INTRODUCTION TO PROCEEDINGS

Against the relief of the French only o ment has been brought; but that one is so and specious, that if it were to remain unex it would by many be thought irrefragable. been urged, that charity, like other virtue be improperly and unseasonably exerted while we are relieving Frenchmen, there many Englishmen unrelieved; that while w pity on our enemies, we forget the misery friends.

Grant this argument all it can prove, an is the conclusion? - That to relieve the Fre a good action, but that a better may be cond This is all the result, and this all is very littl do the best can seldom be the lot of man : sufficient if, when opportunities are present is ready to do good. How little virtue co practised, if beneficence were to wait alway the most proper objects, and the noblest sions; occasions that may never happen, an jects that may never be found.

It is far from certain, that a single Englis will suffer by the charity to the French. scenes of misery make new impressions; and of the charity which produced these donat may be supposed to have been generated by a cies of calamity never known among us be Some imagine that the laws have provided al cessary relief in common cases, and remit the to the care of the publick; some have been ceived by fictitious misery, and are afraid of couraging imposture; many have observed wan be the effect of vice, and consider casual almsgi as patrons of idleness, But all these difficu

s so popular unexamined

ly one argu vanish in the present case: we know that for the Prisoners of War there is no legal provision; we see their distress, and are certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and naked without a crime.

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and what French is conceived. little, To

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But it is not necessary to make any concessions. The opponents of this charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be the best. That charity is best, of which the consequences are most extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse nations, and dispose them to peace and amity: in the mean time, it alleviates captivity, and takes away something from the miseries of war. The rage of war, however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and horror: let it not then be unnecessarily extended; let animosity and hostility cease together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than while his sword is drawn against us.

The effects of these contributions may, perhaps, reach still further. Truth is best supported by virtue; we may hope from those who feel or who see our charity, that they shall no longer detest as heresy that religion, which makes its professors the followers of Him, who has commanded us to "do good to them that hate us."

ON THE

BRAVERY

OF THE

ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS.

BY those who have compared the military genius of the English with that of the French nation, it is remarked, that the French officers will always lead, if the soldiers will follow; and that the English soldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers seem to lose what our soldiers gain. I know not any reason for supposing that the English officers are less willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think, universally allowed, that the English soldiers are more willing to follow. Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We can shew a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose courage may vie with that of their general. There may be some pleasure in tracing the causes of this plebeian magnanimity. The qualities which commonly make an

army formidable, are long habits of regularity, great
exactness of discipline, and great confidence in the
commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a
kind of mechanical obedience to signals and com-
mands, like that which the perverse Cartesians im-
pute to animals; discipline may impress such an..
awe upon the mind, that any danger shall be less
dreaded than the danger of punishment; and con-
fidence in the wisdom or fortune of the general,
may induce the soldiers to follow him blindly to
the most dangerous enterprize.

What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops of the Russian empress and Prussian monarch. We find that they may be broken without confusion, and repulsed without flight.

But the English troops have none of these requisites in any eminent degree. Regularity is by no means part of their character: they are rarely exercised, and therefore shew very little dexterity in their evolutions as bodies of men, or in the manual use of their weapons as individuals; they neither are thought by others, nor by themselves, more active or exact than their enemies, and therefore derive none of their courage from such imaginary superiority.

The manner in which they are dispersed in quarters over the country during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of discipline: they are very little in sight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged in the slight duty of the guard, are suffered to live every man his own way.

The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the freedom of our tenures, and VOL. III.

C

:

ON THE BRAVERY OF THE

the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very to reverence of superiors. It is not to any esteem of the officers that the English sold indebted for his spirit in the hour of battle perhaps it does not often happen that he t much better of his leader than of himself. French Count, who has lately published th of War, remarks how much soldiers are anim when they see all their dangers shared by those were born to be their masters, and whom they sider as beings of a different rank. The En man despises such motives of courage : he born without a master; and looks not on any however dignified by lace or titles, as deriving nature any claims to his respect, or inheriting qualities superior to his own.

There are some, perhaps, who would im that every Englishman fights better than the jects of absolute governments, because he has to defend. But what has the English more the French soldier? Property they are both monly without. Liberty is, to the lowest ra every nation, little more than the choice of v ing or starving; and this choice is, I suppose, e ly allowed in every country. The English se seldom has his head very full of the constitu nor has there been, for more than a century. war that put the property or liberty of a s Englishman in danger.

Whence then is the courage of the English gar? It proceeds, in my opinion, from that c lution of dependance which obliges every m