Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  The honourable gentleman, sir, has mentioned places where provisions, as he says, are still to be bought at easy rates. For my part, I am fixed in no such happy corner of the kingdom; I see nothing but scarcity, and hear nothing but complaints; and shall, therefore, be very far from admitting now such methods of supporting the army, as were thought too burdensome in times of plenty; nor will combine in laying a new tax upon any class of my countrymen, when they are sinking under an enormous load of imposts, and in want of the necessaries of life.

  Sir William YONGE replied, in the manner following: — Sir, nothing is more easy than outcry and exaggeration; nor any thing less useful for the discovery of truth, or the establishment of right. The most necessary measures may often admit of very florid exclamations against them, and may furnish very fruitful topicks of invective.

  When our liberties, sir, are endangered, or our country invaded, it may be very easy, when it is proposed that we should have recourse to our swords for security, to bewail, in pathetick language, the miseries of war, to describe the desolation of cities, the waste of kingdoms, the insolence of victory, and the cruelty of power inflamed by hostilities. Yet to what will those representations contribute, but to make that difficult which yet cannot be avoided, and embarrass measures which must, however, be pursued.

  Such, sir, appear to me to be the objections made to the methods now proposed of providing necessaries for the soldiers; methods not eligible for their own sake, but which ought not to be too loudly condemned, till some better can be substituted; for why should the publick be alarmed with groundless apprehensions? or why should we make those laws which our affairs oblige us to enact, less agreeable to the people by partial representations?

  In the discussion of this question, sir, is to be considered whether soldiers are to be supported, and whether it will be more proper to maintain them by the method of ascertaining the rates at which they are to be supplied, or by increasing their pay.

  One of these two ways it is necessary to take; the provisions are already fixed at as high a price as their pay will allow; if, therefore, they are expected to pay more, their wages must be increased.

  For my part, I shall comply with either method; though I cannot but think it my duty to declare, that, in my opinion, it is safer to fix the price of provisions, which must sink in their value, than to raise the pay of the army, which may never afterwards be reduced.

  Mr. GYBBON then spoke, to this effect: — Sir, I agree with the honourable gentleman, that if soldiers are necessary, we must make provision for their support. This is indisputably certain; but it is no less certain, that where soldiers are necessary, restraints and regulations are necessary likewise, to preserve those from being insulted and plundered by them, who maintain them for the sake of protection.

  The usefulness, sir, of this caution seems not to be known, or not regarded, by the gentleman whose proposal gave occasion to this debate; for, by enacting laws in general terms, as he seems to advise, we should leave the unhappy innkeeper wholly at the mercy of his guests, who might plunder and insult him under the protection of the legislature, might riot, as in a conquered country, and say, “To this treatment you are subjected by the determination of the senate.”

  The unhappy man, sir, could have no prospect, either of quiet or safety, but by gratifying all the expectations of his masters; returning civilities for insolence, and receiving their commands with the same submission that is paid in capitulating towns to the new garrison.

  If it be necessary to ascertain the price, is it not necessary, at the same time, to ascertain the species and quantity of provisions to be allowed for it? Is a soldier to fatten on delicacies, and to revel in superfluities, for fourpence a-day? Ought not some limits to be set to his expectations, and some restraints prescribed to his appetite? Is he to change his fare, with all the capriciousness of luxury, and relieve, by variety, the squeamishness of excess?

  Such demands as these, sir, may be thought ludicrous and trifling, by those who do not reflect on the insolence of slaves in authority, who do not consider that the license of a military life is the chief inducement that brings volunteers into the army; an inducement which would, indeed, make all impresses superfluous, were this proposal to be adopted: for how readily would all the lazy and voluptuous engage in a state of life which would qualify them to live upon the labour of others, and to be profuse without expense?

  Our army may, by this method, be increased; but the number of those by whom they are to be maintained, must quickly diminish: for, by exaction and oppression, the poorer innkeepers must quickly become bankrupts; and the soldiers that lose their quarters, must be added to the dividend allotted to the more wealthy, who, by this additional burden will soon be reduced to the same state, and then our army must subsist upon their pay, because they will no longer have it in their power to increase it by plunder.

  It will then be inevitably necessary to divide the army from the rest of the community, and to build barracks for their reception; an expedient which, though it may afford present ease to the nation, cannot be put in practice without danger to our liberties.

  The reason, for which so many nations have been enslaved by standing armies, is nothing more than the difference of a soldier’s condition from that of other men. Soldiers are governed by particular laws, and subject to particular authority; authority which, in the manner of its operation, has scarcely any resemblance of the civil power. Thus, they soon learn to think themselves exempt from all other laws; of which they either do not discover the use, and, therefore, easily consent to abolish them; or envy the happiness of those who are protected by them, and so prevail upon themselves to destroy those privileges which have no other effect, with regard to them, but to aggravate their own dependence.

  These, sir, are the natural consequences of a military subjection; and if these consequences are not always speedily produced by it, they must be retarded by that tenderness which constant intercourse with the rest of the nation produces, by the exchange of reciprocal acts of kindness, and by the frequent inculcation of the wickedness of contributing to the propagation of slavery, and the subversion of the rights of nature; inculcations which cannot be avoided by men who live in constant fellowship with their countrymen.

  But soldiers, shut up in a barrack, excluded from all conversation with such as are wiser and honester than themselves, and taught that nothing is a virtue but implicit obedience to the commands of their officer, will soon become foreigners in their own country, and march against the defenders of their constitution, with the same alacrity as against an army of invaders ravaging the coasts; they will lose all sense of social duty, and of social happiness, and think nothing illustrious but to enslave and destroy.

  So fatal, sir, will be the effects of an establishment of barracks, or petty garrisons, in this kingdom; and, therefore, as barracks must be built when innkeepers are ruined, and our concurrence with this proposal must produce their ruin, I hope it-will not be necessary to prove by any other argument, that the motion ought to be rejected.

  Mr. PELHAM spoke next, in terms to this purpose: — Sir, though I am not inclined, by loud exaggerations and affected expressions of tenderness, to depress the courage or inflame the suspicions of the people, to teach them to complain of miseries which they do not feel, or ward against ill designs, which were never formed, yet no man is more really solicitous for their happiness, or more desirous of removing every real cause of fear and occasion of hardships.

  This affection to the people, an affection steady, regular, and unshaken, has always prompted me to prefer their real to their seeming interest, and rather to consult the security of their privileges than the gratification of their passions; it has hitherto determined me to vote for such a body of troops, as may defend us against sudden inroads and wanton insults, and now incites me to propose that some efficacious method may be struck out for their support, without exasperating either the soldiers or their landlords by perpetual wrangles, or adding to the bu
rden of a military establishment the necessity of contentions in courts of law.

  I know not with what view those have spoken, by whom the proposal first made has been opposed; they have, indeed, produced objections, some of which are such as may be easily removed, and others such as arise from the nature of things, and ought not, therefore, to be mentioned, because they have no other tendency than to inflame the minds of those that hear them against an army, at a time when it is allowed to be necessary, and prove only what was never denied, that no human measures are absolutely perfect, and that it is often impossible to avoid a greater evil, but by suffering a less.

  The question before us, sir, is in its own nature so simple, so little connected with circumstances that may distract our attention, or induce different men to different considerations, that when I reflect upon it, I cannot easily conceive by what art it can be made the subject of long harangues, or how the most fruitful imagination can expatiate upon it.

  It is already admitted that an army is necessary; the pay of that army is already established; the accidental scarcity of forage and victuals is such, that the pay is not sufficient to maintain them; how then must the deficiency be supplied? It has been proposed, either to fix the price of provisions with respect to them, or to advance their wages in some proportion to the price of provisions. Both these methods seem to meet with disapprobation, and yet the army is to be supported.

  Those who reason thus, do surely not expect to be answered, or at least expect from a reply no other satisfaction than that of seeing the time of the session wasted, and the administration harassed with trivial delays; for what can be urged with any hope of success to him who will openly deny contradictory propositions, who will neither move nor stand still, who will neither disband an army nor support it?

  Whether these gentlemen conceive that an army may subsist without victuals till the time of scarcity is over, or whether they have raised those forces only to starve them, I am not sagacious enough to conjecture, but shall venture to observe, that if they have such a confidence in the moderation and regularity of the soldiers, as to imagine that they will starve with weapons in their hands, that they will live within the sight of full tables, and languish with hunger, and perish for want of necessaries, rather than diminish the superfluities of others, they ought for ever to cease their outcries about the licentiousness, insolence, and danger of a standing army.

  But, not to sink into levity unworthy of this assembly, may I be permitted to hint that these arts of protracting our debates, are by no means consistent with the reasons for which we are assembled, and that it is a much better proof, both of ability and integrity, to remove objections, than to raise them, and to facilitate, than to retard, the business of the publick.

  The proposal made at first was only to elucidate a law which had been regularly observed for fifty years, and to remove such ambiguities as tended only to embarrass the innholders, not to relieve them.

  To this many objections have been made, and much declamation has been employed to display the hardships of maintaining soldiers, but no better method has been yet discovered, nor do I expect that any will be started not attended with greater difficulties.

  In all political questions, questions too extensive to be fully comprehended by speculative reason, experience is the guide which a wise man will follow with the least distrust, and it is no trivial recommendation of the present method, that it has been so long pursued without any formidable inconvenience or loud complaints.

  Hardships, even when real, are alleviated by long custom; we bear any present uneasiness with less regret, as we less remember the time in which we were more happy: at least, by long acquaintance with any grievance we gain this advantage, that we know it in its whole extent, that it cannot be aggravated by our imagination, and that there is no room for suspecting that any misery is yet behind more heavy than that which we have already borne.

  Such is the present state of the practice now recommended to this assembly, a practice to which the innkeepers have long submitted, and found it at least tolerable, to which they knew themselves exposed when they took out a license for the exercise of that profession, and which they consider as a tax upon them, to be balanced against the advantages which they expect from their employment.

  This tax cannot be denied at present to be burdensome in a very uncommon degree, but this weight has not been of long continuance, and it may be reasonably hoped that it will now be made every day lighter. It is, indeed, true, that no unnecessary impositions ought to be laid upon the nation even for a day; and if any gentleman can propose a method by which this may be taken off or alleviated, I shall readily comply with his proposal, and concur in the establishment of new regulations.

  With regard to barracks, I cannot deny that they are justly names of terrour to a free nation, that they tend to make an army seem part of our constitution, and may contribute to infuse into the soldiers a disregard of their fellow-subjects, and an indifference about the liberties of their country; but I cannot discover any connexion between a provision for the support of soldiers in publick-houses, in a state of constant familiarity with their countrymen, and the erection of barracks, by which they will be, perhaps for ever, separated from them, nor can discover any thing in the method of supporting them now recommended that does not tend rather to the promotion of mutual good offices, and the confirmation of friendship and benevolence.

  The advocate CAMPBELL next spoke, in substance as follows: — Sir, whence the impropriety of raising objections to any measures that are proposed is imagined to arise I am unable to discover, having hitherto admitted as an incontrovertible opinion, that it is the duty of every member of this assembly to deliver, without reserve, his sentiments upon any question which is brought before him, and to approve or censure, according to his conviction.

  If it be his duty, sir, to condemn what he thinks dangerous or inconvenient, it seems by no means contrary to his duty, to show the reason of his censure, or to lay before the house those objections which he cannot surmount by his own reflection. It certainly is not necessary to admit implicitly all that is asserted; and to deny, or disapprove without reason, can he no proof of duty, or of wisdom; and how shall it be known, that he who produces no objections, acts from any other motives, than private malevolence, discontent, or caprice?

  Nor is it, sir, to be imputed as a just reason for censure to those who have opposed the motion, that no other measures have been offered by them to the consideration of the committee. It is necessary to demolish a useless or shattered edifice, before a firm and habitable building can be erected in its place: the first step to the amendment of a law is to show its defects; for why should any alteration be made where no inconveniency is discovered?

  To the chief objection that was offered, no answer has yet been made, nor has the assembly been informed how the innkeeper shall be able to discover when he has paid the tax which this law lays upon him. This is, indeed, a tax of a very particular kind, a tax without limits, and to be levied at the discretion of him for whose benefit it is paid. Soldiers quartered upon these terms, are more properly raising contributions in an enemy’s country, than receiving wages in their own.

  Is it intended, by this motion, that the innkeepers shall judge what ought to be allowed the soldier for his money? I do not see, then, that any alteration is proposed in the present condition of our army; for who has ever refused to sell them food for their money at the common price, or what necessity is there for a law to enforce a practice equally to the advantage of all parties? If it be proposed that the soldier shall judge for himself, that he shall set what value he shall think fit on his own money, and that he shall be at once the interpreter and executioner of this new law, the condition of the innkeeper will then be such as no slave in the mines of America can envy, and such as he will gladly quit for better treatment under the most arbitrary and oppressive government.

  Nor will the insolence of the soldier, thus invested with unlimited authority, thus e
ntitled to implicit obedience, and exalted above the rest of mankind, by seeing his claim only bounded by his own moderation, be confined to his unhappy landlord. Every guest will become subject to his intrusion, and the passenger must be content to want his dinner, whenever the lord of the inn shall like it better than his own.

  That these apprehensions, sir, are not groundless, may be proved from the conduct of these men, even when the law was not so favourable to their designs; some of them have already claimed the sole dominion of the houses in which they have been quartered, and insulted persons of very high rank, and whom our ancient laws had intended to set above the insults of a turbulent soldier. They have seen the provisions which they had ordered taken away by force, partly, perhaps, to please the appetite of the invader, and partly to gratify his insolence, and give him an opportunity of boasting among his comrades, how successfully he blustered.

  If it be necessary, sir, to insert a new clause in the act to prevent lawsuits, which, however advantageous they may sometimes be to me, I shall always be ready to obviate, it is surely proper to limit the claim of one party as well as that of the other, for how else is the ambiguity taken away? The difficulty may be, indeed, transferred, but is by no means removed, and the innkeeper must wholly repose himself upon the lenity and justice of the soldier, or apply to the courts of law for the interpretation of the act.

  The question before us is said to be so free from perplexity, that it can scarcely give occasion for harangues or disputations; and, indeed, it cannot but be allowed, that the controversy may soon be brought to a single point, and I think nothing more is necessary than to inquire, if innholders shall be obliged to provide victuals for soldiers at a stated price, what, and how much the soldier shall demand.