory people of ours could never be made sensible how much it is for the glory and safety of this nation that we should be put into a posture of defence against ourselves: it has been often alleged, that this nation can never be ruined but with their own consent: if then we are our own enemies, is it not highly requisite that we should be put in a position to have our own ruin prevented? And that since it is apparent we are no more fit to be trusted with our own liberties, having a natural and a national propensity to destroy and undo ourselves, and may be brought to consent to our own ruin, we should have such princes, as for the future know how to restrain us, and how reasonable is it to allow them forces to do so?
We might enlarge here upon the great and certain advantages of this best of governments, a standing army; we might go back to the Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires, which had never arrived to such a pitch of glory if the people and nations whom they subdued had been able to nose them with such trifles as what we call constitution, national right, ancient privileges, and the like; we might descend also to particular advantages of government, which it is hoped we may attain to in Britain when the pretender arrives, some of which are grown obsolete, and out of use, by custom, and long possession of those troublesome things called liberties; among these may be reckoned,
1. The whole kingdom will be at once eased of that ridiculous feather-cap's expense of militia and trained-bands, which serve for little else but to justify the picking the peoples' pockets, with an annual tax of trophy-money, and every now and then putting the city of London and parts adjacent, to ten thousand pound charge, to beat drums, and shoot muskets, for nothing; when, on the contrary, you shall in the blessed revolution we now invite you to, have all this done gratis, by the standing troops kept constantly in pay; and your lieutenancy may lay down their commissions among the rest of non-significants of the nation.
2. You shall be for ever out of danger of being ridden again by the mob, your meeting-houses shall no more be the subject of the enraged rabbles; nor shall the bank of England desire the drums to beat at midnight to raise a guard for Grocers' hall; your new monarch will suffer none to insult or plunder the city but himself; and as the city itself shall never want soldiers, (how should it, when the whole kingdom shall become a garrison?) the money in the bank shall always be defended by a strong guard, who shall, whenever there is any danger of its being too safe, convey it, for its eminent security, from Grocers'-alley to the Tower, or to the exchequer, where it shall not fail to be kept for the advantage of the public.
3. Again; upon this happy change we shall immediately be delivered from that most infamous practice of stock-jobbing, of which so much has been said to so little purpose; for the funds being turned all into one general stock, and the prince being himself your security, you may even write upon all your companies
this general phrase, viz., No transfer, as they do when the books are shut up at the bank, or East-India house; so as all the rivers of water are swallowed up in the sea, as one ocean, to which they are all tending, so all these petty cheats will be engulfed at once in the general ocean of state trick, and the Exchange-alley men may justly be said to buy the bear-skin ever after.