[clxiv. 216]

1820 July 4

Emancipation Spanish

5 continued. When the army amounted to not so many as 20,000 men, the magnitude of it was the object of a jealousy which even the Kings Ministers themselves did not pretend to say was /venture to speak of as/ ungrounded. It has long been 100,000 or more, the number was within this year augmented to 110,000, and even the professed advocates of the people do not seriously object to it on any other ground than that of the expence: and on this ground not to any more than a small part of it.

A species of occasional force called the Militia though still as well as the standing army under the command of the Monarch used to be cherished by men in opposition under the notion of its being a sort of check to the standing army: cherished on no better ground than that the Officers though appointed and removable by the Monarch were required to be taken from men possessing property to a certain amount in the country for which they served But now even this part of the military force is put aside

The Government is therefore, even by law a military one. All laws and all properties are at the absolute disposal of the Monarch, supposing his army to stand by him: his army together with his navy, which is no other than /but/ another army trained and disposed to act either on water or on land.

By these together with other means, though these of themselves are abundantly sufficient, if so it be that with any propriety he can be said to have a duty, his interest is placed in a state of opposition to his /that/ duty in this mixt monarchy in a state of opposition as point blank /in a state of point blank opposition to the universal interest/ as in a pure monarchy, and with as effectual a power of sacrificing that same universal to his own personal interest.