If that authority falls to nothing,"he said," nothing can follow but confusion."The Presbyterians, however, now engaged in a plan for restoring the king under their own control, and by the means of a Scottish army, forced on their policy, and on the 27th of May ordered the immediate disbandment of the army, without any guarantee for the payment of arrears.
When the secret treaty with France became known, thus confirming Sacheverell's insight, the latter called for the disbandment of the forces and advocated the refusal of further supplies for military purposes; and in June 1678 he resolutely opposed Lord Danby's proposal to grant £300,000 per annum to Charles II.
Sir Bartle Frere, who had won distinction in India, and was sent out by Lord Beaconsfields government to the Cape, kept back the award; and, though he ultimately communicated it to Cetewayo, thought it desirable to deman.d the disbandment of the Zulu army.
The proposed disbandment of the army in February 1647 would have placed the soldiers entirely in the power of the parliament; while the negotiations of the king, first with the Scots and then with the parliament, appeared to hazard, all the fruits of victory.
Ismails exactions from the Egyptian peasantry reacted on the army, causing discontent; and when he was tottering on the throne he instigated military demonstrations against his own government, and, by thus sapping the foundations of discipline, assisted Arabis revolution; the result was the battle of Tell el-Kebir, the British occupation, and the disbandment of the army, which at that time in Egypt proper consisted of 18,000 men.