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harangue, much against it. Military persons acquire certain notions of dignity of character, very different from pride, and extremely favourable to virtue, which leads to veracity and punctuality in the performance of promises and engagements; they learn subordination to lawful commands, and the necessity which there is for caution and moderation in descanting on, or in criticising the character of others.

Though some degree of licentiousness may occasionally prevail, yet gross immoralities are by no means countenanced, but regarded as stains in the character, equally as in civil life. Nor is blasphemy and contempt of religion, encouraged among military societies. The sense of decorum which they profess to have, tends to restrain these outrages, independent of other considerations. Nor is the sense of religion extinct among them: They are allowed and directed to attend divine service, and I scarcely think that any man forbore the exercise of these duties when he became a Soldier, provided he had been accustomed

to practice them, when he followed another way of life.

Permit me to remind you of what you seem to have forgotten, that it was the attachment of the Soldiers and Sailors of King James's army and navy to the Protestant religion, that in a great measure produced the revolution.

I am almost ashamed to recapitulate such notorious points of the modern history of our own country, but as they seem to have been overlooked by you, the occasion requires it.

When that infatuated and bigotted Prince James the Second (the phrase is to the matter) sent the seven Bishops to the Tower, for presenting a petition against his declaration, for liberty of conscience, which, under an insidious title, was a measure intended to subvert both the civil and religious constitution of this country, the Soldiers flung themselves on their knees before the distressed Prelates, and craved the

benediction of those criminals they were appointed to guard.

Again, on the very day that the trials of the Bishops were finished, King James had reviewed his troops, and retired into the tent of Lord Feversham, the General, when he was surprised to hear a great uproar in the camp, attended with the most extravagant symptoms of tumultuary joy. He suddenly inquired the cause, and was told by Feversham "It was nothing but the rejoicing of Soldiers for the acquittal of the Bishops." "Do you call that nothing," replied he," but so much the worse for them."

The King, says the Historian, next made a trial of the disposition of his army still more undisguised. Finding opposition from the civil and ecclesiastical orders of the kingdom, he resolved to appeal to the military, who, if unanimous, were alone able to serve all his purposes, and to enforce universal obedience. His intention was to engage all the regiments one after another, to give their consent to the repeal of the test and

penal statutes; and accordingly the Major of Lord Litchfield's regiment, drew out the battalion before the King, and told the men that they were required either to enter into his Majesty's views in these particulars, or to lay down their arms. James was surprised to find that, two Captains and a few Popish Soldiers excepted, the whole battalion immediately embraced the latter part of the alternative. For some time he remained speechless; but having recovered from his astonishment, he commanded them to take up their arms, adding, with a sullen discontented air" that for the future he would not do them the honour to apply for their approbation." About the same time many officers of distinction informed Lord Feversham, the General, that they could not in conscience fight against the Prince of Orange.

Lord Churchill, who was then an Officer, and afterwards the famous Duke of Marlborough, gave in a letter to the King,* as

*Rapin hist. Vol. II, p. 778.

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his reasons for joining the Prince of Orange, "the inviolable dictates of conscience, and necessary concern for religion, which no good man can oppose, and with which I am instructed nothing ought to come into competition."

Nor were the navy less zealous; Strickland, the Admiral, a Papist, having dismissed the Protestant chaplain to his own ship, and substituted a Popish priest in his place, it produced a mutiny and such rage among the sailors, that they were with difficulty restrained from violence.

But we need not have recourse to periods so remote, as even the revolution, for instances of attachment to the duties enjoined by religion in the navy; and I doubt not in the army also; although I am not preWhen pared to specify the examples. Gibraltar was attacked by the Spanish floating batteries, the fleet of gun-boats under Sir Roger Curtis, went out to annoy them, but as soon as the Spanish Ships were perceived to be on fire, all hostility ceased, and

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