militia. We have seen that the politicians who were at the
head of the Long Parliament made, in 1642, a great effort to
accomplish this change by transferring, directly and formally, to
the estates of the realm the choice of ministers, the command of
the army, and the superintendence of the whole executive
administration. This scheme was, perhaps, the best that could
then be contrived: but it was completely disconcerted by the
course which the civil war took. The Houses triumphed, it is
true; but not till after such a struggle as made it necessary for
them to call into existence a power which they could not control,
and which soon began to domineer over all orders and all parties:
During a few years, the evils inseparable from military
government were, in some degree, mitigated by the wisdom and
magnanimity of the great man who held the supreme command. But,
when the sword, which he had wielded, with energy indeed, but
with energy always guided by good sense and generally tempered by
good nature, had passed to captains who possessed neither his
abilities nor his virtues. it seemed too probable that order and
liberty would perish in one ignominious ruin.
That ruin was happily averted. It has been too much the practice
of writers zealous for freedom to represent the Restoration as a
disastrous event, and to condemn the folly or baseness of that
Convention, which recalled the royal family without exacting new
securities against maladministration. Those who hold this
language do not comprehend the real nature of the crisis which
followed the deposition of Richard Cromwell. England was in
imminent danger of falling under the tyranny of a succession of
small men raised up and pulled down by military caprice. To
deliver the country from the domination of the soldiers was the
first object of every enlightened patriot: but it was an object
which, while the soldiers were united, the most sanguine could
scarcely expect to attain. On a sudden a gleam of hope appeared.
General