Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/313

Rh utmost, to bring in a representative of his own principles, which, if they be popular, may endanger the religion established; and which, as it has formerly happened, may alter the whole frame of government.

A standing army in England, whether in time of peace or war, is a direct absurdity: for it is no part of our business to be a warlike nation, otherwise than by our fleets. In foreign wars we have no concern, farther than in junction with allies, whom we may either assist by sea, or by foreign troops paid with our money: but mercenary troops in England, can be of no use, except to awe senates, and thereby promote arbitrary power, in a monarchy, or oligarchy.

That the election of senators should be of any charge to the candidates, is an absurdity; but that it should be so to a ministry, is a manifest acknowledgment of the worst designs. If a ministry intended the service of their prince and country, or well understood wherein their own security best consisted, (as it is impossible that a parliament freely elected, according to the original institution, can do any hurt to a tolerable prince or tolerable ministry) they would use the strongest methods to leave the people to their own free choice: the members would then consist of persons, who had the best estates in the neighbourhood or country, or at least, never of strangers. And surely this is at least full as requisite a circumstance to a legislator, as to a juryman, who ought to be, if possible, ex vicinio; since such persons must be supposed the best judges of the wants and desires, of their several boroughs and counties. To choose a representative for Berwick, whose estate is at Land's End, would have been thought in former times a very great solecism. How. X.