Though the conscripts and new levies may be adverse to the attempt, the old soldiers, who are really starving and in rags, will not be against any plan that promises to relieve them from their present distress; and such we find by the most authentic esidence, to be the sentiments of the French soldiery at present. The Liberty of the Press being entirely destroyed in France, the People and the Army are kept completely in the dark; they see neither the difficulty nor the danger, and therefore he has it in his power to persuade them to any thing, however desperate. OBSERVATIONS MILITARY SPIRIT. MUCH at present is said about creating a military spirit in the people of this country. Not satisfied with b. taking measures for our present security, we carry our views to a distance, and propose to place the nation beyond s the reach of all future danger, by s creating for it an impregnable defence, in the disposition of its inhabitants. A country is indeed poorly secured which wants, this defence; and we should have little confidence in the 9. measures pursued to preserve us, if we thought that the spirit of courage and ara of, manhood remained to be created aamong us. It is undoubtedly true, rs, that in no country, and at no time, ought effectual means be omitted to cherish and direct that spirit, not merely against foreign aggression, but as one important part of the moral culture, which it is one of the first duties of the government to provide for the people. The man who is a coward, who wants the spirit to defend himself, and the country which feeds him, and which contains all those who have benefited or who love him, is deficient in as essential a quality of a good man, as he who wants the essense of justice or of gratitude, And we may lay it down as a position, that in whatever country any considerable proportion of the inhabitants is thus depraved, a bad government, and a bad education, have produced their last and most fatal effects, the corruption of the moral sentiments of the people. As is usual on all occasions, we find crude ideas, notions taken up with scarce any considerations of the subject, by by far the most frequent, even among those presented to the public in the present case. The necessity of the military spirit is a fine popular topic, and people advance any thing under protection of its fascinating influence, without having ever put the question to themselves what the military spirit means. They of course propose many things for raising the military spirit which have nothing to do with that spirit. According to some speculators, a great part of the military spirit consists in the contempt of riches; and we have lost our military spirit, they say, from the love of stocks, and of manufactures. It would seem from these representations, that the first step toward obtaining that desired spirit would be to strip ourselves of our riches and manufactures. In that case we should think a French invasion by no means to be resisted; since we are fully persuaded that of all possible means to that end, this would be the most expeditious, and the most effec. tual. We should afterwards be nobly secure against any future invasion; since we would be sure to have all thế heroïsm and all the spirit which poverty could bestow upon us. We are of opinion, on the other hand, that the more a man has to defend, the more eager will he be to defend it, and the greater number of resources will he be able to find to assist him in the defence. We should be sorry to think, that, twenty years hence, our country should not be richer than it is at present; and we have no apprehension that courage will not, as it has hitherto done, keep b. pace with the knowledge and morality which shall be disseminated amongst 91 the people. Most of those who talk about the 1-military spirit confound two things, ? qu nexu ambiton „asabi abu which are very distinct, the spirit of manhood, of independence, of heroic defence, with the spirit of restless or needy adventure. The greater part of the military bands, who make a figure in history, are of the latter description." Of course their spirit and their habits come very naturally to be regarded by superficial observers, as exclusively the military spirit and habits. The object of these bands has much more frequently been to hírrass and molest their neighbours from the desire of plunder, or from what they call the love of glory, than to defend themselves' from unjust aggression. Undoubtedly men rich and happy at home, are not the fittest for this occupation. And the story of Lucullus's soldier, who fought like a madman when he had lost his purse, but wished to be quiet when he had filled his pocket with rewards, applies to them accurate ly. But though Lucullus's soldier did not care for fighting to gain a purse when he had got one already, no doubɛ he would have fought as desperately as ever to preserve what he had. The spirit of manhood and indet pendence is much more naturally and much more necessarily the result of the habits of social life in a state of freedom, than of the habits of military discipline, or military enterprize; and no people, associating together under equal and generous laws, ever yet wanted the noblest spirit of courage and magnanimity. Undoubtedly "the feelings and ideas habitually suggested from the first to the last period of a man's life, by the nature of the society in which he is placed, are the most deeply rooted in his mind, and have the most decisive influence on his conduct, But in a state of society, where the laws give no one any advantage vazaol ph gover of bytuno si ene laboris ta dije don over another, where men struggle to, plined slaves may sometimes, by this gether on equal terms against aggres, sion, and for pre-eminence in wealth, power, or fame, the spirit of self-defence, the spirit of emulation, the spirit, of independence, and of enterprize, is the natural temper of the people. The superiority of this force of mind to any spirit artificially created by military exercises may be proyed by a very de cisive instance. We send our sons to public schools, and are deeply impressed, with a sense of the advantages derived from the manly character generated by. the contention of boys with their equals. Let a boy from his infancy be Habituated, as much as you please, in the, softness of his father's house, to mary exercises, you will not pretend to say that this will compensate for the spirit created at school. The same generous discipline which creates the manly character of the boy at school, operates upon the man who lives in a free and well,governed nation, through the whole course of his life; through the whole course of his life he is engaged in animating contention with bis equals. Let us suppose that the boy who is to be habituated to military exercises in his father's house has, at the same time, instead of equals with whom to contend, a number of unfortunate boys, who are compelled to look up to him as their superior, to be subject to his caprices, and over whom he is permitted to tyrannize; would not this association corrupt and ruin the manhood of both parties? And would any dexterity in military exercises give them the worth of boys educated as equals at a public school? The truth is that military exercises are not necessary to freemen to give them the military spirit, but to teach them the use of their eir arms, and act together with unity and order. Though disci knowledge, obtain advantages over undisciplined freemen, they have not so much, of the military spirit. An underling clerk at a merchant's desk might cast up. figures more rapid than Sir Isaac Newton, but would he have more of the arithmetical spirit than Sir Isaac Newton? The Romans were never a commercial, but a military people, and their education was as completely military under the Emperors as in the age of Scipio; yet the military spirit of Rome, disappeared; and disappeared with the freedom of Rome. The military spirit of Sparta itself was lost, while the military education remained unaltered. The Dutch, we are told, grew dastardly, who were once so brave. The Dutch grow dastardly, however, when their government grew corrupt, and they had not been habituated to military exercises, when they shewed such pro digies of courage. The Carthaginians, it is said, were subdued by the Romans. We know too little of the history of state of Carthage to be entitled to draw, any conclusions from that history. One thing we know, that its government when it fell was extremely corrupt; and this was sufficient to subject it to the Romans, whether it possessed or wanted commerce. Of all the nations which have yet, appeared upon the face of the earth, the most commercial and the most rich the British nation. Scarcely ever was any nation so destitute of military habits, for from the time of Oliver Cromwell, they have hardly been known among the people;, and yet we have no hesitation to affirm that by no people was real courage and intrepidity ever possessed in a more perfect degree than by the collective body of the British people at this moment. Ta what T Hall in Fenchurch-Street; convened for the purpose of taking into consideration the then recent résolutions of the Court of Aldermen, recommending the renewal of VioLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS, the follawing SPEECH was spoken by Mr. R. S. SHARPE, immediately after the purport of the meeting had been declared by Mr. Alderman Combe. GENTLEMEN, what is this owing? To the same cause to which our unexampled riches are owing; to the free and equal laws, which, giving full scope to the exercise of a man's faculties among his fellow 'creatures, allow none of the virtae belonging to his nature to lie dormant. We affirm that this intrepidity is on the increase. The happy situation of our country, which removes the fear of violent death from every set of people · but the worst, obliges us reluctantly to lo appeal to the behaviour of them. It will be allowed, however, that no remarkable change could take place in the character of them, without something correspondent in the rest of the people, Now it is known that formerly a very great proportion of criminals came to the place of execution under extreme dejection, and sheddingbeen so distinctly stated from the chair, tears. It is now equally well known that nothing is so rare. It is always found that British troops in point of daring boldness, as well as firm courage, take the lead of the troops of every nation with whom they are mixed. We have thought it of importance to state these truths at this time, in opposition to some contradictory ideas which are disseminated; that both the people themselves, and they who are to marshal them, may know what they are worth, and what is necessary to prepare them to meet a danger ten-fold greater than all that can be offered them by light and changeable, though daring and presumptuous Frenchmen Let us be a little practised in the use of our weapons, and let us be conducted by intelligent men, and we are safe against the WORLD IN ARMS. British Press, At a meeting of the Inhabitants of the IN rising thus early to deliver my sentiments on this occasion, in the presence of so many older and of abler judgment, I entreat to be considered as offering my humble services merely towards. gathering materials for these more skilful than myself to work with. The occasion of this meeting having it might perhaps become me to add but I hope and trust that my principles That L the 18th of July, at Ironmonger's intended vasion by wing by that land the Tyrant 7 1 Tyrant of France(this happy land! the blessed object of his envy) is, I -believe, undoubted by far the greater part of our countrymen. I have heard from good authority, that a plan has been seen of the methods to be adopted by the enemy as most likely to ensure success; and the consequences that would attend such success are openly avowed.-Consequences most dreadful, but not more so than we can easily conceive that man to be capable of, who has given recent proofs that the guide of his conduct is a heart from which were early driven every soft feeling with which our merciful Creator enriches the human mind; a heart now become the vile abode of treachery, cruelty and impiety.-We are threatened with the total annihilation of our glorious Constitution!— a Constitution under which we enjoy blessings unequalled by any nation in the known world!-We are threatened with the loss of our liberty and our independence!—our dearest and most valuable privileges; our pride as Britons. We are threatened with the overthrow of our blessed religion!-a religion, our firmest support as a nation, the rock on which, as Christians, we build our best hopes of everlasting happiness. Shall we not then, one and all, advance, and unite our utmost efforts in a steady perseverance towards the attainment of our great object, the permanent security of the country? Shall we not immediately acquiesce in a cordial support of that Government, under which we are protected, and under which we have attained, and can alone preserve our present enviable dignity as a people? A people known to the world, to be ever true to their Country, ever loyal to their King, and € ever resting their hopes of success on that all-powerful atm which has hitherto so signally, preserved them... ‹ ↑ There are various situations, the duties of which may seem to preclude those engaged in them from the possi bility of attaining that knowledge requisite to enable them to decide on subjects like that we now contemplate; but it is most sure that every breast inheriting a spark of that patriotic fire that characterizes our nation will now proudly evince it. Let us then be extremely cautious against indulging a prejudice not unfrequent, nor think that the sudden and unexpected glow of loyalty is assumed; but when the urgency of the times is considered, let us generously pronounce it real, and hail the honest impulse of a noble and loyal nature!-as the opposite act is illiberal, so may the effect be fatal; an over-exerted loyalty will soon find it's beneficial level, but it is cruel to depress it; and, when depressed, most difficult to revive it. I hope the time is now arrived when every such prejudice as that to which I have just alluded shall cease, never to be revived; and that as the present cause calls for the united efforts of our arms, so one sentiment of Patriotism, Loyalty and Unanimity may pervade our hearts; in which case, under the blessing of Divine Providence, we need not doubt the complete discomfiture of our restless and implacable enemy, and the preservation of our rights, our laws and our religion. I cannot better conclude than in the words of a most emphatic modern writer; who, speaking of our foe ob serves: Fortune herself shall be no more his friend, But here the hist'ry of his crimes shall end; His slaughter'd legions shall manure our shore, And ENGLAND never know invasion more. |