<<<

Above all, he was amazed

to hear me talk of

a mercenary standing army,

in the midst of peace,

and among a free people.

He said,

«if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives,

he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight;

and would hear my opinion, whether a private man’s house

might not be better defended by himself, his children, and family,

than by half-a-dozen rascals, picked up at a venture in the streets for small wages,

who might get a hundred times more by cutting their throats?»

>>>