military men. They must be constrained (and their inclinations lead them to what their necessi|ties require) by a real, vigorous, effective, decided, personal authority. The authority of the as|sembly itself suffers by passing through such a de|bilitating channel as they have chosen. The army will not long look to an assembly acting through the organ of false shew, and palpable imposition. They will not seriously yield obedience to a pri|soner. They will either despise a pageant, or they will pity a captive king. This relation of your army to the crown will, if I am not greatly mis|taken, become a serious dilemma in your poli|tics.
It is besides to be considered, whether an assem|bly like yours, even supposing that it was in posses|sion of another sort of organ through which its or|ders were to pass, is fit for promoting the obedience and discipline of an army. It is known, that ar|mies have hitherto yielded a very precarious and uncertain obedience to any senate, or popular autho|rity; and they will least of all yield it to an assembly which is to have only a continuance of two years. The officers must totally lose the characteristic dis|position of military men, if they see with perfect submission and due admiration, the dominion of pleaders; especially when they find, that they have a new court to pay to an endless succession of those pleaders, whose military policy, and the genius of whose command (if they should have any) must be as uncertain as their duration is transient. In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will
