enabled the Generals to make incessant attacks, without regarding the lives of their troops. This great source of conquest was afterward aided by the confidence inspired by victory, and by the licentiousness in which the French soldiers were allowed to indulge: but the circumstance which most contributed to the rapid progress of the Republicans, he maintains, was that they found partisans wherever their arms penetrated; since the deluded and the vicious, unhappily so numerous in the present age, were in all countries their natural allies. The present greatest strength of the French consists in the number and excellence of their light troops.

A remarkable trait is here said to distinguish the French armies:

If the General has any plan in view, it is known to all the soldiers. In all circles, as well those of the officers as those of the privates, they discuss it, they reason on it, they make objections to it, and suggest other schemes. In a crowd of absurd observations, some that are just occur; the latter are applauded, and, from whatever quarter they originate, they are certain of reaching the Commander. While he walks in the camp, or visits the posts, a soldier will address him, and say; "General, if we did so and so we should beat these B-;" the General replies, "F, you are right," receives the hint civilly, and considers it.History furnishes many examples of important success being owing to the discoveries and remarks of private soldiers. While so great a concourse of men is occupied on one object, and men so intelligent as the French and so experienced, it may be expected that the best ideas will be started; and it remains only to collect and digest them; which is practicable solely in a French army.'

The writer states that the utmost latitude was given to the French Generals in the late war; and he rejects as fabulous the account which describes them as only carrying into effect plans forwarded to them from Carnot, and the military committee. The sole instructions sent to Dugommier by the Committee of Public Safety, when he took the command at the siege of Toulon, were comprehended in these words: "Vous prendrez Toulon, ou vous mériterez nos regrets."

"Existing circumstances," and our opinion of the merit of the work before us, induce us to quote freely from the author's remarks on the British army. The English, he says, are indubitably the most intrepid people in Europe, who face death, and behold its approach, with most indifference and coolness; and a Briton fears less to put an end to his own life than to take away that of another; a generosity which is characteristic of true courage. The antient wars of France, the battles of Crècy, Poitiers, Agincourt, of the Spurs, the war of the succession, and that of the seven years, in all parts of the world, prove that the courage

courage of the English, and their triumphs, are not confined to the ocean. After this praise, however, he ventures to tell us some unwelcome, but, it may be, salutary truths. Consummate, he says, as we are at sea, we have no system for our army. The nature of our service occasions our armed force to be split into endless divisions and subdivisions; and our Asiatic possessions are no more calculated to form Generals, than the Black Sea or the lake of Geneva are to form Admirals. The soldiers in the East and West Indies die before they gain experience; and the army necessarily consists of recruits. Scattered so widely, there is no unity in our armed body; nor is any minister sufficiently enlightened, or possessing sufficient authority, to remedy this evil by giving an uniformity to the different parts of the public force. The British troops which fought on the Continent in the last war, being inferior in number to those of the other allies, were obliged to act in subserviency to foreign commanders, and were not allowed to exhibit the qualities characteristic of them.

The author describes our cavalry as the finest in Europe, with respect to the beauty, the goodness, and the size of our horses, their excellent equipment, and the hardiness and firmness of the men; and he says that its charge is more formidable than that of any other: but he adds, as being the most swift, the horses are less manageable; and hence, after a charge, no cavalry requires so long a time to form. The English artillery is also stated to surpass all others in the selection of the men; and those who serve it are well instructed, and yield to none in courage and address. In fact, the English troops want only skilful leaders, who would be able to avoid and to repress the circumstances which are unfavourable to them, in order to render them the best, as they are the finest in Europe; since in them is found, in a superior degree, that natural valour which is the first element in the formation of a soldier.

With regard to the possibility and practicability of an invasion of this country by France, the author acknowleges his incompetence to discuss those points: but, he says, reflecting on the extent of coast, on the shortness of the passage in many places, on the facilities which the possession of the Low Countries (and, it may be said, of Holland and Spain) give to the French, and on the accidents of a sea naturally tempestuous, it must be allowed that an undertaking, which is in itself almost impracticable, may not be improbable. He supposes the case of the French being able to land 12 or 15 thousand men. All retreat, he observes, would be cut off; and success, death, or captivity, would be the sole results. The invading troops would

in course consist of the flower of the French army; since their service would be such as, if they were not veterans, must depress their courage; while danger and necessity only call forth and inflame the valour of experienced soldiers, who have a grand object in view, and who know how they are to conduct themselves in order to obtain it. Each English individual will display equal courage, but the want of experience will prevent the success of his measures, and take away all confidence in the co-operation of the greater number; and, in war, the individual is nothing. Report will double and triple the number of the invaders: other debarkations will be announced in all parts; and the invading force will chuse a part of the country where it can best defend itself, in order to wait for reinforcements: whose landing the accidents of the sea will favour, and the difficulty of which will be removed, when no obstacle will be offered from the land to their debarkation. The French government will not calculate on those who are killed or taken, but on those who succeed; and they will not regard the loss of 50 or 60 thousand men, when the object is so great.

After this sketch of what the author supposes will be the course taken by the invaders, he states his conjectures respecting the mode in which they will be opposed. The army, he conceives, will be composed of regular troops, militia regiments, and volunteer corps. Of this assemblage, the greater part will be without experience, and strangers to the usages of war. Their half knowlege, he thinks, may be most fatal; and nothing will be so much to be dreaded as a general battle. Numbers, brought into action at one time, will only augment the confusion of inexperienced troops; and they will have to face an active enterprising enemy, who will throw them into disorder by the rapidity and boldness of his movements, and who is accustomed to seize and take advantage of a favourable moment. The writer therefore recommends that, in the case of an invasion, such as he has described, we should not bring the whole force of the country to bear down on the enemy at once, but divide it into four, five, or six bodies; and, instead of putting in motion an immense mass, of which the greater proportion could act no other part in the engagement than that of increasing the confusion, we should attack the French without intermission by a succession of small detachments, and thus turn against them the manoeuvres by which, in the beginning of the last war, they defeated the Austrian tactics. The English, he says, ought to attack the enemy for the first, the second, and several successive times; not with a view to decisive victory, but in order, each time, to destroy a certain number, and to reduce

the

the whole before they are reinforced, or before a landing is
effected at some other point. In case of several embarkations
at different places, he deems it important that the main force,
in the manner already stated, should be employed in destroy-
ing one invading division, before it advances against another.
In renewing their attacks incessantly, with numbers barely su-
perior to those of the enemy, our troops ought to reckon only
on the injury which they do to him, and not on complete suc-
cess; and they should regard themselves as victorious, while
they cause a loss to the enemy, though it should be less than
that which they themselves suffer. By rendering the engage-
ments thus (as it were) like single combats, the English will
deprive the French of the advantages which they derive from
their superior talents for manoeuvring. He says that it is clear
to demonstration, that it would be more dangerous to oppose
100 thousand men to 10 thousand French, than 20 or 25
thousand that it is not relinquishing the advantage arising
from numbers, but improving it to the utmost, to take care
that each portion shall render itself effective by a separate en-
gagement, while it is physically impossible that all should be
able to exert themselves, if drawn out at once; and that it is
making the most effective use of 100 thousand men, to fight
four battles with 25 thousand each time: in which way, the
country will have the advantages arising from numbers, without
the inconveniences.

The author makes use of very cogent reasons, in favour of
measures that would conciliate the Irish Catholics; and he lays
so much stress on this idea, that it induces a conjecture that
he belongs to that body, and that he acquired the faculty of
writing French in consequence of having been long engaged in
foreign service. Be he whom he may, however, he is a zealous
friend of the British empire; highly sensible of the inestimable
value of its constitution, liberty, and laws; and very capable
of imparting to it important counsels, in the awful crisis in
which it is now placed. We should not have taken so large a
notice of his work, and more especially of that part of it which
treats of the English army, had we not regarded it as having
particular claims to the attention of the statesman and the sol-
dier, and as eminently deserving of being seriously perused
by the Generals who may command us in the event of an in-

vasion.

INDEX

To the REMARKABLE PASSAGES in this Volume.

N. B. To find any particular Book, or Pamphlet, see the
Table of Contents, prefixed to the Volume.