57
A SHORT
HISTORY
OF
Standing Armies
IN
ENGLAND.
By J. Trenchard.Anno 1698.
The PREFACE.
There is nothing in which the Generality of Mankind are ſo much miſtaken as when they talk of Government. The different Effects of it are obvious to every one, but few can trace its Cauſes. Moſt Men having indigeſted Ideas of the Nature of it, attribute all public Miſcarriages to the Corruption of Mankind. They think the whole Maſs is infected, that it is impoſſible to make any Reformation, and ſo ſubmit patiently to their Country's Calamities, or elſe ſhare in the Spoil: whereas Complaints of this Kind are as old as the World, and every Age has thought their own the worſt. We have not only our own Experience, but the Example of all Times, to prove that Men in the ſame Circumſtances will do the
