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Cornell University Library 
 D 16.9.B62 
 
 On the strength of nations. 
 
 3 1924 027 922 438 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027922438 
 
ON THE 
 
 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. 
 
 BT 
 
 ANDREW BISSET, 
 
 OF TEINITT COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, M.A., AND OF LINCOLN'S INN, 
 BAKKISTEK-AT-LAW. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, COENHILL. 
 
 M.DCCC.LIX. 
 
{The right of Translation is reserved.l 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The causes of the strength and weakness of a nation, 
 so far as our own country is concerned, and in con- 
 tradistinction to its wealth and commercial prosperity, 
 have for some time occupied my thoughts; and I 
 have employed much time in investigating minutely 
 the records of one portion of the history of England, 
 with a view of pointing out the evils in our systems 
 of government and taxation, which appear to me to 
 have sown the seeds of future disasters. But it is 
 only lately that the critical aspect of affairs in Europe 
 induced me to open up the subject of " The Strength 
 of Nations," in order to recal to my contemporaries 
 the lessons of the past as warnings, in the hope that 
 they may be used to correct present evils, and avert 
 possible and perhaps imminent dangers. 
 
 The Strength of Nations is a subject equally vast 
 in its extent and in its importance; involving as it 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 does an elucidation of the causes of the decline and 
 fall of the great empires of antiquity, and the dimi- 
 nution or decay of some kingdoms and states of 
 modem times ; and to do full justice to so compre- 
 hensive a theme, would require more time and space 
 than are available to a writer having in view the 
 application to the present crisis of principles and 
 examples deduced from the facts of universal history. 
 
 This will account for, and I hope excuse, the limi- 
 tation of the scope of this volume, and also the stress 
 that is laid upon physical force and armaments as 
 elements of national strength. It will, however, be 
 seen that I have by no means omitted from the argu- 
 ment those moral and intellectual forces, and that 
 spirit of patriotism, which are to the material power 
 of a nation what the soul is to the body. 
 
 Nations, like individuals, have their growing youth, 
 their energetic manhood, their maturity and decline ; 
 and to what height of power and greatness they may 
 rise, how early and rapid may be their descent from 
 the culminating point of their strength and pro- 
 sperity to decay and ruin, depends upon the sound- 
 
PEEFACE. V 
 
 ness and vigour of their constitution, the amount of 
 moral and spiritual forces they have exerted, and 
 the extent to which these powers have been kept in 
 healthy exercise by good government 
 
 The examples I have selected are those nations 
 whose history is best known to us, and whose fate 
 affords the most instructive instances of the operation 
 of causes analogous to those which tend to weaken 
 the strength of Britain. 
 
 If it be too late to retrace the steps which our 
 rulers have at various times taken in deviation from 
 the right course, there is yet time to remedy in part 
 the consequences of such errors, and to make up for 
 the shortcomings which have led this country to the 
 verge of a precipice, while the nation has been lulled 
 into a dream of false security. And when the people 
 of England are thoroughly aroused from their apathy 
 to a sense of impending danger and neglected duties, 
 the resolute determination of Englishmen will be 
 shown in energetic action combined with an expres- 
 sion of the popular will, which no government will 
 dare openly to disregard. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 At a ftiture time, I may be able to treat more 
 fully, if not exhaustively, of " The Strength of Na- 
 tions;" in the meantime, I trust that the present 
 volume may be found serviceable in directing public 
 attention to a subject which I believe has not before 
 been discussed in a separate treatise ; and which is, 
 at the present time, of paramount importance to the 
 safety and welfare of the country. 
 
 August 25M, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Peimaey Element of the Stkenqth of Natiohs 1 
 n. The Spaetans . . ... 9 
 
 in. The Athenians . . . . .24 
 
 IV. The Romans ...... 51 
 
 V. The Spaniaeds and the Tckks . . .67 
 
 VI. Civilization and Conquest — Heko-wosship and 
 
 Detil-'worbhip . . . . .94 
 
 VII. The Nobmans . . . . . .125 
 
 VIII. " The Cheap Defence oe Nations " — The Ancient 
 
 Enqlish National Defences . . . 147 
 
 IX The Deae Defence of Nations — The Modben 
 
 English National Defences . . .192 
 
 X. England and Fbance .... 210 
 
 XI. The Naval Powebs of Eubope . . . 257 
 
ON THE 
 
 STRENGTH OF E^ATIOINTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PEmAEY ELEMENT OF THE STRENGTH 
 OE NATIONS. 
 
 " When a strong man armed keepetli his palace, his 
 goods are in peace : but when a stronger than he 
 shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh 
 jfrom him all his armour wherein he trusted, and 
 divideth his spoils." 
 
 This is as true now as it was two thousand years 
 ago, and it nearly concerns all independent nations 
 to look well to their strength, and to take order that 
 a stronger nation do not come upon them and over- 
 come them, and take from them not only their 
 armour, hut all things that render life of value to 
 them. 
 
 B 
 
2 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. I. 
 
 Since the publication, in 1776, of Adam Smith's 
 immortal work on the "Wealth of Nations," the 
 wealth of nations has, in this country at least, 
 engaged so much attention, that but little has 
 been left for another quality of nations — their 
 Strength; without which their wealth, with all its 
 advantages, may be of little use, since it may be 
 destroyed at any time with fearfal rapidity. There 
 appears to be a time in the history of all powerful 
 nations at which, while their wealth goes on in- 
 creasing, their strength begins to decline, till — to 
 use the words of Bacon* — it comes to "that, that 
 not the hundredth poll will be fit for a helmet ; and 
 so there will be great population and little strength." 
 
 And it is also well to bear in mind another remark 
 of Bacon in the same Essay: "Neither is money 
 the sinews of war (as it is trivially said) where 
 the sinews of men's arms in base and effeminate 
 people are failing; for Solon said well to Crcesus 
 (when in ostentation he showed him his gold) : 
 * Sir, if any other comes that hath better iron than 
 you, he will be master of all this gold.' " As soon 
 as this current has fairly set in, unless its course 
 can be arrested — ^which is a difficult if not an im- 
 possible operation — the decay of that nation has 
 commenced, and will continue, till the time arrives 
 when its strength is inadequate for its defence, and 
 its wealth becomes the prey of an invader. 
 
 ♦ Essay on the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates. 
 
CHAP. 1.] PEIMARY ELEMENT. 3 
 
 Adam Smith appears to consider this question to 
 be satisfactorily solved by " the irresistible supe- 
 riority" which, he says, " a well-regulated standing 
 army has over a militia." And he mentions, as the 
 first great revolution in the affairs of mankind of 
 which history has preserved any distinct account, 
 the victory which the standing army of Philip of 
 Macedon obtained over what he terms " the gallant 
 and well-exercised militias of the principal republics 
 of ancient Greece."* This statement contains several 
 grave errors. It is true that Philip's army may be 
 termed a standing army, and it is also true — though 
 Adam Smith has omitted that essential element, and 
 therein lies one principal fallacy of his argument — that 
 it was a standing army formed of good materials; but 
 it is not true that the troops of Greece which it de- 
 feated were at that time " gallant and well-exeixised 
 militiias." 
 
 " Indeed," as Mr. Grote has well observed,! " the 
 Spartan infantry, from their peculiar and systematic 
 training, possessed, though not in the days of Philip 
 of Macedon, the arrangements and aptitudes of a 
 good standing army." And it is no small proof of 
 the superiority of a well-regulated standing army 
 formed of good materials, that every Greek who con- 
 trasted his own brave and patriotic but unsystema- 
 tized militia with the symmetrical structure of the 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. 
 f HistoTy of Greece, vol. ii. p. 606. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. I. 
 
 Lacedsemonian armed force, and the preparation of 
 every Spartan for his duty by a painful discipUne and 
 laborious drilling, experienced a feeling of inferio- 
 rity which made him willingly accept the headship of 
 "these professional artists in the business of war," 
 as they are often denominated by the Greek writers.* 
 But Adam Smith's words, " gallant and well-exer- 
 cised militias," would lead to the inference that the 
 armed forces of the several States of Greece were in 
 as sound a condition at the time of the battle of Ghse- 
 ronea as at the times of the battles of Marathon, Ther- 
 mopylae, and Platsea. The fact was, however, very 
 different. We have the best authority for the con- 
 clusion that, in the course of the century preceding 
 the battle of Charonea, the military excellence of the 
 Lacedsemonian armed force had greatly declined, if 
 it had not almost disappeared, and that Athens no 
 longer possessed a " gallant and well-exercised 
 militia." I will endeavour to explain the causes 
 of this change in these two States respectively. 
 Mr. Grote, indeed, seems to think that the subdi- 
 vision of Greece into numerous independent States 
 — a subdivision in great part arising from the moun- 
 tainous nature of the country — proved finally the 
 cause of her ruin,t and that, had the Amphictyonic 
 
 * Grote, Tol.ii. pp. 608, 609. Plutarch. Pelop. c. 23: Tld.vTuv 
 '&Kpot TexvXrai Kal iro^ioTai tSp TroXefUKwv ovte£ oi STraprtorot. 
 Xenoph. " Eep. Lao." c. 14. AaKtSmiiovlovg Si h6vovq ti} ovn 
 TexviruQ tuiv TroXE/iiKiav. 
 
 t History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 299. 
 
CHAP. I.] PRIMARY ELEMENT. 5 
 
 Council really been the " commune Grsecise con- 
 cilium" which Cicero calls it, united Hellas might 
 have maintained her independence not only against 
 the Macedonian kings, but even against the con- 
 quering legions of Rome.* But the fact that 
 Greece did maintain her independence against the 
 great Persian invasion proves that her subdivision 
 into numerous independent States v^as not the 
 cause of her ultimate ruin. That cause must, I 
 think, be looked for elsewhere. And in regard to 
 the two principal States of Greece, Sparta and 
 Athens, there exist sufficient data whereon to 
 found a tolerably accurate conclusion. No union 
 could ever have imparted a durable and healthy 
 vitality to a nation with such a government as 
 either the Spartan oHgarchy or the Athenian de- 
 mocracy. 
 
 The question of standing armies and militias I 
 shall hereafter consider more in detail. But Adam 
 Smith, in the exaggerated importance he appears to 
 me to have attached to standing armies generally, 
 has, I think, taken an erroneous view of this ques- 
 tion. At the same time the general opinion of the 
 other States of Greece respecting the effect of the 
 Spartan discipline seems to prove the advantage 
 of superior discipline, whether the troops possess- 
 ing that discipline are called a militia or a standing 
 army. It is a remarkable fact that the militias of 
 
 * History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 332. 
 
6 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. I. 
 
 Epaminondas, Cromwell, and Washington beat the 
 professional soldiers opposed to them. 
 
 The fundamental element of a nation's strength is 
 the physical hardihood of its people, combined with 
 that force and energy of character which are the 
 consequences of such hardihood, and the patriotism, 
 or love of and pride in country, which is the con- 
 sequence of some degree of good government. 
 Accordingly, all nations which have been at any 
 time strong have encouraged the use of manly and 
 athletic exercises ; the neglect of which has a most 
 pernicious effect, not only on the bodily strength, but 
 on the bodily and mental health and courage of the 
 community. For a coward — a man incapable of 
 defending himself — as a celebrated writer * has 
 observed, wants one of the most essential parts of 
 the character of a man, being as much mutilated 
 and deformed in his mind as a man who is deprived 
 of some of his limbs, or has lost the use of them, 
 is in his body.' And to prevent that sort of mental 
 mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness which cow- 
 ardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading 
 through the great body of the people, deserves the 
 most serious attention of the government; in the 
 same manner as it would deserve its most serious 
 attention to prevent a deadly pestilential disease from 
 spreading itself among them. 
 
 The great writer above referred to, however, does 
 
 * Adam'Smith: Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. part iii. art. ii. 
 
CHAP. I.] PRIMAEY ELEMENT. 7 
 
 not appear to estimate truly the danger of such a 
 disease ; when comparing it to a leprosy, he adds, " or 
 any other loathsome and offensive disease, though 
 neither mortal nor dangerous:" for the disease of 
 cowardice, when it has to any extent attacked a 
 nation, is not only dangerous but mortal. 
 
 Now, though it is true that the greatest courage 
 and determination and force of character, as well as 
 vigour of intellect, may co-exist with a feehle con- 
 stitution and frame of hody, yet, besides courage, 
 bodily strength, hardihood, activity, power of endur- 
 ance, and some skill in the use of arms, are essential 
 for defence against an enemy ; and these qualities can 
 only be attained and preserved by some degree of 
 bodily training and practice in the use of arms — a 
 familiarity with which of itself imparts to men a 
 certain amount of courage and self-reliance. Ac- 
 cordingly, all healthy and powerful nations have 
 cultivated bodily strength and hardihood, from the 
 early Persians- to' the English yeomen, whose strong 
 right arms sent their deadly shafts among their 
 enemies' ranks with such unerring aim and irresis- 
 tible force. Of the careful training of the English 
 archers, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 
 
 While the Persians were in their healthy and vigo- 
 rous state, the three great lessons the youth were 
 taught, from five to twenty years of age, were to ride, 
 to shoot with the bow, and to speak truth.* But the 
 » Herod, i. 136. 
 
8 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Persians fell from the same cause which has destroyed 
 so many nations — by the trunk of the tree becoming 
 too weak to bear the branches : a process which com- 
 menced, in their case, from the time when Cyrus led 
 the hardy mountaineers of Persia against the Medes. 
 In fact, this question can be more satisfactorily 
 elucidated fi'om the negative than the positive as- 
 pect of it; that is, from endeavouring to learn and 
 to state accurately the principal causes which have 
 led to the decline of the strength, and ultimately to 
 the ruin, of nations. There are many symptoms by 
 which the disease of the political body manifests 
 itself; and the world is now old enough to supply 
 an induction of facts recorded with sufficient accuracy 
 to furnish some conclusions that may be of use to 
 the present generation. In the following pages I 
 will endeavour to show by such an induction, neces- 
 sarily more or less imperfect, to what causes some 
 of the most remarkable nations of the history of the 
 world have been indebted, first, for their strength and 
 prosperity, and afterwards for their weakness and 
 ruin. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SPAETANS. 
 
 The Greeks, in their early and healthy state, paid 
 the greatest possible attention to the cultivation of 
 bodily strength and activity, by instituting public 
 contests in running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, and 
 throwing the quoit. And it is not unworthy of 
 note that the prize was made of small value, that 
 the combatants might be animated by the love of 
 distinction, not of sordid gain. Of the Romans I 
 shall speak in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 Among the Greeks, the Spartans, as I have said, 
 were prominent for their cultivation of the physical 
 and moral qualities (I mean those moral qualities that 
 relate to courage, fortitude, and patriotism,) that go 
 to the formation of a nation's strength. One grand 
 peculiarity of Sparta consisted in having military 
 divisions quite distinct from the civil divisions: a dis- 
 tinction which enabled the Spartans to render their 
 military organization much more perfect than it ever 
 was in the other States of Greece.* The special 
 
 * See the admirable account of the Spartan institutions, civil 
 and military, in Grote's History of Greece, vol. ii. part ii. chapters 
 tI. & viii. 
 
10 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 ctaracteristic of the Spartan system, and the pivot 
 upon which all its arrangements turned, was what 
 was called the en6moty. This was a small company 
 of men, varying from twenty-five to thirty-six, 
 drilled and practised together in military evolutions, 
 and bound to each other by a common oath. Each 
 enomoty had a separate captain, or en6motarch, the 
 strongest and ablest soldier of the company, who 
 always occupied the front rank, and led the en&moty 
 when it marched in single file. In whatever number 
 of ranks the en6moty was drawn up, the enomotarch 
 usually occupied the front post on the left ; in tech- 
 nical language, stood on the left flank of the front 
 rank : and care was taken that both the front rank 
 man and the rear rank man of each file * should be 
 soldiers of particular merit. These small companies 
 were taught to march in concert, to change rapidly 
 from line to file, to wheel right or left, in such man- 
 ner that the enomotarch and the other front rank 
 men should always be the persons immediately op- 
 posed to the enemy. Their step was regulated by 
 the fife, which played in martial measures peculiar to 
 Sparta, and was employed in actual battle as well as 
 in military practice. So perfect was their discipline, 
 
 * To render this clear, it is proper to state that the number of 
 ranks; and the consequent number of men in a file, was more than 
 two. Moutecuculi gives the following clear definition of rank and 
 file: — " Rang est uu nombre de soldats ranges en ligne droite a cote 
 I'un de I'autre. File est un nombre de soldats ranges en ligne droite 
 I'un derrifere I'autre." — Mimoirea de Montecuculi, p. 5. Paris, 1760. 
 
CHAP. n.J THE SPAETANS. 11 
 
 that if their order was deranged by any adverse 
 accident, scattered soldiers could spontaneously form 
 themselves into the same order, and each man knew 
 perfectly the duties belonging to the place into which 
 chance had thrown him. Above the en6moty there 
 were larger divisions, somewhat corresponding to the 
 modern battalion, or regiment, and brigade, each 
 having its respective commander. Orders were 
 transmitted from the king, as commander-in-chief, to 
 these officers, each of whom was responsible for the 
 proper execution of them by his division ; whereas 
 in the Athenian armies the orders of the commander- 
 in-chief were proclaimed to the army by a herald — 
 a very rude and imperfect contrivance. 
 
 One element of the Spartan patriotism appears to 
 be assignable to the greater liberty and respect en- 
 joyed by the women of Sparta than by those of the 
 other States of Greece ; the patriotism of the men 
 being elevated by the sympathy of the other sex, 
 which manifested itself publicly, in such a manner 
 as not only to confirm the self-devotion of the sol- 
 diers, but materially to assist the State in bearing 
 up against public reverses. The Spartan matrons' 
 exhortation to their sons when departing on foreign 
 service, " Return either with your shield, or upon 
 it," was no unmeaning form of words ; and one 
 of the most striking incidents in Grecian history- 
 is the contrast between the bitter suffering of 
 those mothers who, after the fatal day of Leuctra, 
 
12 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. n. 
 
 had to welcome home their surviving sons in 
 dishonour and defeat, and the comparative cheer- 
 fulness of those whose sons had perished. The same 
 spirit which animated the three hundred Spartans 
 at Thermopylae, and which dictated the inscription 
 on their monument, " O stranger ! tell the Lace- 
 daemonians that we lie here obedient to their laws,"* 
 also dictated the letter of Brasidas to the Ephori, 
 containing only the words, " I will execute your 
 orders in this war, or die :"t as well as the answer 
 of the mother of Brasidas to the ambassadors from 
 the Grecians in Thrace, who said that Brasidas had 
 not left his equal behind him : " You mistake. My 
 son was a man of great merit, but there are many 
 superior to him in Sparta." | 
 
 Now if we examine the condition of Sparta about 
 200 years later, that is, in the time of Agis III. 
 (about 250 B.C.), we find the old discipline and mili- 
 tary training altogether gone, or degenerated into 
 mere forms, and the dignity and ascendancy of the 
 State among its neighbours completely ruined. To- 
 gether with this result, we find its citizens few in 
 number, the bulk of them miserably poor, all the 
 land in a small number of hands, and a numerous 
 body of strangers or non-citizens domiciled in the 
 town, and forming a powerful moneyed interest. 
 What were the causes of this fatal change ? 
 
 * Fausan. iii. 226. Strab. ix. 429. + T)' .1 •• ■? 
 
 t Plut. Lac. Apophthegm. * ' ^"- ^^- 
 
CHAP. II. j THE SPAETANS. 13 
 
 Lord Bacon seems to intimate an opinion {Essay 
 on the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates) 
 that the aversion of the Spartans to the admission of 
 strangers to the right of citizenship is sufficient of itself 
 to account for the decline and fall of Sparta. It cer- 
 tainly may in part account for Sparta's not becoming, 
 like Eome, a great empire. But the fact that the 
 feeling of the Romans on this point (of whom Bacon 
 truly says that never any State was so open to receive 
 strangers into their body as were the Romans) did 
 not preserve them at last from the same fate which 
 had befallen Sparta, seems to prove that we must 
 look for other causes than this. 
 
 Mr. Grote, who has examined and weighed all the 
 evidence bearing on this subject with singular care 
 and ability, has come to the conclusion that, though 
 Greek theorists found a difficulty in determining 
 under what class they should place the Spartan 
 government, it was in substance a close, unscrupu- 
 lous, and well-obeyed oligarchy ; including within 
 it, as subordinate, those portions which had once been 
 dominant — the kings and the senate, — and softening 
 the odium, without abating the mischief, of the sys- 
 tem, by its annual change of the ruhng ephors.* It 
 followed, as one of the consequences of such an 
 ohgarchy, that the number of qualified citizens went 
 on continually diminishing; and of this diminished 
 number, the proportion of those who were needy grew 
 
 ' Grote: History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 476. 
 
14 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. U. 
 
 larger and larger, since tlie landed property tended 
 constantly to concentrate itself in fewer hands. To 
 these principal causes of decay were added sub- 
 sidiary ones. 
 
 I have said that the Spartan system of training 
 cultivated, with the physical qualities of bodily 
 strength, activity, and hardihood, or endurance, the 
 moral qualities of fortitude and patriotism. But the 
 system did not cultivate, in the least degree, the 
 moral qualities of justice and humanity. On the 
 contrary, in their aggressions on other States, and in 
 their treatment of the races which they had subjected, 
 they practised combinations of injustice, fraud, and 
 atrocity, which, as Mr. Grote has observed, " even 
 yet stand without parallel in the long list of pre- 
 cautions for fortifying unjust dominion."* And this 
 indicates another leading defect in the Spartan in- 
 stitutions, which was the opposite extreme to the 
 leading defect of the Athenian government. As 
 the ruin of the Athenian government arose, as we 
 shall see, from an excess of talk in the shape of 
 long harangues, instead of dialectical discussion, 
 one great evil ia the Spartan government arose 
 from an absence of all public discussion whatever : 
 for the Spartan character was of an eminently un- 
 intellectual type ; destitute even of the rudiments of 
 letters, rendered savage and fierce by exclusive and 
 overdone bodily discipline, and, if possessing many of 
 
 * Grote, vol. ii, p. 497. 
 
CHAP. II. J THE SPARTANS. 15 
 
 the qualities requisite to procure dominion, possess- 
 ing none of those calculated to render dominion 
 popular or salutary to the subject. This intellectual 
 defect of the Spartan character becomes more strik- 
 ing, when we find that it rendered all their excellent 
 bodily training unavailing against inferior bodily 
 training, where the inferiority was compensated by 
 the leadership of a great and commanding mind. 
 For the bodily training at Sparta combined strength 
 and agility with universal aptitude and endurance, 
 and steered clear of that mistake by which Thebes 
 and other cities impaired the effect of their gymnas- 
 tics — the attempt to create an athletic habit suited 
 for the games, but suited for nothing else.* Yet 
 Thebes, by the aid of one great mind leading her 
 councils and commanding her armies, gave Sparta 
 an overthrow from which she never recovered, — 
 from which, indeed, the weak part of her system, 
 particularly the accumulation of the land in very few 
 hands, rendered it impossible for her to recover. 
 
 In a society so eminently unintellectual as that of 
 Sparta, it may be pronounced impossible for a first- 
 rate general to be produced. It may be true that 
 great generals are born, not made : but their genius 
 requires an atmosphere somewhat intellectual for its 
 
 * Cornelius Nepos, however, or the writer under that name 
 ("Epam." 0. 2), distinctly states that Epaminoudas, in his own 
 physical education, took especial care to avoid this error : " Non tam 
 magnitudini virium servivit, quam velocitati; illam enim adathle- 
 tarum usum, hanc ad belli existimabat utiMtatem pertinere." 
 
16 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 development; and we hear nothing of great gene- 
 rals (if such there are) born among savages. The 
 Spartan training did, indeed, include the cunning 
 as well as the hardihood and ferocity of the savage. 
 But the stirategy of a great general must soar some- 
 what beyond the cunning of an ordinary savage, 
 or even of a Spartan. Indeed, two of the 
 greatest generals the world has yet seen, the one 
 in ancient, the other in modern times, were philo- 
 sophers as well as generals and statesmen. The 
 first gained the battle of Leuctra, the second the 
 battle of Leuthen, both acting on the same strate- 
 gical principle. 
 
 The principle upon which Epaminondas acted at 
 Leuctra and Mantinea, and Frederick at Rosbach 
 and Leuthen, consisted in bringing a superiority of 
 numbers to bear upon a particular point, and by 
 defeating that part, and driving it in upon the rest, 
 throwing into confusion and defeating the whole. 
 The way in which Epaminondas explained this prin- 
 ciple to the Thebans, who stood somewhat in awe of 
 the acknowledged military superiority of the Spartans, 
 was this : having taken an adder of the largest size, 
 he showed it to them ; and then, in their presence 
 having shattered the head of the animal, he said, 
 " You see that the rest of the body is useless, the 
 head being gone. So is it with the head of our 
 enemies ; if we break to pieces the Spartan part, the 
 rest of the body, consisting of their allies, will be 
 
CHAP. n.j THE SPAETANS. 17 
 
 useless."* Now as it appears that the Spartan com- 
 manders always drew tip their line of battle so that 
 the Spartans formed one wing of themselves,! the 
 principle of Epaminondas was the same as that of 
 Frederick. 
 
 This was the principle on which Frederick acted 
 always. Thus, Mitchell, the English ambassador,, 
 speaking from his own personal observation and the 
 king's own words, says of the battle of Kolin, which 
 Frederick lost by the failure of his intention : " His 
 intention was to have flanked their right;" and of 
 the battle of Zomdorff : " The king's intention was to 
 attack with his left the right of the enemy in flank, 
 and to refuse his right." 
 
 * Polysen. li. 3 : 'ETrajuvm/Sag TrporpeTTOiv QtiPaiovg TrpoGii/Mg 
 dpfiijffai s-jri AaKe8aifioviovgf fuyuTTOv £Xiv (njWaf3(jjv, sSei^ev avToig, 
 cat iravTtav ivavriov ttiv Ki^akqv tov Brijpiov ffvvTpiypag' " ^Oparsj" 
 i^jj, '* Zri rb \onrdv (T&fia dxfytjffTOVj r^c Ke^aXrjg otxofi£vyg' oiJrw dij 
 at Twv TToXefiiuv Ke(pa\cu' ijvrs rb XaKuivuchv TfyvTO trvvrpi^MfieVf to 
 \uiir6v B&iia tS>v avfijidxi^v ajxprfcrov." 
 
 f Thucyd. v. 71. On the other hand the Roman legions occupied 
 the centre (mediam aciem tenebani), the allies and auxiliaries the 
 wings (cornua). — ^Liv. xxxvii. 39. This arrangement, howeyer, 
 was not always ohserved. At the battle of Marathon, the native 
 Persians and Sakse, the best troops in the whole army, were placed 
 in the centre, which they considered as the post of honour, and 
 which was occupied by the Persian king himself when present at 
 a battle. The right wing was so regarded by the Greeks. In the 
 order of battle of the Turks, adopted and constantly followed ever 
 since the victorious battle of Ikonium in 1386, the European 
 troops occupy the left wing, the Asiatic troops the right wing, 
 the Janissaries the centre. The Sultan, or the Grand Vizir, sur- 
 roimded by the national cavalry, or Spahis, is in the central point 
 of alL— Grote's History of Greece, vol. iv. p. 468. Von Hammer: 
 Geschichte des Osmanniscken Beichs, bk. v. vol. i. p. 199. 
 
 C 
 
18 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [OHAP. 11. 
 
 It will be at once seen that the consequence of 
 this movement is to bring a superiority of force to 
 bear upon the enemy at a particular point : a prin- 
 ciple which, though it may appear, as thus stated, 
 extremely simple, is attended with so many diflS- 
 culties in practice, that it has been found to require 
 military genius of the very highest order for its 
 successful execution. Frederick has himself related 
 the careful precautions which he took to surmount 
 those difficulties at the battle of Leuthen, and to 
 prevent the failure of his plan, which had taken 
 place at the battles of Prague and Kolin. His plan 
 was, as he has himself explained it, to bring his 
 whole army (which did not amount to half that of 
 the enemy in numbers) to bear upon the left flank of 
 the imperialists, to make the greatest possible efforts 
 with his right, and to refiise his left with so much 
 precaution as to render impossible blunders like 
 those which had been committed at the battle of 
 Prague, and had caused the loss of that of Kolin. 
 The first line received orders to advance en echelon, 
 the battalions at fifty paces distance behind one 
 another, so that, the line being in motion, the 
 extremity of the right would be a thousand paces 
 in advance of the extremity of the left; and this 
 disposition rendered it impossible for the troops to 
 engage the enemy without orders.* 
 
 Some notes, printed in the Quarterly Eeview, of a 
 * Hist, de la Guerre de Sept Ans, tome i. p. 232, etseq. 
 
CHAP. II.] THE SPARTANS. 19 
 
 conversation with Sir Arthur Wellesley shortly 
 before his departure for Spain, afford another illus- 
 tration of the same principle. He is represented 
 as sajring that he was not so much disheartened as 
 others by the apparent invincibiHty of the French 
 armies under Napoleon. The French charged in 
 column, and were successful because the troops 
 opposed to them would not stand the charge; but 
 he had confidence, he said, in the steadiness of the 
 British troops ; and if they stood firm, this would 
 have the effect of giving them the advantage of 
 superiority of numbers at that particular point, and 
 also of a converging fire — a fire from the circum- 
 ference to the centre ; while the enemy could return 
 only a fire from the centre to the circumference, 
 which is feeble in comparison. 
 
 The measures adopted by Epaminondas after 
 the battle of Leuctra proved him to be as great 
 a statesman as he was a general. He founded 
 the town of Messene, with a surrounding territory, 
 as a refuge, in the form of an independent State, for 
 the unfortunate Messenians, who had been so long 
 exiles, or oppressed as the Helots of the Spartans, 
 and thus effectually secured the former against the 
 haughty and inhuman tyranny of the latter. This 
 will appear but a just retribution. Yet, though 
 Sparta's supremacy over the rest of Greece was 
 thus destroyed, her independence would have con- 
 tinued as long as her military excellence continued. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. II. 
 
 But the same vices in her system, which had brought 
 upon her the disastrous days of Leuctra and Mantinea, 
 with all their fatal consequences, were sapping the 
 strength of her government, and proved its ultimate 
 destruction. With all their pretensions to religion, 
 the Spartans neglected as much as the Romans 
 (who in some points resembled them, though they 
 were essentially different in others) the admonition 
 of those suffering in Tartarus for injustice on earth : 
 " Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos." The 
 Athenians neglected the same admonition as much 
 as either; while what strength existed at one time 
 in the Athenian system of government was utterly 
 destroyed by the weakness of a democracy, as the 
 strength of the Spartan government was destroyed 
 by the weakness of an oligarchy. It is not in the 
 nature of human affairs that weak governments 
 should stand, even if they should be altogether 
 exempt from the vices of injustice and oppression ; 
 but their destruction will be still more sure and 
 speedy when, like the Spartan oligarchy and the 
 Athenian democracy, they seek first to obtain and 
 then to keep dominion over other States, by means 
 which are utterly repugnant to the very first prin- 
 ciples of justice and humanity. 
 
 According to the careful investigation of Mr. 
 Grote, landed property was always unequally 
 divided at Sparta, nor were there any laws which 
 tended to equalize it. Mr. Grote also shows that 
 
CHAP. n.J THE SPAETANS. 21 
 
 the idea of LycurguSj as an equal partitioner of 
 lands, was a dream of the century of Agis and 
 Cleomenes. The mode in which Lycurgus suc- 
 ceeded in giving to Sparta the strength which it 
 long possessed in an eminent degree, was this : — He 
 created in the Spartan citizens " unrivalled habits 
 of obedience, hardihood, self-denial, and military 
 aptitude; complete subjection on the part of each 
 individual to the local public opinion, and prefer- 
 ence of death to the abandonment of Spartan 
 maxims ; intense ambition on the part of every one 
 to distinguish himself within the prescribed sphere 
 of duties, with little ambition for anything else."* 
 What Lycurgus did, was to impose a vigorous 
 public discipline, with simple clothing and fare, 
 incumbent alike upon the rich and the poor. This 
 was his special gift to Greece, according to Thucy- 
 dides,t and his great point of contact with demo- 
 cracy, according to Aristotle. | But he took no 
 pains either to restrain the fiirther enrichment of 
 the rich, or to prevent the further impoverishment 
 of the poor ; and such neglect is one of the capital 
 defects for which Aristotle censures him. § The 
 philosopher also particularly notices the tendency 
 of property at Sparta (from causes A\rhich it is 
 
 * Grote: History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 519. 
 t Thucyd. i. 6. 
 
 X Aristot. Polit. iv. 7, 4, 5 ; viji. 1, 3. 
 § Grote, vol. il p. 539. 
 
22 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. ir. 
 
 unnecessary to specify here, but which will be 
 found enumerated in Mr. Grrote's History of 
 Greece,) to concentrate itself in fewer hands, unop- 
 posed by any legal hindrances. By whatever means 
 the process was effected, we know that in the time 
 of Agis III., about 250 years before Christ, when 
 all the land of Sparta was in a very small number 
 of hands, when the citizens were few in number, 
 and the bulk of them miserably poor, the old disci- 
 pline and the public mess (as far as the rich were 
 concerned) had degenerated into mere forms.* The 
 attempt of Agis to bring back the State to its 
 ancient strength, by again admitting the disfran- 
 chised poor citizens, re-dividing the lands, cancelling 
 all debts, and restoring the public mess and military 
 training in all their strictness, though it failed — partly 
 from the want of ability in the sincere enthusiast 
 who undertook it, and his misconception of what 
 Lycurgus had really done, partly from its being 
 made too late — at least proves the state of degra- 
 dation and decrepitude to which Sparta had then 
 fallen, and indicates some of the chief causes of that 
 decrepitude and degradation. 
 
 About two thousand years after Agis had paid 
 with his own life, and the lives of his wife and 
 mother,! for the noble and patriotic, but treacherous 
 dream of a regenerated country, the dream of Agis 
 actually oecame reality, in a nation which was fast 
 * Grote, Tol. ii. p. 527. f lb. p. 534. 
 
CHAP. n.J THE SPARTANS. 23 
 
 perishing under the evils of a government which, 
 like that of Sparta, favoured an exceedingly unequal 
 distribution of property. The French Revolution, 
 amid many crimes, may certainly be said to have 
 regenerated the French nation as Agis proposed to 
 regenerate the Spartan nation, and by means nearly 
 similar to those proposed by him. It is remarkable, 
 too, that the French king, Louis XVI., a man, like 
 Agis, eminent for his virtues, met with the fate of 
 Agis. As Agis, whose sincerity is attested by the 
 fact that his own property and that of his female 
 relatives, among the largest in the State, were cast 
 in the first sacrifice into the common stock, became 
 the dupe of unprincipled coadjutors, and perished 
 in the vain attempt to realize his scheme by per- 
 suasion ;* so Louis, with probably as sincere a desire 
 to do what was best for the French nation, perished, 
 like Agis, through the intrigues of the imprincipled 
 people about him. But, though the fate of Louis 
 was like that of Agis, the fate of France was very 
 different from that of Sparta, 
 
 * Grote, vol. ii p. 528. 
 
24 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. m. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 We have the evidence of the most imexceptionable 
 witnesses, — of Socrates, in so far as Plato can be 
 considered as a trustworthy expounder of the opi- 
 nions of Socrates, of Plato, of Thucydides, of De- 
 mosthenes, — that, at the point of time whereof Adam 
 Smith speaks, Athens no longer possessed, as he 
 affirms,' a " gallant and well-exercised militia." 
 
 The Athenian system of military training was 
 never, at its best time, to be compared for excellence 
 to the Spartan. Yet the result at Marathon, and 
 on many other occasions, proved that in its earKer 
 and better days, the Athenian armed force well de- 
 served the description of a " gaUant and well-exercised 
 militia." The fact, too, of such a citizen as Socrates 
 serving repeatedly as a private soldier, proves that 
 then the soldier-citizen system was effectually car- 
 ried out. At the siege of Potidasa, Socrates won 
 the prize of valour, but voluntarily yielded it to his 
 pupil Alcibiades. Alcibiades himself confessed that 
 he owed his life to Socrates ; and that in a certain 
 
CHAP. III.] THE ATHENIANS. 25 
 
 action, where he was severely wounded, Socrates alone 
 prevented both his person and his arms from falling 
 into the hands of the enemy. At the battle of 
 DeHmn, during the Peloponnesian war, where the 
 Athenians were defeated by the Boeotians, Socrates 
 also behaved with the greatest bravery; and it is 
 said that he saved the life of Xenophon, who had 
 fallen from his horse : Strabo says he carried him 
 several furlongs, till he was out of danger. After 
 the battle, as Socrates was retiring with Laches and 
 Alcibiades, he told them that he had just received 
 an admonition not to follow the road that most of 
 their men had taken. They who continued in that 
 road were pursued by the enemy's cavalry, who, 
 coming up with them, killed many on the spot, and 
 took the others prisoners; while Socrates, who had 
 taken another route, arrived safe at Athens with 
 those who accompanied him. The division of labour 
 had not then reached that point when philosophers 
 and politicians could sit in whole skins at home, 
 and with a " dastardly spurt of the pen," or as 
 dastardly a wag of the tongue, send their brethren 
 forth id battles, the dangers of which they did not 
 share. 
 
 But if the time for such division of labour had not 
 then actually come, it was fast coming, and was very 
 near at hand. The poison of the orators was rapidly 
 doing its work upon the Athenian democracy ; and 
 we have the testimony of Plato for the fatal effect 
 
26 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 it produced during the course of one generation. 
 Pericles first introduced the practice of paying the 
 Athenians for attending at the public assemblies, 
 and hearing him harangue. Plato, by the mouth of 
 Socrates in his dialogue the " Gorgias," thus de- 
 scribes the consequences of this measure : — " I hear 
 it said," says Socrates, " that Pericles made the 
 Athenians idlers, and cowards, and gossips, and co- 
 vetous ; being the first who estabhshed the system of 
 wages." * The Athenian sovereign multitude found 
 it far pleasanter to be paid for listening to Pericles 
 than to earn an honest subsistence by any sort of 
 labour ; and they also found it very far pleasanter 
 to hire foreign mercenaries to fight their battles 
 than to fight those battles themselves ; in fact, 
 without going farther than the evidence of those 
 very orators, the public orations of Demosthenes 
 afford abundant proof that, in his time, the Athe- 
 nian government had fallen into a condition of hope- 
 less imbecility. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was the decline of a nation's strength 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 148. Bip: — Tavri ydp (yoiyc axoiia IltpucXia 
 TrcTroLijKevai ASrivaiovQ dpyoig, xai dciKoig, Kai XoiKoVQ, Kai ^iXapyipovQ, 
 £ie jwrBofpopdv TrpuiTOV KaTaaTrjaavTa. The answer to the argument 
 of Demosthenes (" Contra Timokrat." c. 26) that if this payment 
 were suspended the judicial as well as the administrative system of 
 Athens would at once fall to pieces, is, that Athens was stronger 
 before the estabUshment of it, and the vices and weakness of her 
 government were so great under it, that the falling to pieces of 
 such a system could not make things worse, and might have a 
 chance of making them better. 
 
CHAP. m.J THE ATHENIANS. 27 
 
 coincident with the increase of its wealth (using 
 "wealth" not in its primary sense of "weal" or "well- 
 being," but in its now usual sense of " riches") more 
 signally exemplified than in the case of Athens. As 
 the power of Athens extended, and brought tribute 
 from her subject States, the Athenians thus obtained 
 the means of living without labour, and of amusing 
 themselves with poets, painters, sculptors, and ora- 
 tors. The same thing happens, indeed, more or less 
 in the case of every State, as its revenue becomes 
 great. Those who enjoy its revenues become rich, 
 and can afFord to devote themselves wholly to amuse- 
 ment. But the result, when those who, in the capa- 
 city of sovereign, divide the revenue among them 
 constitute the whole nation, as at Athens, has the 
 effect of making the whole nation averse to labour, 
 and, it would seem, also averse to danger. To use 
 the illustration of Socrates, they are crammed with 
 ports, and docks, and fortifications, and revenues, till 
 they are in a state of bloated repletion, and are 
 neither so healthy nor so strong as when they had 
 no foreign revenues, and a small town so unfortified 
 that they considered it indefensible against the host 
 of the Persians. The result, according to the testi- 
 mony of Plato, who had the best means of being 
 well-informed on the matter, was to make the Athe- 
 nians idlers and cowards. The opinion attributing 
 this effect altogether to the mismanagement of Pe- 
 ricles, probably awards to that orator rather more 
 
28 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP, HI. 
 
 than in strict justice belongs to him. But we have 
 good authority for the fact that Athens, after the 
 time of Pericles, and indeed at the beginning of 
 the Peloponnesian war (though even then such 
 citizens as Socrates still persevered in performing 
 their military duties), no longer possessed a gallant 
 militia. 
 
 The time of the sovereign people was divided 
 between their business and their amusements. Their 
 business consisted in listening to the adulation of 
 their orators ; their amusements, in listening to the 
 adulation of their poets : for Socrates proved, in the 
 same Dialogue in which he showed so fully the de- 
 structive influence of orators, that even of that grave 
 and magnificent art. Tragic Poetry, the aim was 
 simply to gratify the spectators ; since, while it does 
 not avoid things which are pleasant but bad, it does 
 avoid things disagreeable but useful. Poetry on the 
 stage is then a kind of adulatory rhetoric addressed 
 to a popular assembly composed of men, women, and 
 children. It is related that Solon, after hearing 
 Thespis in one of his own compositions, asked him 
 if he was not ashamed to utter such falsehoods 
 before so large an audience? And when Thespis 
 replied that tlere was no harm in saying and doing 
 such things merely for amusement, Solon indignantly 
 exclaimed, striking the ground with his stick : " If 
 once we come to praise and esteem such amusement 
 as this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our 
 
CHAP. III.] THE ATHENIANS. 29 
 
 daily transactions!"* This applies still more strongly 
 to the subsequent comic writers. The event seemed 
 to confirm the truth of the great Athenian legislator's 
 opinion. 
 
 On a certain' day in the year 424 before Christ, 
 the comedy called "The Clouds," which Aristo- 
 phanes had written against Socrates, was performed 
 at Athens. If a stranger at Athens on that day, 
 after visiting the fortifications, the arsenal, the port, 
 and the docks of the Athenians, and hearing the 
 enumeration of their present revenues and of the 
 projects for their future increase by the conquest of 
 Sicily and other countries, had then gone to the 
 theatre and listened to the witty but false and 
 scurrilous representation given by the satirist of the 
 philosopher — in which the only man of that time who 
 had the courage and the wisdom to tell the Athe- 
 nians the truth as to their political condition, is held 
 up to public ridicule and obloquy, as the representa- 
 tive of those Sophists whom he lived only to refute — 
 the stranger would hardly have thought that the fabric 
 which was so fair to look upon, combining so much 
 material splendour and so much intellectual activity, 
 was already sapped to its foundations, and in a single 
 century from that time would be nothing but a ruin. 
 With all that outside splendour, with all that in- 
 
 * Plutarch. Solon, 29. Diogen. Laert. i. 59. Mr. Grote remarks : 
 " It is curious to contrast Solon's reverence for the old epic with the 
 unqualified repugnance which he manifested towards Thespis and 
 the icama,."— History of Greece, vol. iii. p. 194. 
 
30 STRENGTH OF STATIONS. [cHAP. in. 
 
 tellectual activity, with all those triumphs of what 
 are called the fine arts, which have excited the 
 admiration of all succeeding generations of civilized 
 men, the Athenian people were then but a nation of 
 Sybarites and cowards; who, amid many crimes, 
 into which injustice and inhumanity entered largely 
 as ingredients — for cowardice and cruelty are pro- 
 verbially found together — ^branded themselves with 
 eternal disgrace by the judicial murder of their 
 wisest and most virtuous fellow-citizen — Socrates: 
 though to compare the virtue of Socrates with the 
 general Athenian standard of his age would be 
 doings him but scanty justice. 
 
 In regard to the mass of the Athenians it may 
 perhaps be said, with some degree of truth, that with 
 their military virtue had gone all other virtue. Mili- 
 tary virtue is sure to be destroyed in time by a bad 
 government, whether that bad government be the 
 government of the few as at Sparta, of the many as at 
 Athens, or of one as at many other places. But it is 
 instructive to note the way in which the corrupting 
 influence of wealth, introducing luxury, and idleness, 
 and aversion to military service, does its work. In a 
 democracy, like Athens, it corrupts directly the whole 
 mass, by giving to each citizen the means of idle- 
 ness and the dream of power without labour and 
 without danger. In an oligarchy, like Sparta, it 
 corrupts the few who are rich, and destroys the 
 miUtary spirit and patriotism of the rest. In a 
 
CHAP. III. J THE ATHENIANS. 31 
 
 despotism of one, it acts somewhat in the same way 
 as in an oligarchy. 
 
 Aristophanes has introduced ^schylus in the 
 " Frogs," contending that dramatic works should be 
 so written as to afford instruction ; that, as school- 
 masters are the teachers of children, poets are the 
 teachers of men.* The result, however, would 
 seem to show that all the teaching of the grave 
 tragic poets, and aU the wit and satire of the scurri- 
 lous comic poets, are altogether unavailing to open 
 the eyes of men corrupted by power which they 
 know not how to use wisely. But if, according to 
 Socrates and Plato, the poets were as ineffectual 
 guides of the Athenian people as the orators, this at 
 least may be said for some of the comic poets, that 
 if they failed to save their countrymen from the 
 impending ruin, it was not for want of telling them 
 of their personal vices — vices of a kind and degree 
 sufficient to account for the ruin of any State, with- 
 out reference to the form of government, whether 
 it was an Athenian democracy, a Spartan or Vene- 
 tian oligarchy, or a Turkish monarchy. We may 
 read what is commonly called History for a lifetime 
 without learning so much about the brutality of 
 Athenian manners and the depravity of Athenian 
 morals, as we may learn from a few lines of the 
 "Achamians," the "Knights," the "Clouds," the 
 
 • ToXe flip ydp TraiSapioiaiv 
 
 ian SiSdoKaXos oane ^(idliu, roXinvS' rifiiaai iroifirai. 
 
 — Aristoph. Ban. 1053. 
 
32 STRENGTH OF NATION'S. [cHAP. UI. 
 
 "Plutus," the "Frogs," and the "Lysistrata" of 
 Aristophanes. The private morals of the Athenians 
 were on a level with their public morals ; which, as 
 will be shown, were summed up in the principle of 
 universal tyranny and plunder. 
 
 It would seem as if Adam Smith, having deter- 
 mined to prove the superiority of standing armies 
 over militias, and to find facts in support of his con- 
 clusion, was so intent upon this object as to shut 
 his eyes to the facts that were against him, and even 
 to forget, when he asserted that Philip's standing 
 army vanquished "the gallant and well-exercised 
 militias of the principal republics of ancient Greece," 
 that he had himself, only about ten pages before, 
 used the following words : " After the second Per- 
 sian war the armies of Athens seem to have been 
 generally composed of mercenary troops, consist- 
 ing, indeed, partly of citizens, but partly, too, of 
 foreigners." Even at the beginning of the Pelopon- 
 nesian war, the Athenians depended chiefly on mer- 
 cenary forces J* and when, near a century later, 
 Demosthenes was urging them to serve in person, 
 he seemed to regard it as a considerable point gained 
 if he could succeed in getting even a fourth of the 
 force to be raised to consist of Athenian citizens.f 
 
 * Thucydides (i. 121) represents the Corinthian ambassadors 
 saying: — iivrirfi ydp AQrjvaiuv )j iivafug /uiXXov ij ouaia, ^ Si 
 r/fierspa rdlg (rw/iatrt roirXkov laxoovaa rj ToTg ;^pi3/ia(Ti. 
 
 f Phitipp. i. C. 8 : Xkyti) Srj Toiig iravraQ aTpaniirag SiaxiXiove' 
 Toiruiv 6k, ABrivaiovQ ftjfii Siiv (ivai TnvTaicoaiovQ, 
 
CHAP, in.] THE ATHENIANS. 33 
 
 Demosthenes also charges them not only with de- 
 pending almost entirely on mercenaries, but also with 
 paying their mercenaries very irregularly, and even 
 suffering great losses and disasters from not paying 
 them at all.* The generals being often foreigners, 
 as well as those mercenary troops, have no check 
 whatever upon their proceedings, and not only serve 
 ill, but deceive and defraud their employers, the 
 sovereign multitude, engaged at Athens in amusing 
 themselves with their orators and poets, f 
 
 It is impossible to conceive any amount of incapa- 
 city, feebleness, and disorder beyond that exhibited 
 by the Athenian democracy in the last half-century 
 of its existence — that is, in the half-century before 
 the battle of Chaeronea. Their government, as 
 Demosthenes told them, was all talk and no do. J 
 And when they did anything, it was always too 
 late.§ They locked the stable door when the horse 
 was stolen. 
 
 Having shown that the Athenians were what 
 Socrates describes them as being in his time, I will 
 now endeavour to show the influence of the orators 
 in producing that result. 
 
 * Philipp. i. c. 9. t Fhilipp. i. c. 15. 
 
 J Olynth. i. c. 5 : iiQ airag fikv Xoyog, av airy rci irpdy/mTa, 
 liArawv Ti faivtTcu xal Ktvbv, iidKurra Sk 6 irapd rije ri^urkpaQ 
 
 TtoKtlilQ, 
 
 § Philipp. i. c. 14 ; also Orat. de Pace ; and Philipp. iv. : 
 oXXoi navTiQ avdpoiToi irpA tZv vpayimriav tiuiOaai )(p^a9ac T(p 
 l3ovKaiea9af vfitie Sk /UTd to, irpay/jora. 
 
34 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IIL 
 
 If it be true, as Mr. Grote contends,* that not only 
 the oratory of Demosthenes and Pericles, and the 
 colloc[uial magic of Socrates, but also the philo- 
 sophical speculations of Plato and the systematic 
 politics, rhetoric, and logic of Aristotle, are traceable 
 to the practice of public speaking in the shape of 
 long harangues and dialectic discussion, it is admitted 
 by the same historian f that the power of speech in 
 the direction of public affairs became more and more 
 obvious, developed, and irresistible towards the cul- 
 minating period of Grecian history — the century 
 preceding the battle of Ghseronea ; till at last it 
 reached its highest point and Greece its destruction 
 at the same time. But whether or not it be true- 
 that the powers of thought of Socrates and Plato 
 are in any degree attributable to this practice, it 
 appears to me of the first moment to endeavour to 
 show what were the opinions of Plato and his master 
 Socrates respecting the effects of oratory on the well- 
 being of a nation, and how far those opinions were 
 borne out by the result which followed a very few 
 years after Plato's death. The world was too young 
 then to have furnished data for a political philosophy, 
 but it is wonderful how truly the inspiration of Plato 
 had diviued what the experience of the succeeding 
 two thousand years was to confirm: namely, that 
 orators are the ruin of every State in which they 
 obtain predominance. 
 
 * History of Greece, Tol. ii. p. 106. f Ibid. p. 105. 
 
CHAP. III. J THE ATHENIANS. 35 
 
 The pestilential influence of orators formed, ac- 
 cording to the evidence of Plato's Dialogues, the 
 constant topic of Socrates' advice and warnings to 
 his countrymen. The Gorgias in particular, one 
 of the most celebrated of Plato's works, is almost 
 entirely devoted to that subject. When one reads 
 the Gorgias of Plato, and sees how Socrates esta- 
 blishes his conclusions by arguments, to use his own 
 words, strong as iron and adamant,* and reflects how 
 little effect for good those arguments produced upon 
 his countrymen, and that with that foolish democracy 
 the sophistry and adulation of demagogues bore down 
 the wisdom enforced by the "colloquial magic" of 
 Socrates, one may well be tempted to despair for 
 mankind, and to feel that, as those arguments were, 
 when uttered, ineffectual to save a State rushing to 
 its destruction, so to attempt to reproduce any of 
 them now will be but a labour in vain. Nevertheless, 
 I win state shortly some of his conclusions. 
 
 He points out the constant habit of orators and 
 sophists (for Socrates classes them together : a sophist 
 and an orator, he says, are the same thing, or very 
 nearly so,t) of answering a short question by a long 
 harangue beside the point. Thus in the Protagoras, 
 Protagoras having made a very long speech, instead 
 of giving a short answer to a short question, Socrates 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 134, Bip,: mStipole Kal ddajiavrivoig \6yoig. 
 
 f Plat. Gorg. p. 157, Bip. ; Tavrbv tan aofiarrji xal priTbip, fi 
 iyyig n sal irapairKliaiov, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. UI. 
 
 said : — " If a man were to apply to Pericles, or any- 
 other of the famous orators, he might hear from 
 them as fine a speech as that which Protagoras has 
 made : but if he were to put a question to them, they 
 could no more answer, or ask again, than an inani- 
 mate book ; but like brass, which if struck gives out 
 a loud sound, and makes a long reverberation, unless 
 some one lays hold of it and stops it, so the orators 
 make answer to a short question by an inordinately 
 long harangue."* Farther on in the same Dialogue, 
 where Socrates is pressing Protagoras hard on the 
 point under discussion, Protagoras again flies off into 
 a long speech, filled with illustrations, on a topic very 
 distantly connected with that which they were dis- 
 cussing. At the conclusion of this by-the-mark ora- 
 tion, he was loudly applauded. Whereupon Socrates 
 observed that he had a short memory (as many of us 
 have, at least, for long speeches), and that if a man 
 made a long speech to him he always forgot what it 
 was about. As therefore, if he were deaf, Protagoras 
 would think it necessary to speak to him in a louder 
 than his ordinary voice, so, as he was forgetful, 
 he hoped that Protagoras would shorten his answers, 
 and accommodate their length to his capacity. Upon 
 this, Protagoras lost his temper, as sophists and ora- 
 tors are apt to do when their sovereign infallibility is 
 questioned. 
 
 In the Gorgias, Socrates being asked by Polus 
 
 * Plat. Prot, p. 124, Bip. 
 
CHAP, ni.] THE ATHENIANS. 37 
 
 to tell him what art he considers rhetoric to be, 
 answers, "No art at all: though a kind of skill." 
 Being further questioned, he says that he also con- 
 siders cookery to be no art, but a kind of skill, 
 like rhetoric ; and that cookery and rhetoric are 
 branches of the same pursuit. Being asked what 
 pursuit, he rephes that he fears it would be ill-bred 
 to say the truth ; that he does not like to say it, lest 
 he should appear to be satirizing Gorgias' profession. 
 Gorgias desiring him to speak freely, Socrates said 
 that he considered rhetoric to be a pursuit not go- 
 verned by art, but belonging to a mind adroit, and 
 bold, and eminently fitted by nature for intercourse 
 with men : that he called it, in short, adulation. 
 
 The word used by Plato, which I have here trans- 
 lated " bold," is av^^uaq, which properly means 
 " manly, masculine, courageous." Hobbes uses a 
 different word to express his notion of the leading 
 quality of the rhetorical mind : " Impudence in demo- 
 cratical assemblies does almost all that's done ; 'tis 
 the goddess of rhetoric, and carries proof with it. 
 For what ordinary man will not from so great bold- 
 ness of affirmation conclude there is great probability 
 in the thing affirmed?"* 
 
 It may be of importance to call attention here 
 
 to the great disadvantage in the modem systems of 
 
 education, arising from the works of Cicero being so 
 
 much more studied and put into the hands of the 
 
 » Hobbes' Behemoth, p. 113 : ed. London, 1682. 
 
38 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. III.^ 
 
 young than those of Plato. Cicero was as inferior to 
 Socrates in real courage as in true philosophy. His 
 idea of the highest type of human nature is what he 
 calls a perfect orator, that is, a man who carries this 
 pursuit, which Plato in the Gorgias proves to be so 
 base and pernicious an employment of the intel- 
 lectual faculties, to its utmost height. In doing this, 
 instead of enforcing by example and precept, sim- 
 plicity, compactness, and perspicuity in language by 
 the use of the fewest and most apt and simple 
 words, arranged in their most natural order, he has 
 introduced into language verbosity, complication, 
 confusion, and what is falsely called " fine " writing. 
 And the tendency of modern education being to 
 make pedants, not practical men of business, or 
 great statesmen and great warriors, he is admired 
 and imitated, while the true view of the question, 
 as developed by Socrates and Plato, is unknown 
 or kept out of sight. It is a remarkable proof of 
 this, that in his Dialogue De Oratore, in which he 
 imitates the form of Plato's Dialogues, which was 
 all he was capable of imitating — for Plato's dialec- 
 tical powers and dramatic talent were equally beyond 
 his reach — ^he introduces one of the speakers enun- 
 ciating this opinion, which Plato had put into the 
 mouth of Socrates in the Gorgias — that eloquence is 
 not an art, because it depends not on knowledge, and 
 that the great object of an orator is to recommend 
 himself to his clients and to prepossess the judges in 
 
CHAP. ni.J THE ATHENIANS. 39 
 
 his favour — only for the purpose of refuting him. 
 No one who is competent to give an opinion on the 
 subject would hesitate for a moment as to the com- 
 parative value of the arguments of Cicero and Plato. 
 Dr. Franklin, who in some points of his character 
 bore a considerable resemblance to Socrates, has in 
 his Autobiography pointed out the importance of 
 teaching young men to discuss rather than to 
 harangue — of practising them in dialectics rather 
 than in rhetoric. But, unfortunately, the works of 
 the *' fine-writing " pedants are the books in repute 
 with those who have the control of modem education 
 both in England and America.* 
 
 Socrates having shown what sort of a thing oratory 
 is, then proceeds to show to what ends orators use the 
 power they attain in a State, and to. prove by one of 
 the most remarkable displays of his wonderful dialec- 
 tical powers, by a demonstration as close and as clear 
 as any in Euclid, that to injure is a greater evil than 
 to be injured ; that injustice is the greatest of evils, 
 punishment the cure of it, impunity the permanence 
 of it ; to be unjust and to be punished, the greatest 
 of aU evils except one ; to be unjust with impunity 
 the greatest of aU. He thence concludes that rhe- 
 toric is of no use to us for defending our own injus- 
 tice, or that of our friends or our country. In the 
 
 * The notes and commentaries in the editions of Select Orations 
 of Cicero, recently published both in England and America, for 
 the use of schools and colleges, may be cited as examples of this. 
 
40 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. in, 
 
 coiirse of the discussion, he says to Polus : " Do yoti 
 think it a good thing for a person to accomplish 
 what he thinks fit, if he is without good sense ? 
 And is this what you call being powerful ? " " No," 
 replies Polus. " Then," continues Socrates, "if you 
 would refute me, you must show that orators have 
 good sense, and that rhetoric is an art, and not an 
 adulation. But though you shoijld leave me unre- 
 futed, orators and despots, who do whatever they 
 think fit in a State, will be never the better for it. 
 Power, you say, is a good thing. But to effect what 
 we think fit, being without good sense, you yourself 
 dlow to be a bad thing." He thence concludes that 
 if any one, being an orator or a despot, unjustly kills 
 any one, or banishes him, or takes from him his 
 property, thinking it to be a good thing for him to 
 do so, when in reality it is a bad thing, such power 
 is an evil for the orator or the despot himself as well 
 as for others; and they who possess it are unen- 
 viable and miserable. 
 
 Socrates having then shown that when the 
 government is either a monarchical despotism or a 
 democracy (like that of Athens), if any man wishes 
 to become very powerful in the State, his best plan 
 for attaining that end is to accustom himself from 
 his youth upwards to resemble the despot or the 
 democracy as much as possible, in order to acquire 
 influence by adroit adulation ; that by this means he 
 will have obtained the power of doing with impunity 
 
CHAP. UI.] THE ATHENIANS. 41 
 
 the greatest possible quantity of injustice, and will 
 then be afflicted with the greatest of evils, being evil 
 in mind, and being corrupted by power, and by the 
 imitation of his master ; Callicles asks him if he does 
 not know that this imitator will, if he pleases, be 
 able to destroy the non-imitator, and take his pro- 
 perty ? Socrates replies, " Surely I do, if I am not 
 deaf, having heard it so often from you and Eolus, 
 and from nearly every other person in Athens." 
 This question of Calhcles and this answer of Socrates 
 sufficiently set forth the Athenian main principle 
 of public morality at that time — a principle of 
 universal tyranny and plunder. 
 
 The ambassador from the Athenians to Camarina, 
 during the Peloponnesian war, sums it up in a few 
 words : " To a tyrant " (that is, a sovereign prince), 
 " or a sovereign city or state, nothing is unreasonable 
 which is profitable." * This is precisely the same as 
 the Roman sole principle of public morals, namely, 
 the extension of the empire. 
 
 If Pericles had been the good statesman his ad- 
 mirers called him, he must of necessity have made 
 the Athenians better men than they were when he 
 first began to govern them. But Socrates contends 
 that the result proved that he failed in this first 
 requisite of a good statesman, inasmuch as he left 
 them more unjust and more ferocious than he 
 
 * Thucyd. vi. 85 : 'AvSpi Si Tvpaw(fi, ri ttoXei igx^iv ixo^^Vi 
 ovSkv SXoyov, 8, n ^vjujiopov. 
 
42 STRENGTH OF NATIONS, [CHAP. III. 
 
 received them. " A superintendent of asses," says 
 Socrates, " or of horses or oxen, would be thought 
 a very bad one, if the animals did not kick, and 
 start, and bite when they were intrusted to him, but 
 did all this when they quitted his charge." * And 
 he says such politicians bear the same relation to 
 good statesmen as authors of cookery-books and 
 tavern-keepers to good gymnasts or superintendents 
 of the body. As cooks and tavern-keepers cram the 
 body and bring on repletion and disease, and are 
 nevertheless eulogized by the ignorant, in like man- 
 ner, says Socrates, are eulogized " the men who, 
 having feasted the Athenians and crammed them with 
 what they desire, are said to have made them a great 
 nation : because it is not perceived that the common- 
 wealth is swollen and hollow, through those men of 
 antiquity ; for, without making us just or temperate, 
 they have crammed us with ports, and docks, and 
 fortifications, and revenues, and such trumpery." f 
 This precisely agrees with the opinion of Bacon, 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 149, Bip. Socrates afterwards compares a 
 statesman complaining of injustice from the State which he has 
 ruled to a sophist professing to teach virtue complaining of his 
 pupils not paying his fee. This, he says, is absurd, since it is 
 evident that if the sophist had taught them what he professed to 
 teach, virtue and justice, they could not have committed the 
 injustice of defrauding him of his hire. The statesman and the 
 sophist, therefore, who have been treated thus, have no right to 
 complain, since their being so treated proves that they have not 
 performed what they undertook, namely, the one to make his 
 fellow-citizens or subjects, the other his pupils, just and virtuous. 
 
 t Plat. Gorg. p. 155, Bip. 
 
CHAP, m.] THE ATHENIANS. 43 
 
 formed from a much larger historical experience 
 than that of Socrates and Plato. " WaUed towns," 
 he says, in his Essay on the True Greatness of King- 
 doms and Estates, " stored arsenals and armories, 
 goodly races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, 
 ordnance, artillery, and the like, — all this is but a 
 sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposi- 
 tion of the people be stout and warlike." 
 
 Socrates, being reminded by Callicles that under 
 the sort of liberty then existing at Athens, he could 
 be brought into danger of his life, perhaps by a worth- 
 less man, answers : " I must be very foolish if I did 
 not know that in this State any one whatever may be 
 so treated."* He thus predicts his own fate and the 
 resignation and fortitude with which he wiU meet it : 
 " I shall be judged," he says, " as a physician would, 
 if tried before children on the accusation of a cook, 
 who would say, ' See what evils this man has inflicted 
 upon you, cutting, and burning, and emaciating you, 
 giving you bitter draughts, and forcing you to fast ! 
 not like me, who have feasted you with everything 
 that is dehghtfol.' What could the physician say to 
 all this ? If he said the truth, ' I did all these things 
 for your health,' would not such judges hoot him 
 down ? I well know that I myself should be treated 
 in a similar manner, if I were brought before a court 
 of justice. For I shall not be able to remind the 
 judges of any pleasures that I have procured for 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 160, Bip. 
 
44 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. lU. 
 
 them, which are what they understand by benefits. 
 And if any one should say that I corrupt the youth 
 by unsettling their minds, or libel the older men by 
 bitter speeches, either in private or in public, I shall 
 neither be able to say the truth, namely, ' I say and 
 do all these things justly, and therefore for your 
 good ;' nor shall I have any other defence ; so that I 
 must be content to undergo my fate." 
 
 C " Does a man, then, who is thus situated — so 
 unable to protect himself — appear to you to be as he 
 should be?" 
 
 S. " If that be in him, of which we have so often 
 spoken : if he have protected himself by never having 
 said or done anything unjust, either towards men or 
 gods. For this is, as we have frequently admitted, 
 the best sort of self-protection. If, therefore, any one 
 should convict me of being incapable of affording this 
 protection to myself or others, I should be ashamed, 
 whether I were convicted in the presence of many, or 
 of one only ; and if I were to perish from this kind 
 of ihcapabiHty, I should be grieved ; but if I should 
 die for want of Adulatory Rhetoric, I should bear 
 my death very easily. Death itself no one fears, who 
 is not altogether irrational and unmanly ; but to com- 
 mit injustice is an object of rational fear, for to arrive 
 in the other world with the soul loaded with crimes, 
 is the greatest of evils."* 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 163, Bip. I have, in the translations from 
 Plato in this chapter, availed myself of some valuable " Notes on 
 
CHAP, ra.] THE ATHENIANS. 45 
 
 To sum up in a few words what is said in this 
 Dialogue of Plato respecting the nature of rhetoric : 
 — To learn or know, and to beheve — in other words, 
 knowledge and belief — are different things.* But 
 they who have learnt and they who only believe 
 are both persuaded. There are, then, two kinds 
 of persuasion — ^the one affording belief without know- 
 ledge, the other affording knowledge. When an 
 assembly is called together for the choice of gene- 
 rals or the operations of warfare, if the assembly 
 be governed by orators, the orators wUl advise, and 
 not the men versed in mihtary affairs. If the ques- 
 tion relate to the building of walls, or the construc- 
 tion of harbours or docks, the advisers again will be 
 the rhetoricians, not the engineers. Gorgias, in this 
 Dialogue, says to Socrates that he could make any 
 person who received his instructions, an orator capa- 
 ble of persuading a multitude ; not producing know- 
 ledge in their minds, but belief; that, for instance, 
 on the subject of health and disease, an orator would 
 be more capable of persuading than a physician, in 
 
 some of the Dialogues of Plato," published in the Monthly 
 Repository in 1834 ; departing from that translation in some 
 places where the Greek did not seem to be fuUy or exactly 
 rendered. 
 
 * 2Q. ndrepov oiv ravrbv SokcX aoi elvai iie/iaOtiKhai xai irima- 
 TivKwai, Kai iia^riaiQ Kai v'ujtiq, ri a\Xo n ; TOP. Qiojiai jiiv lyuyt, 
 S> 2iiKpar£f, dXKo. SQ. KoXwg yap oUi, yviiay Sk ivQkvSv ei yap 
 TVS ok ipoiTO, dp' ioTi, a Fopyia, wiong ^euSi/Q Kai aSiiBriQ, (pairiQ cLv, 
 lie iySifiai. POP. Nm. SQ. Ti ^6 ; kmarriiiti hn ij/ivSije Kai 
 aXri&rig ; POP. Ov SrJTa. 2Q. Aq \iyvyap oiiv '6n oil ravrov ianv. 
 POP. 'AKriSiri \kyug, n. <. ?* — ^Plat. Gorg. p. 20, Bip. 
 
46 STRENGTH OB" NATIONS. [CHAP. HI. 
 
 a multitude, or among those who are ignorant. In 
 other words, one who does not know, provided 
 he be a rhetorician, will be more persuasive among 
 those who do not know, than one who does know. 
 
 But this, it is to be observed, will only take place 
 to the full extent in an assembly like that of the 
 Athenian democracy, where one orator followed an- 
 other, and one long harangue followed another long 
 harangue, and where there was no opportunity for 
 questioning each speaker, and sifting the accuracy of 
 his assertions, or testing the soundness of his views, 
 which he put forth with that boldness of affirmation 
 that carries proof with it to the minds of ordinary 
 men. An orator, moreover, of great tact and ability 
 will mould his adulation of the multitude whom he 
 addresses into such a form as to make it assume the 
 appearance of the reverse of adulation. This is par- 
 ticularly observable in the orations of the greatest 
 of Athenian orators. The public orations of Demo- 
 sthenes are full of instances which make it appear as 
 if he gave the Athenians, not adulation, but bitter 
 truths. But these apparently harsh things are tem- 
 pered with occasional compliments, that render his 
 mode of appealing to the Athenian people very 
 different from that, of Socrates. However, when 
 Demosthenes addressed them, the Athenians felt that 
 their affairs were in so unprosperous a condition, that 
 he could say things to them for which they would 
 have hooted down, and perhaps condemned to death. 
 
CHAP. III. J THE ATHENIANS. 47 
 
 any orator fifty years before. But a multitude of 
 five or six thousand men is much too large for deli- 
 berative discussion : and the principle of representa- 
 tion was then unknown. 
 
 Some measure limiting the duration of all speeches 
 to a quarter of an hour (time enough for a speech as 
 long as a leader in The Times), with some exceptions 
 in favour of ministers making official statements, 
 would make the English Parliament nearly perfect as 
 a deliberative assembly. It always contains a very 
 great number of men of good sense and practical 
 knowledge. But under the present system these men 
 are borne down by some half-dozen rhetoricians, who 
 catch the Speaker's eye when men of sense fail to 
 catch it, and who not only waste the public time with 
 their orations, but, according to the present system» 
 obtain most of the great ofiices of the government, 
 and by that means have the opportunity of displaying 
 their want of all practical knowledge and abihty in the 
 misgovernment of the coimtry. The practical wisdom 
 of the nation, of which the English Parliament is the 
 representative, has in the course of many ages laid 
 down a set of rules for the management of delibera- 
 tive discussion in Parliament. These rules com- 
 pletely get rid of the difficulties which in almost all 
 other assemblies of men, public or private, have 
 beset discussion, and rendered it inefiective for the 
 object of a full, exact, and temperate investigation 
 of the question. 
 
48 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. HI. 
 
 " I think, Gorgias," says Socrates, " that you have 
 had experience of many discussions, and must have 
 perceived this : that men seldom know how jointly to 
 examine and mark out the things about which they 
 attempt to discuss ; and having learnt and instructed 
 themselves, so to break off the conversation. But if 
 they dispute on any matter, and one of them charges 
 the other with not speaking rightly, or not clearly, 
 they are angry, and think that it is said in envy, and 
 for the sake of victory, and not in the pursuit of the 
 proposed object of discourse; and they sometimes 
 end by shamefully reproaching one another, and ban- 
 dying such words as make the bystanders ashamed 
 of themselves for having desired to listen to such 
 men."* Consequently, to obtain such a discussion 
 as Socrates and Franklin might have approved of 
 in the English ParHament, the only thing required 
 is to muzzle the men who make inordinately long 
 harangues, by limiting their speeches to a quarter of 
 an hour. 
 
 It may be shown from innumerable passages in 
 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 26, Bip. Gl/icu, w Topyia, /cat ri efiTTCipov, dvai 
 TToXXtuv \6yiiiv Kai KaQEwpaKsvai sv avToig rb ToiovSe, 'on oij padiuig 
 SvvavTm 01 av9p(i>irot, ircpl Hv S,v ivixitprjauat Sui\iyea9at, Stopura- 
 lievot irpbs (i\X^Xo«£ Kai fiadovreg Kai SiSa^avrts eavTOve, oiirw 
 SioKvsaSai rdg awovaioi' &XK' i&v rrcpi row aiifrnPtintaiaai Kai /o] 
 ipy 6 irepoc rbv 'irepov dpQ&e Xeytiv ij p,^ aa^Sg, xoKiiraivovai re 
 Kai kutA ipQovov oiovrai rbv iavrSiv Xkytiv, fCKovtucovvTat, SSX ob 
 ZflTovvTO^ rb irpoKiifiivov Iv Tif \6ytf Kai hiioi ye rtKfvrSvres 
 atoxwra i.'rraKKaTOvrat XoiSoptiSivres ra Kai elvovrce Kai aKoiictavTcg 
 wepi aipCiv aiirStv TOiavra, oTa Kai roiig napovrag axStffBai iiirip a^Zv 
 avT&v, on TotovTdiv AvOpuiruiv ■nliioaav ixpoarai yevsaSai. 
 
CHAP, m.] THE ATHENIANS. 49 
 
 tlie -writings of Plato that, in the opinion of the 
 -wisest man Athens ever produced, it was the orators 
 who, in their adulation of the people for their own 
 purposes, destroyed the Athenian commonwealth. 
 And if the passages cited in this chapter from 
 Demosthenes be considered as showing that his 
 oratory was certainly not all adulation, since he told 
 them many bitter truths, the orators who preceded 
 him had already done so much mischief that a much 
 greater man than Demosthenes — a man like Epami- 
 nondas, a first-rate general as well as a first-rate 
 statesman — would probably have been quite as unable 
 as Demosthenes to save Athens. 
 
 Even in a government like that of England, the 
 power of orators has been great for the last 200 
 years. How much greater it would become if that 
 government were assimilated much more than it is 
 at present to the Athenian democracy, may be in- 
 ferred from the known power of the orators in the 
 latter days of Athenian independence. Socrates, in 
 Plato's Dialogues, uses the word Orator as equiva- 
 lent sometimes to Sophist, and sometimes to Despot. 
 He represents orators as men having, without being 
 either wise or just men, the absolute power of life 
 and death, confiscation and ruin, over their feUow- 
 citizens. 
 
 If the field for the exercise of rhetoric and 
 sophistry in the deliberative national assembly of 
 England were effectually checked, the extension of 
 
50 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. m. 
 
 the sufirage might be a safe and a beneficial mea- 
 sure. But if such a measure is carried out to any 
 considerable extent before the other measure of pre- 
 venting the rhetorical sophists from working their 
 mischief, we shall only exchange one set of bad and 
 dangerous rulers for another set of rulers still worse 
 and still more dangerous. 
 
51 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EOMA]!IS. 
 
 The Romans were not less attentive than the Greeks 
 to athletic exercises. Plutarch relates what pains 
 Cato the Censor took in training his son in throw- 
 ing the javelin, in riding, in swimming rapid rivers, 
 in enduring heat and cold; how Marius, throwing 
 off his old age and his infirmities, went daily to the 
 Campus Martins, where he took his exercises with 
 the young men; and how Julius CsBsar did not 
 make his feeble health an excuse for indulgence, hut 
 by imwearied exercise and frugal diet, by constantly 
 keeping in the open air and enduring fatigue, strug- 
 gled with his malady, and kept his body proof against 
 its attacks. The effect of the Roman system of 
 athletic exercises in strengthening and hardening 
 their bodies, appears from the fact that a Roman 
 soldier usually carried a load of sixty pounds weight, 
 besides his arms ; that under this load the soldier com- 
 monly marched twenty miles a day, sometimes more, 
 usually completing the day's march in five hours, 
 that is, marching twenty miles in five hours, some- 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IT. 
 
 times twenty-four miles in that time. But the 
 Roman system of training, while, like the Spartan, 
 it cultivated the physical quaHties of bodily strength, 
 activity, and endurance, with the moral qualities of 
 fortitude and patriotism, did not crdtivate in the least 
 degree, Uke the Spartan also, the moral qualities of 
 justice and humanity. Their leading principle, to 
 which all others gave way, was the extension of the 
 empire ; in other words, universal dominion and uni- 
 versal plunder. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Roman constitution, or system 
 of government, possessed elements of duration which 
 did not belong either to the Spartan or Athenian 
 system. The Spartan government was, as we have 
 seen, an almost pure oligarchy, the Athenian an 
 almost pure democracy ; each of which worked out 
 rapidly its own destruction, without check or coun- 
 terpoise. On the other hand, the Roman system of 
 government had in it the two elements of oligarchy 
 and democracy, which acted as checks on one another ; 
 for a time at least. It is true that they mostly acted 
 in such a way that now the one predominated, and 
 now the other. At last, however, after great strug- 
 gles, the government of Rome was brought to a just 
 equilibrium, under which there was no insurmount- 
 able obstruction to merit. The republic was thus 
 managed for several ages without internal discord. 
 But as wealth and luxury increased, especially after 
 the destruction of Carthage, the more wealthy pie- 
 
CHAP. IT.j THE ROMANS. 53 
 
 beians united with the patricians, and the two parties 
 of rich men, the old and the new, engrossed between 
 them all the honours and emoluments of the State. 
 The body of the people were impoverished and op- 
 pressed, and at the same time brutalized by the 
 gladiatorial shows, while they were also thoroughly 
 corrupted by idleness and by dependence for food 
 upon those public men who intended to use them 
 for their own purposes. 
 
 We thus see that while, for a time, the govern- 
 ment of Rome enjoyed the advantages of a combina- 
 tion of the oligarchical government of Sparta and 
 the democratical government of Athens, it afterwards 
 suffered at once from the evils of both kinds of 
 government. In this state of things the Roman 
 plebeians became the ready instruments, first, in the 
 hands of Marius, and afterwards in those of Julius 
 Cjesar, for the complete destruction of the Roman 
 constitution. Then came to pass in Rome what, as 
 we have seen, had before come to pass in Sparta and 
 Athens — the total destruction of the military spirit 
 of the people, and of their ability to defend them- 
 selves from foreign aggression ; and those who had 
 conquered and oppressed nearly all the world were 
 conquered and oppressed in their turn. 
 
 The cause of the disease, in this as in all similar 
 cases, was bad government. But it may be instruc- 
 tive to note some of the symptoms of this disease. 
 
 In the earlier period of Roman history, when the 
 
64 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 political constitution of Rome was strong and healthy, 
 individuals were restricted by law to a small portion 
 of land, men cultivated their own farms with their 
 own hands, and the republic could always command 
 the service of an abundance of hardy and brave 
 soldiers when there was need of them. But when 
 landed property was engrossed by a few, whose im- 
 mense estates were, in a great measure, cultivated by 
 slaves, Rome was forced to depend on the provinces, 
 both for supplies of provisions, and of men to recruit 
 her armies.* Hence Pliny may be considered as 
 having correctly pointed out at least one of the prin- 
 cipal symptoms of the great disease which destroyed 
 the Roman empire, when he ascribes the ruin, first 
 of Italy, and then of the provinces, to too extensive 
 landed possessions, "f The evil had become very 
 great in the time of Horace, who contrasts the 
 Roman youth of his day, bom and brought up amid 
 licentious luxury, with the hardy sons of rustic 
 soldiers who resisted Pyrrhus and Hannibal, and had 
 been used to till the earth, and to cut and carry home 
 wood at the command of their austere mothers. J 
 
 * Juvenal, ix. 55; Liv. vi. 12; Senec. Ep. 114. Whether the 
 produce of the land under the cultivation of slaves was less or 
 not, Rome's dependence on the provinces for provisions might be 
 partly owing to her immensely increased population. 
 
 t xviii. 3, 6: Latifundia (sc. nimis ampla) perdidere ItaUam; 
 jam vero et provincias. 
 
 X Hor. Carm. iii. 6. The picture Horace here gives of the 
 Roman vices of his time hardly falls short of those given by 
 Juvenal. 
 
CHAP. IT.] THE ROMANS. 55 
 
 This opinion is supported by that of Lord Bacon, 
 who ascribes the fact that " England, though far less 
 in territory and population, had been nevertheless 
 an overmatch for France," to the great abundance in 
 England of substantial yeomen and small freeholders. 
 " And herein,"" Bacon adds, ia the Essay before re- 
 ferred to, "the device of King Henry the Seventh 
 (whereof I have spoken largely in the history of 
 his life) was profound and admirable, in making 
 farms and houses of husbandry of a standard ; that 
 is, maintained with such a proportion of land unto 
 them as may breed a subject to live in convenient 
 plenty, and no servile condition; and to keep the 
 plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere 
 hirelings." 
 
 In accordance with the notion, which appears to 
 have been generally entertained in the ancient world, 
 that every citizen of a country should be a land- 
 holder, and also with the principle that the State 
 should be the chief landlord, the practice at Rome 
 was that the territory of the State, so far as it was 
 not left unenclosed or reserved for public purposes, 
 should be divided in equal portions among the citi- 
 zens. At first, no citizen had more land than he 
 could cultivate himself. Romulus allotted to each 
 only two acres : a regulation corresponding with the 
 law of Queen Elizabeth, that no cottage should be 
 built with less than four acres of land attached to it.* 
 * Stat. 31 EUz. c. 7. 
 
56 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [CHAP. IT. 
 
 After the expulsion of the kings, seven acres were 
 granted to each citizen, which continued for a long 
 time, and indeed as long as the republic retained 
 its pristine health and strength, to be the usual 
 portion assigned them in the division^ of conquered 
 lands.* Quinctius Cincinnatus, Curius Dentatus, 
 Fabricius, and Regulus had no more.f Cincinnatus 
 had only four acres, according to Columella. This 
 corresponds, in a remarkable degree, with the very 
 large number of small landholders in -England two or 
 three centuries ago ; there having been between forty 
 and fifty freeholders in every hamlet, in the fifteenth 
 century, according to the testimony of Fortescue. 
 
 The part of the Roman territory left unenclosed 
 was mostly kept as pasture, and a revenue was raised 
 from it, both from citizens and strangers, who turned 
 out sheep or cattle upon it. When a new territory 
 was gained in war — the richer parts of it already in 
 cultivation being too valuable to be given up to 
 pasture, and the division, if they were divided, being 
 necessarily siibject to the general rule which allotted 
 an equal portion to every citizen — it was the practice 
 at Rome to allow individuals to occupy such lands, 
 and to enjoy all the benefits of them, on condition of 
 paying to the State the tithe of the produce, both as 
 a rent and an acknowledgment that the State was 
 the proprietor of the land. On this principle most 
 of the kings of Rome are said to have carried an 
 * Liv. T. 30 J Val. Max. iv. 3, 5. f "Val. Max. iv. 4, 6, 7. 
 
CHAP. IT.j THE ROMANS. 57 
 
 agrarian law ; that is, to have^ divided a portion of 
 the public land among those whom they admitted to 
 the rights of citizenship. But these new citizens, the 
 Roman commons, though they received their portion 
 of land as freehold whenever the public land was 
 divided, had still no right to occupy it (as they were 
 not a part of the populus) while it lay in the mass 
 unallotted; while the old burghers, the patricians, 
 who enjoyed exclusively the right of occupation with 
 regard to the undivided public land, had no share in 
 it when divided, because they already enjoyed from 
 ancient allotment a freehold property of their own. 
 Hence the public land was wholly unprofitable to 
 the commons while it was undivided, and became 
 wholly lost to the patricians when it was divided; 
 and hence the violent hostility of the patricians to 
 agrarian laws.* The success of the patricians in 
 their struggle with the commons on this point, 
 which enabled individuals to engross such large 
 masses of landed property, proved in the end their 
 own destruction and that of their country, f 
 
 Another symptom of the decay of a nation's 
 strength, closely connected with the symptom last 
 mentioned, is the immense accumulation of wealth 
 in a few hands, and the use made of that wealth for 
 corruption and luxury. Crassus is said to have 
 
 * The above passage contains the substance of Niebuhr's 
 researches as to this point. — ^Arnold's Hist, of Borne, vol. i. p. 156. 
 t Plin. xviii. 3, 6. 
 
58 STRENGTH 01" NATIONS. [cHAP. IT. 
 
 possessed in lands upwards of 1,600,000?., besides 
 money, slaves, and household fiirniture, which may 
 be estimated at as much more.* Seneca is recorded 
 to have possessed 2,421,875Z. ;f Pallas, the freedman 
 of Claudius, an equal sum;t Lentulus, the augur, 
 3,229,166Z.§ But the effect of the immense accumu- 
 lation of wealth in a few hands, with the power of 
 corruption which this wealth possessed, either in the 
 hands of its owners or of those who found means to 
 borrow it, is most strikingly exemplified in the career 
 of Caesar, the dictator. Csesar, before he enjoyed any 
 office, owed 1,300 talents, or 251,875Z.|| When, after 
 his prjetorship, he set out for Spain, he is reported to 
 have said, that he was "bis millies et quingenties," 
 more than two million pounds sterling, worse than 
 nothing.lT He is said to have purchased the friend- 
 ship of Curio at the beginning of the civil war by a 
 bribe of "sexcenties sestertiiim" (484,373t); and 
 that of the Consul L. Paulus for 1,500 talents, about 
 279,500Z.** Lucan says of Curio: «Hic vendidit 
 urbem ;" and Virgil is thought to refer to him when 
 he says, " Vendidit hie auro patriam." No man ever 
 understood better than Csesar the art of corrupting 
 by money. When he was about to lead his army, with 
 which he had conquered Gaul, into Spain to fight 
 
 » Plin. xxxiii. 10, 47. f Tacit. Ann. xiii. 42. 
 
 t Tacit. Ann. xii. 53. § Senec. de Bene/, ii. 27. 
 
 II Plutarch. ^ Appian. de Bell. Civ. ii. 432. 
 
 »* Dio, xl. 60 ; Plut. in Caes. et Pomp. ; Suet. Cces. 29. 
 
CHAP. IT.] THE ROMANS. 59 
 
 against Roman legions led by Roman generals, he 
 wished to take every precaution to secure the ad- 
 herence to himself of his officers and soldiers. The 
 plan he hit upon was to borrow money from his 
 officers, and distribute it to his soldiers. By which 
 means, to use his own words, he accomplished two 
 things ; he secured the adherence of the officers by 
 the debt, that of the soldiers by the gratuity.* 
 
 Another mode in which this unwholesome accumu- 
 lation of wealth in a few hands showed itself, was 
 in luxurious living, personal ornaments, and houses. 
 Apicius wasted on luxurious living about half a mil- 
 lion sterling. Caligula laid out on a supper upwards 
 of 80,000Z. ; and Heliogabalus, upwards of 24,000i 
 The ordinary expense of Lucullus for a supper in the 
 Hall of Apollo, was 50,000 drachmas (1,614Z. lis. 8d.). 
 Pliny says, that in his time Lollia Paulina wore, in 
 full dress, jewels to the value of " quadragies sester- 
 tiiim" (32,201i 13s. 4c?.); or, as others read the pas- 
 sage, "quadringenties sestertitim"t (322,916Z. 13s. 4<Z.). 
 JuUus Csesar presented Servilia, the mother of M. 
 Brutus, with a pearl worth "sexagies sestertia"| 
 (48,417?. 10s.). There seems to be an association 
 between certain vices and a profuse and ostentatious 
 extravagance in dress, both in men and women ; but 
 
 * "Simul a tribunis milltum.centurionibusque mutuas pecunias 
 sumsit : has exercitui distribuit. Quo facto duas res consecutus 
 est, quod pignore animos centurionum devinxit, et largitione 
 redemit militum voluntates." — Cses. de Sell. Civ, i. 39. 
 
 t Plin. X. 35, s. 57. i Suet. Cas. 50. 
 
60 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. IT. 
 
 particularly in the latter. The Countess of Somer- 
 set, the murderess of Sir Thomas Overbury (and, as 
 was suspected, of Prince Henry), wore, on the occasion 
 of her marriage with the Earl of Somerset, a coronet 
 which was valued at 400,000 dollars ; and the clothes 
 of the Earl of Somerset, also, were covered with 
 precious stones.* Agrippina, the wife of the Em- 
 peror Claudius, who, like the English countess above 
 mentioned, was an adulteress and murderess, ap- 
 peared in public, on one occasion, in a magnificent 
 robe, which, as some read the passage, was a tissue 
 of pure gold, without any intermixture of other 
 materials.f Caligula was costly and effeminate in 
 his dress, to such a degree as to appear in shoes com- 
 posed of pearls. The effect of this upon the dress of 
 the Roman women of that time may be judged of 
 by what appears at the present day, when we see 
 many women, without regard to the means of their 
 fathers and husbands, striving to ape queens and 
 empresses in the extravagance and costliness of their 
 dress. It is not such foolish luxury that enables 
 women to produce the men who constitute the real 
 strength of a nation — men " such as the Doric 
 mothers bore." 
 
 It is undoubtedly a mark of the prosperity and 
 well-being of a nation that the great bulk of the 
 
 * Despatch of Spifame, the French ambassador, in Eaumer's 
 History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 232. 
 t Tac. Ann. xii. 56. 
 
CHAP. IT.] THE EOMAKS. 61 
 
 inhabitants should dwell in houses which are suffi- 
 ciently large and well-constructed for the promotion 
 of cleanliness and health. But such houses may be 
 as well constructed of brick as of marble. It was a 
 boast of Augustus that he had found Rome of brick, 
 but should leave it of marble.* It would have been 
 better for Rome if Augustus had left Rome of brick, 
 provided that he could also have left it, or restored 
 to it, the elements of national strength w:hich it had 
 possessed in its earlier days. But while aU the 
 elements of strength were crumbling to dust, the 
 costliness of houses of all kinds rapidly increased. 
 Thus the house of Lapidus, which in the time of his 
 consulship was reckoned one of the finest in Rome, 
 was not in the hundredth rank thirty-five years 
 after.f The golden house of Nero must have cost 
 an immense sum, since Otho laid out, in finishing 
 a part of it, 403,645Z. 16s. 8d.t M. Scaurus is 
 reported to have lost by the burning of his villa, 
 H. s. milUes, 807,291Z, 13s. 4d:§ perhaps a larger 
 sum than any of those persons who have depopu- 
 lated the Highlands of Scotland could boast of 
 having laid out on the palaces, rivalling those of 
 princes, which they have built, or are building, on 
 the proceeds of their Highland improvements. 
 
 But as the Roman rich man looked round in vain 
 in the hour of his agony for those hardy soldiers, 
 
 * Suet. Aug. 29. t 1*1™- xxxvi. 15, s. 24. J Ibid. 
 
 § Ibid. 
 
62 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IT. 
 
 made in other days out of the small farmers who tilled 
 their farms with their own hands, and whose march, 
 steady though toilsome, had ever been to Yictory, so, 
 to repeat the warning of Sir Walter Scott, the hour 
 may not be far distant when those Highland chiefs 
 may bitterly rue the day when they exchanged for a 
 larger rent-roU, with palaces and menials and aU the 
 other luxuries wealth can purchase, so many thousand 
 "hiU-plaids and true hearts that wore them," — so 
 many thousand bayonets, or " steel blades and strong 
 hands that bore them." 
 
 Lord Bacon says, with reference to the saying of 
 Themistocles, that " he could not fiddle, but yet he 
 could make a small town a great city," that " if a 
 true survey be taken of counsellors and statesmen, 
 there may be found (though rarely) those which can 
 make a small State great, and yet cannot fiddle ; as, 
 on the other side, there will be found a great many 
 thjit can fiddle very cunningly, but yet are so far 
 from being able to make a small State great, as their 
 gift lieth the other way: to bring a great and flourish- 
 ing State to ruin and decay." To which of these 
 classes of statesmen the persons who do such things, 
 and their abettors, belong, let the judgment of man- 
 kind determine. 
 
 Aftg: the first great question. What is the disease? 
 the next is. Is it curable ? 
 
 One obvious enough method of cure is to attempt 
 to bring back the constitution to that state in which 
 
CHAP. IT.] THE ROMANS. 63 
 
 it appeared to be healthy. Though in a certain 
 sense the government of Rome could never have 
 been a very good one, yet its early constitution 
 undoubtedly possessed some of the qualities of 
 strength in a remarkable degree. The constitutional 
 legislation of Sulla was an attempt to restore at least 
 some of the essential elements of the old Roman 
 constitution. Whether it would have had any chance 
 of success, we cannot say: for the usurpation of Caesar 
 soon after swept it all away ; and in Rome, the forms 
 as well as the substance of liberty perished for 
 ever. 
 
 In order to learn how far such a method of cure 
 for this great national disease is applicable in any 
 case, it will be necessary, first, to see whether there 
 was a time when such nation had a healthy consti- 
 tution ; then, by what causes it lost such constitution. 
 If this inquiry is fairly and clearly conducted, 
 the remedy, if there be one, ought to be obvioug 
 enough. 
 
 Adam Smith having assumed standing armies to 
 be the universal cause of the strength of nations, and 
 having attempted, as we have seen, to account for 
 the subjection of Greece by the Macedonians on that 
 principle, proceeds to apply the same explanation to 
 the ascendancy of Rome. After mentioning tjie rise 
 of the Macedonians and their conquests as the first 
 great revolution in the affairs of mankind, he goes 
 on to say : " The fall of Carthage, and the conse- 
 
64 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. IT. 
 
 quent elevation of Rome, is the second. All the 
 varieties in the fortune of those two famous republics 
 may very well be accounted for, from the same 
 cause." So far is this from being the fact, that they 
 may very well be accounted for from the superiority 
 of a good militia over a standing army. 
 
 We know extremely little about the government 
 of Carthage, but we know that it had not a territory 
 of sufficient extent to furnish the materials of a good 
 militia, which Rome had ; and at that time the 
 militia of Rome possessed all the conditions of excel- 
 lence, consisting of hardy soldiers (who for the most 
 part tilled their own small farms with their own 
 hands), led by officers whom they knew and trusted, 
 and who were always willing to sacrifice their lives in 
 the defence of their country. And such have always 
 constituted the conditions of a real militia, whether 
 under the Spartan or Roman burgher, the feudal 
 baron or the Highland chief, when all alike obeyed 
 the summons of duty : 
 
 " Chief, vassal, page, and groom, tenant and toaster ; " 
 
 and as on Flodden's fatal field — 
 
 " Each stepping where his comrade stood, 
 The instant that he fell; 
 Groom fought like nohle, squire like knight, 
 As fearlessly and well." 
 
 In regard to Hannibal, any one who has carefally 
 read the history of his campaigns knows that the 
 troops on which he depended most were his Spanish 
 
CHAP, rv.] ' THE EOMANS. 65 
 
 infantry and his Numidian horse ; which shows that 
 Carthage could not furnish from her own territory 
 the materials either of a militia or a standing army. 
 It is indeed true, as Adam Smith says, that Scipio's 
 militia became a well-discipliaed and well-exercised 
 standing army, which the troops that Hannibal had 
 hastily got together were unable to withstand at the 
 battle of Zama. But why were the many victories, 
 each of them far greater than Scipio's victory at 
 Zama, gained by Haimibal in Italy, not followed by 
 the fall of Rome, while Scipio's victory at Zama was 
 followed by the ruin of Carthage ? Precisely be- 
 cause Rome had a substantial militia, and Carthage 
 had no such militia. 
 
 " From the end of the second Carthaginian war," 
 continues the same writer, " till the fall of the Roman 
 republic, the armies of Rome were in every respect 
 standing armies." And what was the consequence ? 
 From that time the real strength of Rome began to 
 decline ; even though in the brief period of fifty-three 
 years Rome conquered the greater part of the world 
 — so little is extensive empire a proof of real strength 
 in a nation : a fact which it would be well for some 
 modem nations, particularly England, to ponder on. 
 
 Adam Smith then proceeds to attribute the success 
 that attended the Roman armies to their being stand- 
 ing armies, while, with the exception of Macedon, the 
 forces opposed to them were militias. The real cause 
 of the success of the Roman armies was that they 
 
 p 
 
66 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IT. 
 
 were superior in knowledge of the art of war to all 
 those whom they attacked, and in such civilization as 
 then existed to all, with the exception of Greece, 
 Syria, and Egypt-;;— nations which had long lost all 
 their manly and military qualities. 
 
 So eager is Adam Smith to depreciate militias, that 
 he attempts to account for the ultimate ruin of the 
 Roman empire, not from its true cause — its being 
 ' without the materials to form either a good militia or 
 a good standing army — but by giying to its demo- 
 ralized standing army the name of a militia. 
 
67 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SPANIARDS AND THE TUEKS. 
 
 We have seen, in the cases of Sparta and Rome, 
 how nations, by assiduously cultivating the qualities 
 of courage, hardihood, temperance, and patriotism 
 in their citizens, — by, to use the words of Lord 
 Bacon, " professiag arms as their principal honour, 
 study, and occupation," have become powerful. We 
 have also seen how, in the course of time, when, by 
 the operation of a bad government, the qualities of 
 fortitude, temperance, and patriotism were no longer 
 encouraged and cultivated, but, on the contrary, were 
 discouraged and neglected, those same nations be- 
 came weak, and lost, first, their power, and then alto- 
 gether their place among nations. But the power of 
 a bad government varies in the mode of its operation 
 in the destruction of a nation's strength, being some- 
 times very rapid, sometimes comparatively very slow. 
 The Spaniards and Turks furnish respectively strik- 
 ing examples of these two modes of operation. 
 
 The Spaniards and Turks were remarkable, the 
 former for possessing some of the best infantry, the 
 
 F 2 
 
68 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. T. 
 
 latter some of the best cavalry ever known. And 
 it may be observed that a rough and mountainous 
 country like Spain appears to be favourable for the 
 production of good infantry, while a country like 
 Turkey, abounding in extensive plains, appears to 
 afford superior facilities for the production of good 
 cavalry. We see the same thing on a smaller scale 
 in the Highlands of Scotland and the broad and rich 
 plains of Yorkshire. The Spanish infantry formed 
 an important part of the army of Hannibal ; though 
 it was perhaps his Numidian horse in which his supe- 
 riority to the Romans was of most advantage to him. 
 And in later times, when Spain was at its height of 
 power, the position which she held was in great part 
 owing to the excellence of the Spanish infantry. 
 For the unrivalled excellence of the Turkish cavalry, 
 even down to the commencement of the present cen- 
 tury, we have good authority. Whence comes it 
 that these two nations have lost their strength ? 
 
 I have said that the primary element of a nation's 
 strength consists in the physical strength and hardi- 
 hood, combined with the courage and patriotism, of 
 its people. Now, an important distinction is to be 
 noted here. In the case of Athens, where the native 
 population chiefly consisted of people living in the 
 town of Athens ; and in that of Rome, where in later 
 times the land of Italy was cultivated almost entirely 
 by slaves, and the Roman free citizens consisted prin- 
 cipally of persons living in Rome, and passing their 
 
CHAP. T.] THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 69 
 
 time in idleness and luxury, in listening to orators, 
 and witnessing dramatic performances and gladia- 
 torial shows ; the people (though, in the case of the 
 Romans, the gladiatorial shows might make them 
 familiar with blood and cruelty) were physically as 
 well as morally effeminate. But, in regard to Spain 
 and Turkey, this physical degeneracy does not exist 
 The Spanish peasantry are as strong and stalwart 
 men as when they formed the most formidable in- 
 fantry, and the Turkish peasantry as stalwart men 
 and as good horsemen as when they formed the most 
 formidable cavalry, of the world. 
 
 In answer to the question. Whence comes this de- 
 generacy ? it would be easy to give the short answer. 
 From a bad government. But in the case of Turkey, 
 this would hardly seem to afford a completely satis- 
 factory solution of the problem. For who shall tell 
 the time when the Turkish government was a good, 
 or even was not a bad government ? that is, if by 
 a good government is meant a government which has 
 any regard to justice in its dealings either with its 
 own subjects or with foreign nations, as long as its 
 very existence does not demand a compliance with 
 the general diplomatic forms of Europe. 
 
 Like Athens and Rome, Spain and Turkey, when 
 at the height of their strength, aimed at universal 
 plunder and universal dominion. Whenever this is 
 the principle of a government, the experience of all 
 history shows that the days of that government are 
 
70 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. V. 
 
 numbered. The Assyrians, the Persians, the Mace- 
 donians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Moguls, 
 have all in their turns united the strength and 
 courage with the morality of a strong band of rob- 
 bers ; and they have all perished. It would seem as 
 if the practice of fraud, falsehood, aad injustice on 
 a gigantic scale, ate like a mortal disease into their 
 vitals, corrupting the springs of all healthy strength 
 and vitality. What nation was safe from the rapa- 
 cious cruelty of the Turk and the Spaniard in the 
 day of their power ? And Europe has felt for ages, 
 and feels at this hour, the consequences of the ambi- 
 tion of those princes of the House of Austria, who, 
 having robbed the Spaniards of their liberties, em- 
 ployed the strength which those liberties had nou- 
 rished to destroy the last relics of the liberties of 
 Italy. There is a law observable in the life of 
 nations, that the great crimes committed by them, 
 though they may seem for a time to be very pleasant 
 and profitable, recoil at last upon the heads of their 
 authors, and become their own punishment ; their 
 plunder acting in a way somewhat similar to that in 
 which Machiavelli's present of wine acted on his 
 butcher. 
 
 Machiavelli's servant complained to him one day 
 that his butcher had been very insolent, adding that 
 he had not confined his abusive language to him (the 
 servant), .but had also spoken very disrespectfully 
 of his master. Machiavelli made no remark, but 
 
CHAP. T.j THE SPANIARDS AND THE TUEKS. 71 
 
 ordered the servant to look out half a dozen of the 
 best and choicest wine in his cellar, to take it to the 
 butcher, and beg his acceptance of it as a small 
 present from his master. The servant was surprised, 
 but did as he was ordered. A short time after, he 
 came and informed Machiavelli that the butcher had 
 been stabbed and killed on the spot by a man whom 
 he had insulted. Machiavelli smiled, and said: — 
 " You see that present of mine acted like poison upon 
 him. Instead of repressing his violent temper, and 
 correcting his ill manners, as he might have done if 
 I had resented his insolence at the time, he has gone 
 on from bad to worse, till he has at last met with the 
 proper punishment." 
 
 In the case of Spain, besides that universal dis- 
 solution of all morality which is the iaevitable con- 
 sequence of a system of universal conquest and 
 plunder, and which was common to her with Rome 
 and Turkey, there was another point of coincidence 
 with Rome, though not with Turkey. Spain, like 
 Rome, had once possessed institutions comparatively 
 good, which gave her a certain amount of health, 
 strength, and energy as a nation. These institutions 
 the first princes of the House of Austria — Charles V., 
 his minister. Cardinal Ximenes, and his son, Philip II., 
 who were to Spain what the Caesars were to Rome, 
 — almost entirely destroyed. The diiference between 
 the empire which Philip II. inherited from his father, 
 and the empire which he left to his successors, is a 
 
72 STEENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP, T. 
 
 true measure of the effect of the work of these pro- 
 found politicians, who deemed themselves able not 
 merely to overreach and subjugate man, but to cir- 
 cumvent God. They received, at their accession to. 
 power, a nation which, from its valour, its intel- 
 ligence, and its energy, seemed able to conquer all 
 the world. By first destroying the institutions which 
 had produced that valour, that energy, and that 
 intelligence, and then extending their work of 
 corruption and degradation, by seeking to conquer 
 all the world, they left to after ages the same 
 nation in such a state of decrepitude and decay, 
 that but for its extent of territory, and the compact 
 and naturally defensive form of that territory, Spain 
 would have been blotted from among the nations of 
 the earth, as Athens and Carthage and Rome had 
 been blotted from the roll of nations. Such appears 
 to be the retribution decreed by the eternal laws of 
 the Omnipotent, as the punishment for the lust of 
 unjust dominion, and for aU the robbery, cruelty, 
 and oppression perpetrated in the pursuit of that 
 dominion. 
 
 I have mentioned, in the preceding chapter, as 
 some measure of the decline of a nation's strength, 
 the immense sums laid out upon houses and palaces. 
 That cruel tyrant and savage bigot, Philip II., is said 
 to have laid out upon the Escurial, the largest palace 
 in Europe, about three millions sterling. 
 
 No change took place in the form of the govern- 
 
CHAP. T.J THE SPANIAEDS AND THE TURKS. 73 
 
 ment of the Turks similar to that which took place 
 in the form of the govermnent of the Spaniards, by 
 the abolition of the free constitutional assembly, 
 (Sailed the Cortes, to account for the decline of their 
 military strength. From the first, the government 
 of Turkey was a pure military despotism. The 
 Sultan ruled with the same absolute power as the 
 general of an army; considering all his subjects as 
 slaves, whose lives and properties were at his dis- 
 posal. As there were, consequently, no principles 
 in the constitution of the Turkish government to 
 act as checks upon misgovernment, or as preserva- 
 tives or restoratives of its original strength (for it 
 possessed originally the strength and energy which 
 belong to an energetic military despotism), the 
 wonder is not that it should in time fall into 
 decrepitude, but that it should continue vigorous 
 so long as it did. Lord Bacon, who views the 
 subject without reference to the form or goodness 
 of the government, attributes the power and great- 
 ness which the Turks, as well as some other nations, 
 possessed for a time, to their making the profession 
 of arms their principal honour, study, and occu- 
 pation. And he adds, "that it is a most certain 
 oracle of time, that those States that continue long 
 in that profession (as the Romans and Turks prin- 
 cipally have done) do wonders ; and those that have 
 professed arms but for an age have, notwithstanding, 
 commonly attained that greatness in that age, which 
 
74 STEENGTH OP NATIONS. [CHAP. T. 
 
 maintained them long after, when their profession 
 and exercise of arms hath grown to decay."* Bacon 
 also considers it as an advantage possessed by the 
 Turks that they never were without a specious 
 ground or pretext for quarrels and wars, whereby 
 their military qualities might be kept in constant 
 exercise. " The Turk," he says, " hath at hand, for 
 cause of war, the propagation of his law or sect — a 
 quarrel that he may always command." 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, all these advantages, 
 the strength of the Turkish system began after a 
 time to exhibit unequivocal symptoms of decline. 
 The Essay of Lord Bacon above quoted was written 
 nearly three hundred years ago, and yet he there 
 says of that greatness, which is the consequence of 
 military strength — " the Turks have it at this day, 
 though in great declination." Bacon's statement is 
 in accordance with the facts. The principal causes 
 assigned for the decline of the Turkish power were 
 the habit contracted by Suleiman L, towards the end 
 of his days (he died in 1566), of no longer presiding 
 in person at the divan, the promotion of his favourites 
 to the first dignities of the State, the influence of the 
 harem in public affairs, and the immense power and 
 wealth of the grand vizirs, f More than a century 
 after this, however, the Turks threatened all Europe; 
 but they never altogether recovered from the defeats 
 
 * Essay on the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates. 
 
 t Turquie, par Jouannin et Van Gaver, p. 155. Paris, 1853. 
 
CHAP. T. ] THE SPANIAEDS AND THE TURKS. 75 
 
 they received, first, from John Sobieski, under the 
 walls of Vienna, in 1683, and thirty-three years later, 
 from Eugene, at Peterwardein. The strength of 
 their position still protected them from total destruc- 
 tion ; and in their case the world was enabled to see 
 of what quality are the dregs of a military despot- 
 ism suffered to run out its full course. For a time 
 the head of a military despotism must possess some 
 of the qualities', such as courage, hardihood, and 
 sagacity, which raised the first man — of whom he 
 is the representative — to his post. But when con- 
 quest has procured wealth and the means of luxury, 
 and time has given a certain degree of stabiKty to 
 the dominioli at first conquered and held by valour, 
 unremitted toil, and peril, the head of a military 
 despotism no longer possesses either the qualities of 
 a general or a statesman, of a hardy soldier or a 
 constitutional king. He becomes an effeminate sen- 
 sualist, who rules his empire and commands his 
 armies through the ministers of his pleasures, and 
 the whole machine of his government becomes one 
 mass of imbecility, rottenness, and corruption. 
 Thus the strength of the Turks lasted as long 
 as the Sultan was a man of energy, who devoted 
 his time to labour and not to pleasure, and while, 
 as a consequence of this devotion to the duties of 
 his place, he gave all the highest posts under him 
 to the greatest military merit. But even when 
 Montecuculi wrote, this mortal disease had com- 
 
76 STEENGTH OE NATIONS. [cHAP. T. 
 
 menced in the Turkish government. After speak- 
 ing of the valour of the Turkish troops and of th^ 
 experience and military qualities of their officers, he 
 adds that corruption has already appeared among 
 them : men totally unfit being raised at once to the 
 command of armies. The source of this abuse, he 
 continues, is that the Sultan, plunged in sensuality, 
 and neglecting the observance of the Mahometan 
 laws, never goes to war in person.* The history 
 of Rome under the empire, and the whole history 
 of Asia, exhibit the same result, and demonstrate by 
 unmistakeable signs the goal to which all military 
 monarchies are drifting ; though the history of the 
 Turks shows that they may take ages to reach that 
 goal. This explains why the Turks of the present 
 day, though they may be as stalwart men and as 
 good horsemen as the Spahis, who were once so 
 formidable, make so poor a military figure ; all 
 their officers above the rank of captain being 
 appointed, not for their military qualities, but for 
 having been " a Pasha's pipe-bearer or something 
 worse."! The men have no confidence in them; 
 and if they had, their confidence would be much 
 misplaced. 
 
 * Meimires de Montecuculi, gSnSralissime des troupes de I'Empe- 
 reur, p. 245. Paris, 1760. 
 
 f These words are quoted from a valuable and interesting sketch 
 of the present state of the Turkish military system by an eye-witness 
 —an English officer— in a Paper entitled " The Turks in Kalafat, 
 1854," in Stackwood's Magazine, for March and April, 1859. 
 
CHAP, v.] THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 77 
 
 The magnitude of the power of the Turks at the 
 time they took Constantinople in 1453, and for more 
 than a century after, is attested by the fact that in 
 England two or three centuries ago, histories of the 
 Turks engaged as much attention as histories of the 
 Romans. And though, according to the remark of 
 Bacon above quoted, the decline of their strength had 
 begun towards the end of the sixteenth century, their 
 power was still very formidable during the whole at 
 least of the seventeenth century. This is proved by 
 the fact that MontecucuH, generalissimo of the troops 
 of the Emperor, has devoted two-thirds of his cele- 
 brated MiUtary Memoirs to the subject of the military 
 strength and mode of warfare of the Turks. The 
 whole of his second book is devoted to the subject of 
 " war against the Turk ; " and his third book to an 
 account of his own campaigns against the Turks in 
 the four years from 1661 to 1664, in which last year 
 he gave the Turks a signal defeat at St. Gothard, 
 with the loss to them of more than 16,000 men, the 
 best of both their infantry and cavalry. 
 
 A nation, particularly a rich nation, which should 
 imagine that it could enjoy peace without strong 
 means of self-defence against a neighbouring nation 
 at once powerful and ambitious — whether such neigh- 
 bouring nation be a military monarchy, a military 
 oligarchy, or a military democracy — would be in the 
 condition of a householder who trusted to the good- 
 will of the stirrounding thieves, instead of trusting 
 
78 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. T. 
 
 to an efficient police for protection. In either case it 
 is crying "Peace ! peace I" when there is no peace. 
 
 This was eminently the case with all nations who 
 were within reach either of the Spaniard or of the 
 Turk in the day of his strength, his rehgion, and 
 his cruelty. With the Turk there could be no true 
 peace ; it was necessary either to destroy him, or be 
 destroyed.* In him was remarkably exemplified 
 the effect of cultivating no art but that of war, of 
 being always armed to the teeth and ready for 
 quarrel, and for occasions of war and conquest. For 
 of the Turk, as of the Roman, it may be said, that 
 he challenged aU the world. "His shield always 
 hung in the lists : " though most unlike that of the 
 chivalrous ideal was the object for which the Turk, 
 like the Roman, was always ready to fight. " Le 
 Turc," is the remarkable expression of Montecucnli, 
 " d^vore dans son cceur la monarchie du monde ; et 
 il n'est pas dispos^ a se donner du repos, ni k en 
 laisser prendre aux autres, qu'il n'ait ^prouv^ ses 
 forces contre eux." f 
 
 Montecuculi mentions J a certain Austrian prime 
 minister, on whose brain the imagination of peace 
 was so strongly imprinted, that he actually, after the 
 experie&ce of so many ages, allowed himself to be 
 duped by the Turk's professions of peace, when the 
 latter was only preparing to make war with more 
 
 * Memoires de Montecuculi, p. 222. + Ibid. p. 409. 
 
 I Ibid. p. 410. 
 
CHAP. T.j THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 79 
 
 irresistible force. And in this respect the Turk 
 ■possessed the usual political qualities of aU large 
 robbers. Sometimes he spread false rumours as to 
 his designs, in order to take by surprise the nation 
 he was about to attack ; sometimes he published his 
 real design, in order to deceive by the truth itself.* 
 It has been the same from the beginning of time, and 
 will be to the end ; or until that millennium which 
 some modern politicians appear vainly to imagine 
 has already commenced. Thus Philip of Macedon, 
 with solemn professions of friendship, interfered in 
 the affairs of Greece ; and with solemn professions 
 of friendship, erased Greece from the hst of nations. 
 Thus Rome with solemn professions of friendship 
 entered Spain, and with solemn professions of friendr' 
 ship reduced it to a province. In the same manner 
 Rome enslaved Sicily, lUyria, and every kingdom 
 which placed any trust in her. " Her enmity was 
 dangerous, but her friendship was fatal. None ever 
 escaped with honour from that deadly embrace." 
 
 What was true of ancient days, is as true of modem. 
 At the beginning pf this century, France, by solemn 
 professions, unwisely trusted in, obtained the neu- 
 trality of Prussia, while she subjugated nation after 
 nation identified with Prussia by the closest common 
 interests. At last, when all obstacles to universal 
 empire had been crushed one after another, the duped 
 ally perceived her error, had recourse to arms, was 
 
 * Mlmoires, p. 288. 
 
80 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 defeated, and was then plainly told that the ruler 
 of France despised her for her credulity, and had 
 always intended to punish her for having defeated 
 the French at Rosbach. If Prussia was to be over- 
 run, outraged, and plundered for the one field of 
 Rosbach, what may they expect who presumed 
 to win the fields of Oressy, Poitiers, Agincourt, 
 and Waterloo? They must rely upon their own 
 strength and their own valour. When these have 
 departed, their wealth will become the spoil, and 
 themselves, their wives and children, the subjects of 
 the invader. 
 
 Montecuculi describes the Turks of his time as 
 brave, obedient, and sober.* Their bravery was the 
 effect of health and strength, good food and good 
 clothing, unremitted attention from their earliest 
 years to military exercises, and consequent skill and 
 dexterity in the use of their arms and the manage- 
 ment of their horses. To these were added a fierce 
 fanaticism, and the belief in an inevitable fatality. 
 Their discipline was the effect of the hope of very 
 high rewards, and the fear of very severe punish- 
 ments. The same principle that brought forward so 
 much miUtary talent from the lower ranks of the 
 people under the EngHsh Long Parliament and the 
 French Convention, and under Cromwell and Napo- 
 leon, was constantly at work among the Turks, for 
 two or three centuries. There was no class or caste 
 
 * Memories, p. 260, et seq. 
 
CHAP. T.J THE SPANIARDS AND THE TUEKS. 8 1 
 
 claiming an exclusive monopoly of military rank as 
 their birthright. The lowest Turk could rise to the 
 highest post in the empire, next to the Sultan ; and 
 so long as the lowest soldier could hope to rise by 
 skill and valour to the command of armies, the 
 Turkish power was of necessity formidable. As to 
 their temperance, the Turks drank nothing but 
 water, and ate nothing but rice and mutton, and 
 that only once a day. Thus, not overloading their 
 stomachs with an excess of food, nor destroying them 
 with exciting and poisonous drink, and undergoing 
 much fatigue, they were healthy and robust. The 
 Turk thus possessed the first element of military 
 strength. Added to this was a quality which forms 
 another element of strength, when not carried to a 
 stupid excess. The Turk had a strong spirit of 
 nationality, and contempt for all other nations. This 
 spirit of nationality, with the accompanying contempt 
 for all other nations, which has been more or less 
 common to all conquering nations, tribes, or hordes, 
 was carried to an extraordinary height by the fana- 
 tical followers of Mahomet. " God curse these dogs," 
 said the illiterate Arab of his Grreek captives, "what 
 a strange, barbarous language they speak ! " In a 
 similar spirit is the Turks' opinion of themselves 
 as opposed to the Christians, which may be found 
 amusingly set forth in a French translation of a 
 Turkish book on military tactics, wherein the author 
 describes the Christians as little better than sheep, 
 
 a 
 
82 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. T; 
 
 when they can once be broken in npon, but says 
 that their diaboUcal tactical ingenuity is such that 
 they have, iacredible as it may seem, actually beaten 
 us! This last admission, however, even with the 
 qualification annexed, evinces a considerable degree 
 of candour on the part of the Turk who wrote the 
 book referred to. 
 
 But I am inclined to think that the main element 
 of the strength of the Turkish government for several 
 centuries, was the same which formed the strength of 
 England for a still longer period, namely, the system 
 of military tenures. 
 
 The Turkish cavalry — the Spahis — were main- 
 tained on very much the same footing as the men- 
 at-arms of the Plantagenets. In the time of Sultan 
 Murad I., the contemporary of our Richard II., mili- 
 tary fiefs were established in favour of the Spahis, 
 who, when not engaged in war, resided on their fiefs ; 
 and, during war, were bound to furnish one cuiras- 
 sier for every three thousand aspres of revenue. And 
 the holder of the fief was bound not only to find men 
 in proportion to his revenue, but to serve himself. 
 Every fief which produced less than twenty thousand 
 aspres was called timar ; a fief producing more than 
 that sum received the name of ziamet. These fiefs 
 were hereditary ; and on failure of male descendants 
 able to perform military service, reverted to the State. 
 The pacha of the province then gave them to another 
 Sipah, or old soldier. In the time of Suleiman I., 
 
CHAP. T.] THE SPANIARDS AND THE TUEKS. 83 
 
 the contemporary of our Henry VIII., the ziamet 
 and the timar furnished 200,000 men. But after 
 the death (a.d. 1566). of that great prince, the regu- 
 lations of Murad fell into abeyance, and the feuda- 
 tories no longer made their appearance with their 
 proper contingent of men. In 1776, Sultan Abdul 
 Handd published a severe edict for the reorganiza- 
 tion of the Spahis ; but the clamours of the fief- 
 holders frightened the government, which abandoned 
 its plans of reform, and accepted a contribution of fifty 
 piastres for each man-at-arms required by the law.* 
 
 The Turkish infantry — the Janissaries — were per- 
 manently embodied : they appear in their manner of 
 fighting to have somewhat resembled the Scottish 
 Highlanders ; their custom being, after firing their 
 muskets, to draw their sabres, and rush upon the 
 
 enemy, t 
 
 Montecuculi bears testimony to the desperate bra- 
 very of the Turks. He says he has repeatedly seen 
 them swim rivers in the face of an enemy, with their 
 sabres between their teeth. J 
 
 The chief strength of the Turk lay in his use of 
 the " arme blanche;" which, with his infantry as well 
 as cavalry, was the sabre. 
 
 What may be the eflfect of the recent improve- 
 
 • Turquie, par M. J. M. Jouannin, premier secretaire inter- 
 prSte du roi pour les langues orientales, et par M. Jules Van 
 Gaver, p. 35. Paris, 1853. 
 
 f Memoires de Montecuculi, p. 258. t ^^^^- P- 261. 
 
 62 
 
84 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. T. 
 
 ments in fire-arms, both in respect to longer range 
 and greater precision, time will show ; but it appears 
 certain that hitherto the effect of the invention of fire- 
 arms upon war has b^en greatly exaggerated and 
 misunderstood. For example, Adam Smith says : — 
 " In modern war, the great expense of fire-arms gives 
 an evident advantage to the nation which can best 
 afford that expense ; and, consequently, to an opulent 
 and civilized over a poor and barbarous nation."* 
 
 This assertion is disproved by what the Highlanders 
 accomplished in the seventeenth century imder the 
 Marquis of Montrose, and in the Rebellion of 1745, 
 and by the whole history of the Turks for 200 years 
 after the introduction of fire-arms. The Highlanders 
 did their work principally with the broadsword, and 
 the Turks with the sabre ; and the result sufficiently 
 showed the unsoundness of the conclusion, that 
 making a noise by the explosion of gunpowder would 
 form an efficient substitute for the neglect of the 
 cultivation of the qualities of bodily strength and 
 activity, and skill and dexterity in the use of arms. 
 It is no answer to this to say that Cromwell's troops 
 ultimately beating the Highlanders is in favour of 
 fixe-arms ; for Cromwell did nearly all his work by 
 the superior excellence of his cavalry and the bodily 
 strength and enthusiastic spirit of his pikemen. More 
 of the work, too, both of Cromwell and Gustavus 
 Adolphus, was done by the butt than by the muzzle 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. part i., sub fin. 
 
CHAP. T.] THE SPANIAEDS AND THE TURKS. 85 
 
 of the musket, the hayonet not being rendered effec- 
 tive till long after. It might be shown also that 
 Frederick II. of Prussia owed much of his success 
 to the excellence of his cavalry, commanded as they 
 were by the best cavalry o£5cer in the world, Seide- 
 litz. Where the Turks were weak was where, as has 
 been shown, the Spartans were weak — in their cul- 
 tivation of bodily strength to the total exclusion of 
 intellectual power. With them, as with the Spar- 
 tans, this rendered it impossible, or next to impos- 
 sible, to possess a first-rate general. Consequently, the 
 Spartans and the Turks, though they might, from 
 their excellence as soldiers, be almost sure of defeat- 
 ing troops of inferior excellence led by ordinary 
 generals, when they came to contend with the strate- 
 gical genius of such commanders as Epaminondas 
 and Eugene, were defeated ; the great superiority of 
 the general making up for the inferiority of his army. 
 Marshal Saxe's theory (which, however, must have 
 been much modified if the rifle had then been in use) 
 is that musketry is of very little service, unless at such 
 close quarters as to be pretty nearly equivalent to the 
 use of the " arme blanche." He speaks of " I'abus 
 de la tirerie, qui fait plus de bruit que de mal, et qui 
 fait toujours battre ceux qui s'en servent"* He says, 
 further, "La poudre n'est pas si terrible qu'on le croit. 
 Peu de gens dans les affaires sont tu^s de bonne 
 
 * Mimoires sur I'Art de la Guerre, de Maurice Comte de Saxe, 
 p. 44. Dresden, 1757. 
 
86 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. T. 
 
 guerre et par devant ; j'ai vu des salves entires ne 
 pas tuer quatre hommes, et je n'en ai jamais vu, ni 
 personne, je pense, qui ait caus^ un dommage assez 
 consid&able pour empScher d'aller en avant, et de 
 s'en venger k grands coups de bayonettes et de fdsils 
 tir^s k brtile-pourpoint. C'est \k oh il se tue du 
 monde, et c'est le victorieux qui tue."* 
 
 Marshal Saxe supports bis theory by various facts ; 
 one of which was, the total and rapid destruction of 
 two battalions of German infantry by a body of 
 Turks : cavalry, it would seem ; though that point is 
 not quite clear in the Marshal's account ; but, either 
 way, the sabre was the weapon of destruction. He 
 thus describes the action : — 
 
 " At the battle of Belgrade I saw two battalions 
 cut in pieces in an instant : it happened thus. Two 
 battalions, one of Lorraine, and one of Neuperg, were 
 on a height which we called the battery ; and at the 
 moment when a blast of wind dispersed a fog which 
 prevented us from distinguishing anything, I saw 
 these troops on the crest of the height separated from 
 the rest of our army. Prince Eugene asked me if I 
 had a good sight ; and what was that troop of horse- 
 men which was making the circuit of the mountain. 
 I repKed, that it was thirty or forty Turks. He said 
 to me, — ' Those men are destroyed,' meaning the 
 two battalions. I did not, however, see that they 
 
 * Mlmoires sur I'Art de la Guerre, de Maurice Comte de Saxe, 
 p. 46. 
 
CHAP. T.J THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 87 
 
 were attacked, or were likely to be, because I could 
 not see what was on the other side of the mountain. 
 I proceeded thither as fast as I could. At the mo- 
 ment I arrived behind the colours of Neuperg, I saw 
 the two battalions present arms, take aim, and fire a 
 general volley at thirty paces on a body of Turks 
 who were advancing upon them. The fire and the 
 m^^e were simultaneous ; and the two battalions had 
 no time for flight ; for they were all instantly sabred 
 on the spot where they stood. There escaped only 
 M. de Neuperg, who, luckily for him, was on horse- 
 back ; an ensign, with his colours, who threw him- 
 self on my horse's mane, and hampered me very 
 much ; together with two or three soldiers. At this 
 moment Prince Eugene rode up almost alone ; that 
 is to say, with only his staff; and the Turks retired, 
 I don't know why. It was there that he received a 
 shot through the sleeve. Some troops of cavalry 
 and some infantry now came up, and M. de Neuperg 
 asked for a detachment to secure the clothes. Sen- 
 tinels were posted on the ground occupied by those 
 dead battalions; and piles of coats, hats, shoes, &c. 
 were collected. While this was going on, I amused 
 myself with counting the dead, and I found only 
 thirty-two Turks killed by the volley of those two 
 battalions ; Which has not raised my opinion of the 
 value of fire-arms."* 
 
 » Mimoires sur I'Art de la Guerre, de Maurice Comte de Saxe. 
 Article Sixi^me, pp. 47, 48, 49, 50. Dresden, 1757. 
 
88 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. T. 
 
 There is a passage in the Mimoires du Prince 
 Eughie, which, whether or not the reputed author 
 of that work, the Priace de Ligne, possessed accurate 
 knowledge of Prince Eugene or his opinions, may 
 at least serve to show the opinion entertained in 
 Europe during the last century of the military value 
 of those qualities which belong to soldiers who 
 retain some ' of the habits of savage life. The 
 French government may have on this principle 
 organized the corps called " Turcos." Another 
 measure of the French government in the same 
 direction is the adoption of the sword-bayonet. The 
 French government has also, it is said, borrowed the 
 more open line from our Highlanders, and has evinced 
 its wisdom by organizing such a corps and adopting 
 such improvements. The English government, on 
 the contrary, has evinced the reverse of wisdom, by 
 permitting the depopulation of the Highlands of Scot- 
 land, and thereby expelling many thousands of men, 
 who, by their brave and patriotic spirit, their strength 
 and activity of body, their power of enduring hard- 
 ship, fatigue, and privation, their skill and dexterity 
 in the use of their weapons, their rapid mode of 
 attack, accompanied by wild and savage war cries, 
 like those of the Turks, would have been in the 
 long run rather more valuable to the British nation 
 than either the sheep or the red deer which have 
 supplanted them. Of this depopulation I will speak 
 in a subsequent chapter. In the meantime, I give 
 
CHAP. Y.] THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 89 
 
 here the passage from the M^moires du Prince 
 Engine. 
 
 " Si un Bacha, un ren^gat, un gdn^ral des allies 
 de la Porte, mettait des pelotons h leur fa9on en 
 seconde ligne dans les intervalles de la premiere, et 
 d'autres en troisi^me dans ceux de la deuxi^me, et 
 puis encore des reserves et leurs Spahis sur les ailes ; 
 avee leurs maudits ' Allah ! Allah ! ' en hurlemens, et 
 leur mani^re d'avancer avec cinquante hommes et 
 un petit drapeau, ils seraient invincibles." * 
 
 Even at the commencement of the present century 
 the Turkish cavalry had not altogether lost its once 
 formidable character. And this would seem to indi- 
 cate that a considerable portion of the Turkish mili- 
 tary strength still survived during the first quarter 
 of the present century. I am inclined to think that 
 the destruction of the Janissaries has something to 
 do with the present state of weakness of the Turkish 
 empire. The main cause of the destruction of the 
 Janissaries is generally understood to have been 
 the dread entertained of them by the Sultans, as 
 being a sort of check — a rough and clumsy one 
 indeed, but, nevertheless, very effective in its way — 
 upon their own misgovernment. It may be true 
 that the Janissaries had greatly degenerated from 
 
 * M£moires du Prince Eugene de Savoie, ecrites par lui-meme. 
 Seconde reimpression conforme a I'edition de Weymar (1809), 
 a Londres, 1811, pp. 120, 121. 
 
90 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Y, 
 
 their former discipline and valour. Still they 
 remained as a sort of visible impersonation both 
 , of the fanatical and the military spirit which had 
 formed the source of the Turkish strength. The 
 fanatical intolerance may still remain; as indeed is 
 witnessed by the very ordinance of 1826, for the 
 formation of a new body of troops in accordance 
 with the modern usages of other nations, which 
 quotes from the Koran these words — " Employ 
 every means in your power to conquer the infidels." 
 
 But the Turk, though he may be still as stupid and 
 cruel a bigot as ever, has lost his old confidence in 
 his bigotry as a principle of action, and has got no 
 new principle of action in the place of it. And, 
 with the fall of the Janissaries, all check on the 
 misgovemment of the Sultans is now removed. 
 The consequence is, that they can now go on revel- 
 ling in the earthly dream of their Prophet's heaven 
 without the danger of that dream being broken by 
 the sabres of their own Janissaries. But in this 
 world it is not given to any man, or beast, to reckon 
 on undisturbed sensual enjoyment. The hog is 
 rudely shaken out of his dream of pleasure by the 
 butcher's knife. An end, not very dissimilar, over- 
 took Nero and Heliogabalus, and has been the cus- 
 tomary fate of despots innumerable, in all parts of 
 the world where despots have a taste for the life 
 of hogs. Indeed such habits must be regarded as 
 
CHAP. T.] THE SPAKIARDS AND THE TtTEKS. 91 
 
 dangerous indulgences anywhere, whether those men 
 who pursue them are princes or private men. 
 
 The Sultan, therefore, though now freed from the 
 fear of his Janissaries' sabres, is occasionally dis- 
 turbed by visions of Russian bayonets. From these 
 he was delivered not long ago by England and 
 France, at no small cost to themselves. This might, 
 perhaps, have the effect of enabling the Sultan to 
 enjoy himself in quiet for a long time to come, 
 provided that England and France can always be 
 reckoned on to join against Russia. But suppose 
 that France should join Russia instead of joining 
 England, England would then have rather a tough 
 job in hand, not only to defend herself, but to 
 defend Turkey against Russia and France united. 
 Under these circumstances, if the Spahis cannot be 
 reorganized in their pristine strength, it would seem 
 very desirable both for England and Turkey to 
 re-establish the Janissaries, or some other equally 
 effective check or control upon the imbecility and 
 vices of the Turkish government ; a check of that 
 kind being the only constitutional check which the 
 Turkish government, hke almost all] the Asiatic 
 governments, of the nature of which it partakes 
 largely, would appear to admit of. 
 
 Both the Spaniards and the Turks furnish remark- 
 able examples of a principle which is found in a 
 greater or less degree in operation among all nations 
 
92 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. V. 
 
 — the principle of regarding all other nations as infe- 
 rior^ and distinguishing them by an epithet more or 
 less opprobrious. With the Greeks and Romans all 
 foreign nations were distinguished by a word which, 
 though originally meaning only foreigners, came to 
 have a stronger signification — ^barbarians. This word, 
 though it might involve that idea, did not adopt for 
 the leading idea it was meant to convey a diflFerent 
 religious worship. But with the Arabs, the Turks, 
 and the Spaniards, the religious idea was the pre- 
 dominant one in the term which they bestowed on 
 other nations. With the Arabs, most foreigners 
 were Kaffirs ; with the Turks, Giaours ; and with the 
 Spaniards, Heretics. Kaffirs, Giaours, and Heretics 
 were wretches ; to conquer, rob, and slaughter whom 
 was not only a meritorious deed on earth, but a pass- 
 port to eternal happiness in heaven. 
 
 With nations such as these, when they set up the 
 trade of conquerors, there evidently would be no 
 middle course. Their mission on earth being, as the 
 chosen people of the true God, to spread the know- 
 ledge and worship of their true God by fire and 
 sword, they must either destroy or be destroyed. 
 The Arabs have lost their place among the nations. 
 The Turks and the Spaniards still hold a nominal 
 place ; but a place so fallen from that they once held 
 in the height of their power and of their savage and 
 fanatical arrogance, that they may serve as a warn- 
 
CHAP. T.J THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS. 93 
 
 ing to after ages of the vengeance of the Omnipo- 
 tent on the mingled folly and wickedness of men who 
 presumed to perpetrate, in the name of God, deeds 
 of cruelty and rapine worthy of the most ferocious 
 beasts of prey. 
 
94 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. — HEEO-WOESHIP 
 AND DEVIL-WOESHIP. 
 
 Whether or not it be true, according to the remark 
 of David Hume, that the world is yet too young to 
 have a political philosophy, it is certainly yet too 
 young to be able to boast of having civilization, in 
 any high and extended sense of that term. Even 
 in those communities which reckon themselves the 
 most civilized in the world, we find that the old 
 saying, "homo homini lupus" (man is a wolf to 
 man), still holds true. For, though cruelty is not 
 there found in the shape of that callousness to phy- 
 sical human suffering which we find in the actions 
 of the Greeks and Romans and of our own ancestors, 
 it is abundantly found in the copious use of false- 
 hood as the means to self - aggrandizement, the 
 triumph of political factions, and the consequent 
 defeat of personal and political adversaries. As 
 such defeat, thus brought about by means which a 
 strictly humane and honourable man cannot employ. 
 
CHAP. TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 95 
 
 may, and often does, reduce the opposite partj to 
 ruin and beggary, it proves the existence of an 
 amount of cruelty showing that man is still a wolf 
 to man, and disproves the existence of civilization, 
 in its highest sense. 
 
 But whatever difference of opinion there may be 
 on this point, the problem is one of which I shall not 
 now attempt the solution. The progress of society — 
 or, at least, of that portion of the world which calls 
 itself civilized society — has long been, and still is, 
 towards the use of truth and the disuse of falsehood ; 
 though, to judge from the grand results, falsehood is 
 still considerably the stronger and more prosperous 
 power of the two. StiU the world is advancing. 
 The quaint remark of an old writer — I think it 
 was Sir Walter Raleigh — that " a man might 
 follow truth so near the heels, that it might at last 
 dash out his teeth," is not quite so extensively true 
 now as it was two centuries and a half ago. And 
 though following truth very near the heels is still 
 not altogether free from peril, the chances are rather 
 more in favour of the truth-seeker's teeth, and head 
 too, than they were in the days of the Tudors and 
 the Stuarts. 
 
 But there is another problem having reference to 
 civilization, of which, at the present time, it may be 
 useful to attempt the solution. And that question 
 is, whether civilization can, to any considerable ex- 
 tent, be the result of conquest ? 
 
96 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 Some of the most extensive conquests in the his- 
 tory of the world have been made by nations of 
 shepherds, vrhich are much more formidable than 
 nations of hunters or nations of husbandmen. An 
 army of hunters, as Adam Smith has observed, and 
 as we have seen exemplified in the case of the North 
 American Indians, " can seldom exceed two or three 
 hundred men. The precarious subsistence which the 
 chase affords could seldom allow a greater number to 
 keep together for any considerable time. An army 
 of shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount 
 to two or three hundred thousand. ... A nation 
 of hunters can never be formidable to the civilized 
 nations in their neighbourhood; a nation of shepherds 
 may. Nothing can be more contemptible than an 
 Indian war in North America ; nothing, on the con- 
 trary, can be more dread fal than a Tartar invasion 
 has frequently been in Asia." 
 
 Adam Smith then proceeds to observe that the 
 judgment of Thucydides,* that no nation, either of 
 Europe or Asia, could resist the Scythians united, 
 has been verified by the experience of all ages. 
 " The inhabitants," he adds, " of the extensive but 
 defenceless plains of Scythia and Tartary, have beeli 
 
 * Adam Smith appears not to quote Thucydides quite correctly 
 here. His words are, " The judgment of Thucydides that both 
 Europe and Asia could not resist the Scythians uniled;" whereas, 
 the words of Thucydides aie—ravTy Si aSvvara ^t<iov(t9ai. ovx 
 '6ti ra iv ry Eiipdiry, dXK' dvS" Iv t§ 'Aai<f tdvoQ iv irpbe Ev oAk iirnv 
 8, n Swarbv 'SxvBmQ oftoyvi»novoi:m vaaiv dvTivrijvai. — Thuc. ii. 97. 
 
CHAP. TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 97 
 
 frequently united under the dominion of the chief of 
 some conquering horde or clan ; and the havoc and 
 devastation of Asia have always signalized their 
 union. The iahahitants of the inhospitable deserts 
 of Arabia, the other great nation of shepherds, have 
 never been united but once — under Mahomet and 
 his immediate successors. Their union, wliich was' 
 more the eflFort of religious enthusiasm than of con- 
 quest, was signalized in the same manner." 
 
 It will hardly be contended that civilization has 
 been in any degree advanced by the conquests either 
 of the Scythian or Arab nations of shepherds. In 
 those cases, as the conquering nations were in a low 
 state of civihzation themselves — even on the assump- 
 tion that the conquered should acquire the civili- 
 zation of the conquerors — such acquisition could not 
 amount to much. But the result might, perhaps, 
 be expected to be different in those cases where the 
 conquerors possessed a considerable degree of civili- 
 zation — at least, as compared with the condition of 
 the natives they conquered. 
 
 Let us take the case of the greatest nation, viewed 
 as a nation extending its dominion by conquest, 
 which has appeared in the history of the world, and 
 endeavour to learn what were the effects of that 
 spirit of conquest upon the civilization of themselves 
 and those they conquered. With the Romans, at 
 least m the later stages of their history, patriotism 
 
 H 
 
98 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 meant the extension of their empire. This was their 
 sole standard of morality. They had no notion of 
 any higher duty to God and his eternal laws of 
 justice, mercy, and beneficence. This observation 
 applies even to those Romans whose standard of 
 morality was highest. Thus Tacitus,* describing 
 the massacre of the Marsi by Germanicus, says : 
 "The country for fifty miles was wasted with fire 
 and sword. Neither age nor sex was spared." And 
 yet he extols the clemency of Germanicus, in the 
 parallel between him and Alexander. And,t as if 
 it were a fine stroke of statesmanship, he describes 
 the policy of Agricola in Britain as directed to teach 
 the Britons far worse vices than those of their former 
 savage life. These were men of distinguished ancient 
 virtue. Again, TacitusJ thus describes the slaughter 
 in the victory gained by Suetonius Paulinus over 
 the Britons under Boadicea : " The soldiers did not 
 abstain from the slaughter of the women. The cattle 
 
 * Ann. i. 51. f Agric. 21. 
 
 % Ann. xIt. 37. The Athenian principles of public morals 
 were precisely the same. The argument put by Thucydides into 
 the mouth of Euphemus, dvSpi Si Tvpawtfi, y jroXtt a'px^v l^o^o^i 
 ovSiv SKoyov, 8, ri ^v/ifepov (Thuc. vi. 85), — and of the Athenian 
 ambassadors to the Melians: — r/yovfuQa yap to « Oitov lo^y, ri 
 dv9p(iirci6v Tt <Ta<p(os SiaTravrbq iiirb fvaetoe dvayxaiag, ov dv Kpary, 
 apx"" (Thuc. T. 105),— is in accordance with the whole of at least 
 their later history. Adam Smith concludes that the morals of the 
 Bomans, both in pubhc and private life, were, upon the whole, supe- 
 rior to those of the Greeks. But without going into minute dis- 
 tinctions, it may be concluded that both were bad. 
 
CHAP, TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 99 
 
 added to the heaps of slain. The glory of the day 
 was equal to the most splendid victories of ancient 
 times." "According to some writers, not less than 
 eighty thousand Britons," including, it may be in- 
 ferred, women and children, " were put to the 
 sword." Again, Tacitus* describes their treat- 
 ment of their subjects in language that cannot be 
 translated. ViteUius ordered new levies to be made, 
 and the youth of Batavia were to be called out. By 
 the avarice and profligacy of the Roman officers, the 
 aged and infirm were pressed into the service, in 
 order to extort from them large sums for their dis- 
 mission ; and boys of tender years, but advanced 
 in their growth (as was generally the case in that 
 country), ad stuprum trahebantur. 
 
 Far as some of the modem imitators of these 
 oppressors and corrupters of the ancient world have 
 gone, none have come quite up to their model; which, 
 in the later stages, presented such a fermentation of 
 vice and crime ; of cruelty, sensuality, and unnatural 
 passions; of universal dissolution of all the ties of 
 humanity, morahty, and religion, as the world has 
 surely never elsewhere seen. The effect of the 
 Roman policy in thoroughly brutalizing the Roman 
 populace, and, indeed, the whole people, is described 
 by Tacitus, f In the conflict in the streets of Rome 
 between the soldiers of ViteUius and Vespasian, the 
 
 * Hist. iT. U. t ^W. iii. 83. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 STRENGTH OF NATIOls'S, [cHAP. TI. 
 
 populace cheered the combatants with shouts and 
 theatrical applause. If the men fled from their ranks 
 and took shelter in shops or houses, they roared to 
 have them dragged forth and put to death, .like 
 gladiators, for their diversion. While the soldiers 
 were intent on slaughter, they were employed in 
 plundering. Truly, such a people deserved all the 
 sufferings they endured from their tyrants — instru- 
 ments of the vengeance of Heaven — when the spirit 
 of cruelty and brutality which those oppressors and 
 robbers of the ancient world had so long exercised in 
 other nations was turned against themselves. On 
 this occasion Rome presented a medley of savage 
 slaughter and monstrous vice : in one place, war 
 and desolation ; in another, bathing, riot, and de- 
 bauchery. 
 
 Even without any sympathy for the general suc- 
 cess of Carthage, it is difficult, in reading the cam- 
 paigns of Hannibal, to suppress a wish that the great 
 Carthaginian — the " nostris ex ossibus ultor" of 
 Dido's dying imprecation — had not only pursued the 
 self-styled descendants of Virgil's base pseudo-hero 
 with fire and sword, but had completed his work by 
 utterly extirpating that nest of immoderate and san- 
 guinary robbers. But the fates ordered otherwise ; 
 and the unequalled warrior whom all the Roman 
 armies could never conquer in Italy, was forced to 
 succumb to that fortune before which all things 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST, 101 
 
 human were for a time doomed to yield; and a 
 dose of poison became " Cannarum vindex et tanti 
 sanguinis ultor."* 
 
 In examining the arguments which have some- 
 times been advanced on behalf of conquests and 
 conquerors, namely, that they are instruments of 
 civilization, it will be proper to bear in mind that 
 the irruption of the barbarians on the Roman em- 
 pire does not fall under the signification of conquest 
 here used. I speak not of a body of m^a, whether 
 in a more or less savage state, seeking a new settle- 
 ment, but of the chief or chiefs of a nation already 
 in possession of a sufficient territory, seeking to 
 extend their dominion over the territory already 
 belonging to others. In regard to the argument 
 referred to, I think it will be found, on examina- 
 tion, that the civilization produced by conquest is a 
 very false, hollow, and unsound civilization; that 
 it goes little, if at all, below the surface, and pos- 
 sesses little or nothing of the true nerve and sinews, 
 heart and brain, of real civilization, which must de- 
 velop itself naturally, and gradually, and healthily 
 
 * It may be remarked, as an example of the way in which the 
 later Homan writers showed themselves the mock-birds of Virgil's 
 song, that Juvenal, struck, no doubt, with the swelling sound of 
 Virgil's line — 
 
 " Exoriare aliq^uis nostris ex ossibus ultor " — 
 
 attempted to copy its beauty and harmony when he calls the 
 ring containing the poison which destroyed Hannibal — 
 
 " Cannarum vindex ac tanti sanguinis ultor." 
 
102 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. TI. 
 
 from withiiij not be forcibly impressed and forced on 
 from without. 
 
 This is apparent from the so-called civilization 
 introduced by the Romans among the nations they 
 conquered, which fell to pieces, like a fabric of snow 
 or sand, when the Roman power fell, being quite 
 unable to withstand the attacks of the invading bar- 
 barians. And we may ask, too, what civilization the 
 Franks introduced into Gaul, or the Normans into 
 Italy, England, and Ireland. If civilization has been, 
 or is to be, the result in these cases, it is not as a 
 proximate, or even ultimate, consequence of con- 
 Ijuest, but as a consequence of certain violent con- 
 flicts, struggles, or fermentations, which followed not 
 in accordance with, but in reaction of, such con- 
 quest. In England, the advance made in rational and 
 healthy free institutions above all the nations of the 
 world is attributable, in great part, to what at first 
 sight seemed likely to have a contrary effect. Cer- 
 tain circumstances in an event, the conquest by the 
 Normans, which at first seemed and was a very 
 deplorable one, made the earlier Anglo-Norman 
 kings the most powerful kings of their time, but 
 also raised up a resistance to them, so powerful as to 
 make the English kings subsequently have a limited 
 authority, when the other European kings held an 
 unlimited or absolute authority. It would be very 
 fallacious reasoning, however, to set this up as an 
 argument in favour of conquest ; and very unsafe to 
 
CHAP. TI.j CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 103 
 
 trust to such experiments, if the object sought after 
 were human happiness and prosperity, not human 
 misery and degradation. 
 
 Admitting that a certain consolidation of tribes or 
 populations is favourable, perhaps necessary, to the 
 progress of civilization, it seems of the first impor- 
 tance that such consolidation should be the effect of 
 mutual consent and agreement ; as in the case of the 
 union of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, of England 
 and Scotland, of the United Provinces of HoUaiid, 
 and of the United States of America : not of violence 
 and conquest, as in the case of Rome and her various 
 provinces and municipia, of France and some of her 
 southern provinces, of Prussia and Silesia, of Russia, 
 Prussia, and Austria with various parts of Poland, 
 and, to mention a recent and very melancholy instance, 
 of Austria and Hungary. This distinction I con- 
 ceive to be one of paramount importance, and it is co- 
 extensive with one which, in the present day, when 
 a good deal is said about hero-worship, is also of no 
 small importance: the distinction, namely, between 
 heroes and conquerors — a distinction which leads ne- 
 cessarily to another, that grows up beside it, the 
 distinction between God-worship and devil-worship. 
 
 Whatever amount of good may occasionally and 
 
 indirectly grow up out of the doings of conque- 
 
 . rors, I hold it to be a truth that all conquerors, 
 
 qua conquerors, are to be viewed as the mortal 
 
 enemies of the human race, and as such are to be 
 
104 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP, TI. 
 
 hunted down and extirpated, as the wolves were 
 hunted down and extirpated in England and other 
 somewhat civilized countries.* It is true that this 
 opinion, even though it may be, in process of time, 
 more and more acted upon, will not hinder those, of 
 whom there will probably always be many in the 
 world, who worship the powers of good and evil 
 alike, from bending the knee at the very name of a 
 conqueror. Nevertheless, no one who feels for 
 human suffering, and who knows what an enormous 
 amount of the worst kinds and degrees of human 
 suffering is inflicted by such conquests as William 
 the Norman made in Saxon England, f can hesitate 
 
 * And when any nation, at least any European nation, insists 
 upon seeking to invade the territory of its neighbours, the rational 
 course would be, when other milder courses have been found 
 ineffective, to blot it, as a nation, from the map of Europe. 
 It is surely monstrous that at this time of day the pretence of 
 Waterloo should be advanced for France seeking to invade Eng- 
 land. Where was the battle of Waterloo fought? Not on French 
 territory. If Napoleon Bonaparte, or any other disturber of the 
 peace of Europe, were beaten on invading another country, his 
 representatives and abettors have no pretence for repeating the 
 same crime by way of retaliation for the former failure. Europe 
 is sufficiently advanced now to put an effectual stop to a further 
 repetition of such outrages. 
 
 f M. Thierry's Histor)/ of the Norman Conquest, of which there 
 are now several English translations, places before the reader a 
 vivid and terrible picture of the miseries inflicted by such a con- 
 quest. Men in the state in which both the Normans and Saxons 
 were, differ little from beasts of prey, save that, in addition to the 
 appetites and instincts of such animals, they have the aid of a 
 certain amount of human intelligence and human calculations. 
 The Komans were never anything else but such human beasts of 
 prey. And there are even in the most humane and civilized com- 
 munities many individuals who are such human beasts of prey. 
 
CHAP. TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 105 
 
 for a moment to draw the proper line of distinction 
 between such heroes as Epaminondas and Alexander 
 called the Great, as Alfred called the Great and 
 William the Norman, as Robert Bruce and Edward 
 Longshanks, as George Washington and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 Fearful indeed are the consequences of a great 
 successfiil crime perpetrated by a great man. What 
 centuries of misery and degradation followed the 
 success of Caesar the Dictator ! Bad as the Roman 
 oligarchy were, what were all their tyrannies and 
 crimes compared to the before unimagined horrors of 
 the reigns of Tiberius, of Caligula, of Nero, of Do- 
 mitian, and a long series of imperial fiends, each 
 stamped with its own individual impress of cruelty 
 and wickedness? To take an example from more 
 modem times. The English ambassadors at the 
 court of Prussia, Sir Andrew Mitchell and Lord 
 Malmesbury, have enabled us to form an idea of 
 the extent to which a successftJ robber-tyrant — in 
 pursuing his own profligate objects, self-aggrandize- 
 ment, and self-worship ; his conduct being dictated 
 by fraud, vanity, and avarice — may be enabled to 
 crush and brutalize a whole nation.* There is a 
 broad distinction between the worship of such men 
 
 * See Sir Andrew Mitchell's Memoirs and Papers, vol. ii. pp. 337, 
 342, 343, &c., and the Earl of Malmesbury's Diaries and Corre- 
 spondence, vol. i. p. 97. 
 
106 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 under the name of heroes, from choice, and the 
 worship of them by those who had no choice : 
 as in the Roman Senate's decree of a statue to 
 Julius Caesar supported on a figure of the earth, 
 with the inscription " Semideus ; " in the deifica- 
 tion of the two first Csesars by the contemporary 
 Roman poets; and in Milton's adulation of Cromwell, 
 in which he only imitated the adulation of one of 
 the most accomplished men to the most accomplished 
 man and largest robber of all antiquity.* In those 
 cases, men gave worship or adalation in return for 
 protection. 
 
 Moreover, though, as regards foreign nations, con- 
 querors may be regarded as large and bold robbers, 
 as regards their own nation they often descend to 
 
 * " Quod si rerum tuarum immortaliuin, C. Csesar, Mo exltus 
 futurus fuit, ut, devictis adversariis, rempublioam in eo statu relin- 
 queres, in quo nunc est : vide, qusBso, ne tua divina virtus admi- 
 rationis plus sit iiabitura, quam glorise : siquidem gloria est 
 illustris ac pervagata multorum et magnorum, vel in suos, vel in 
 patriam, vel in omne genus hominum, fama meritorum. Nee vero 
 hsec tua vita ducenda est, quae corpore et spiritu continetur : ilia, 
 inquam, ilia vita est tua, quas vigebit memoria sseculorum omnium: 
 quam posteritas alet, quam ipsa seternitas semper tuebitur." — 
 Cic. Orat. pro M. Marcello. It is instructive to compare this 
 exhibition of adulatory rhetoric with what the same man has said 
 of CsBsar after his death, Cic De Off., iii. 21. Whether Csesar 
 or Alexander were the larger robber, to the former as to the latter 
 the words, in the same language as the slavish panegyric quoted 
 above, and remarkable as being in the language of a nation of 
 robbers, are applicable — 
 
 " Felix terrarum praedo, non utile mundo 
 Editus exemplum." 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 107 
 
 that species of rotbery known by the name of swin- 
 dling — ^for debasing the coin is a mode of swindling 
 their own subjects. From the earliest times in 
 England till the reign of Edward III., the denotni- 
 nation of money had never been altered. A pound 
 sterling was a pound troy; that is, about three 
 pounds of our present money. The conqueror, 
 Edward III., coined twenty-five shillings from a 
 pound troy; and Henry V. coiaed thirty shillings 
 from a pound troy. It is evident to what extent 
 they thereby defrauded those to whom they owed 
 money. To what extent another conqueror, Fre- 
 derick II. of Prussia, defrauded his subjects in this 
 way, will appear from the following passage of a 
 despatch of the English ambassador, dated Berlin, 
 5th March, 1763 :— « His Prussian Majesty affirms 
 that he has laid no taxes whatever upon his subjects ; 
 though at the same time it is evident that, by the 
 alteration and diminution of the coin, his subjects 
 have, since the beginning of the war, lost two -thirds 
 of their personal estate, being paid at the rate of 
 thirty-three for one hundred." * 
 
 The distinction between heroes and conquerors is 
 completely in accordance with the old and proper 
 meaning of the much-abused word "hero," which 
 Lord Bacon thus notices : " Rerumpub. conditores, 
 legislatores, tyrannicidse, patres patriae, quique in 
 rebus civilibus optime meruerunt, insigniti sunt 
 
 * Mitchell Papers, vol. ii. p. 343. 
 
108 STRENGTH OB" NATIONS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 titulo heroum."* In this definition of "hero," it 
 will be observed, that, while it comprehends such 
 men as Socrates, Hampden, Turgot, and Franklin, 
 conquerors are not included; nor those men — how- 
 ever strong in mind and body, and however suc- 
 cessful in their enterprises — who acted towards their 
 country as Csesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte did. 
 The proper name for such men is not " heroes," but 
 "tyranni." But in some modem cosmogonies hero- 
 worship is synonymous with devil-worship.f 
 
 * De Augm. Scient. lib. i. Bacon, according to his custom, 
 has repeated this enumeration in his English works. Thus, in the 
 Advancement of Learning, p. 62, vol. ii. of Montagu's edition, he 
 says — ^placing " inventors and authors of new arts " above heroes 
 — " There were reckoned, above human honours, honours heroical 
 and divine ; in the attribution and distribution of which honours, 
 we see, antiquity made this difference — ^that whereas founders and 
 uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers 
 of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit, were 
 honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods : on the 
 other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, endow- 
 ments, and commodities towards man's life, were ever consecrated 
 among the gods themselves." The same idea is found in his Essays 
 — ^in the Essay of Honour and Reputation. Like most great vreiters, 
 Bacon is in the habit of repeating himself. In the Se Augmentis — 
 his last Work, published in 1623, shortly before his death, which 
 tookplac4 ii^l626, and twenty-six years after the publication of 
 his Hgsaj'Si^the idea is in a greatly more correct form, for in the 
 Essayp he inserts among " heroes " some men omitted in the De 
 Augmentis, who, though great men undoubtedly, could not be 
 classed among the benefactors of mankind, and whose worship 
 belongs more to devil-worship than to hero-worship. 
 
 f The following advertisement, which appeared in respectable 
 newspapers not long since, may be adduced as a significant com- 
 mentary on the effects of the modern distorted views of hero- 
 worship and heroine-worship: — ^' Heroines of History. By . 
 
CHAP. TI.] CrVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 109 
 
 There is nothing new in this worship of successful 
 crime, nor in the arguments by which it is defended. 
 Both the worship and the defence of it existed more 
 than two thousand years ago, and will probably exist 
 more than two thousand years hence, if this world 
 lasts so long. In that state of society which existed 
 among the Athenians for a century before the fall 
 of Athens, it was the common creed of sophists and 
 politicians. We have a type of these politicians and 
 sophists in Callicles, one of the speakers in Plato's 
 Gorgias. Callicles, by way of refuting Socrates, 
 contends that his arguments about justice and in- 
 justice apply only to what is just and . unjust by 
 institution or law, not by nature; that laws, being 
 made by the many and the weals to protect them- 
 
 Illuatrated by . Comprising sketches of the following distin- 
 guished females mentioned in history: — Semiramis, Cleopatra, 
 Catherine de' Medici, Mary Stuart, Madame de Maintenon, &c." 
 This advertisement of " distlngnished females," " heroines of his- 
 tory," adds — " it forms a most appropriate present for a young 
 lady." Heaven help the poor young ladies who worship at such 
 shrines ! The records of our criminal courts already begin to show 
 the eflfects of such moral lessons as naturally flow from panegy- 
 rical lives of the pupils of Catherine de' Medici, written with a total 
 disregard of all the rules of historical evidence. The panegy- 
 rists of these " heroes" and " heroines," perhaps, think that actions 
 which in ordinary men and women are the blackest crimes, are 
 lawful in them, as they were esteemed lawful in the Seleucidse and 
 the Ptolemies. For the true character of one of these heroines, see 
 the State Papers, published by M. Von Eaumer, relating to Queen 
 Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, pp. 68, 69, and 70. We only 
 want now the lives of Messalina and Agrippina, written in the 
 same florid, panegyrical strain, and with the same disregard to the 
 sifting and weighing of evidence. 
 
110 STEE]<rGTH or NATIONS. [cHAP. TI. 
 
 selves against the strong, have instituted a false 
 standard of just and unjust. " But nature herself," 
 says this Athenian apostle of hero-worship, " shows 
 that it is just for the better to take more than the 
 worse, and the stronger than the weaker." She 
 shows this in the other animals and in whole 
 nations and races of men. If a man arise ade- 
 quately endowed by nature, he tramples upon our 
 statutes and all institutions contrary to nature, 
 becomes our master, and the justice of nature 
 shines forth in him. Pindar indicates this in the 
 ode in which he says that Hercules took away 
 the oxen of Greryon, neither bujdng them nor re- 
 ceiving them by gift; this being natural justice, 
 and all the possessions of the worse and the 
 weaker belonging of right to the better and the 
 stronger. Upon Socrates asking if it was neces- 
 sary for any one to command himself, but only 
 other people, Callicles asks in return what Socrates 
 means by commanding himself. Socrates replies, 
 that he means only what the vulgar mean, to be 
 temperate and sober, governing his own pleasures 
 and desires. 
 
 "How pleasant you are!" exclaims Callicles; "you 
 describe a simpleton, and call him a sober person. 
 How can a person be happy if he is a slave to any- 
 thing? I freely tell you, that what is noble and just 
 by nature is, that he who would live well should allow 
 his desires to attam the greatest possible strength, and 
 
CHAT. TI.j CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. Ill 
 
 never restrain them ; and should be capable, by his 
 courage and talents, of satisfying his desires, however 
 great they may be. But of this the many are inca- 
 pable ; and therefore do they censure such conduct 
 to hide their own impotence, and pretend that self- 
 indulgence is a vile thing ; and because they are not 
 capable of ministering to their own appetites, they 
 praise temperance and justice from mere unman- 
 liness. For, in reality, to those who are born to a 
 throne, or who are capable by their natural endow- 
 ments of raising themselves to despotic power, what 
 can be more ignoble or more contemptible than self- 
 control?"* 
 
 In another part of the same dialogue, another 
 sophist, Polus, relates a series of crimes by which 
 Archelaus had risen to the throne of Macedonia, 
 intermixing much sarcastic irony (of a quality not 
 inferior in polish to that used for the purpose of 
 ridiculing opponents by the advocates of successful 
 criminals in these days) on the notion of Socrates 
 that Archelaus was tmhappy and unenviable; end- 
 ing by saying — " and do you suppose there is a 
 single Athenian, beginning with yourself, who would 
 not rather be Archelaus than any other of the Mace- 
 donians ? " 
 
 Perhaps the most worthy to excite the admiration 
 of those who admire great ability and energy exer-; 
 cised for the oppression and plunder, the slaughter 
 * Plat. Gorg. p. 98, Bip. 
 
112 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 and degradation of mankind, was Julius Caesar. No 
 such splendid criminal had then appeared, or Polus 
 would have selected him much rather than Arche- 
 laus. Gffisar is said to have defeated in battle alto- 
 gether three millions of men, to have slain one-third 
 of this number, and led another third into- captivity. 
 Allowing for considerable exaggeration in this esti- 
 mate, the carnage of the Gallic war, according to 
 CsBsar's own account, must have been very great. 
 At the same time, for his ulterior objects, he 
 neglected no opportunity of amassing riches; and, 
 with this view, plundered both the temples of the 
 Gallic deities, and the territories of allies as well 
 as enemies. To Csesar, as to the Athenian sophists 
 and politicians and their modern successors, every^ 
 thing appeared just and honourable that served as 
 a step towards absolute dominion ; and Cicero re- 
 lates that Csesar had often on his lips the passage 
 of Euripides, that " if justice is to be violated, it 
 ought to be for sovereign power." * 
 
 * c'nrsp yap dSuceXv xpi), rvpawiSoe vkpi 
 KoSXuiTov dSiRiXv. — Eurip. Phmniss. y. 534. 
 
 Porson, in his note on this verse, after giving Cicero's transla- 
 tion of it (Z)c Off. iii. 21.), remarks on Cicero's observation " capi- 
 talis Eteocles, vel potius Euripides, qui id unum, quod sceleratis- 
 simum fiierit, exceperit," — " ubi ineptum additamentum esse ea 
 verba, vel potius Euripides, recte monuit Wyttenbachius." — Bibl. 
 Crit. part iii. p. 30. The terms in which Cicero relates this, show- 
 that the passage must have been written (if intended to be made 
 public at the tune when it was written) after the death of Csesar, 
 that is, some time during the two years that Cicero survived 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 113 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that though Plato 
 represents this approbation of successful crime as 
 not confined to the sophists, but extending to a 
 large proportion of the Athenians of his age and 
 of the age of Socrates, the Greeks never elevated 
 a successful usurper who had raised himself to 
 absolute power by trampling down the commu- 
 nity into a hero or demigod; indeed, the superior 
 spirits among both the Greeks and Romans have 
 employed their abilities, not in extolling successful 
 tyrants and in trying to sneer down all who do not 
 extol them, but in painting them as criminals on 
 whom the internal tortures of remorse, the terrible 
 Erinnys, avenged the wrongs of mankind. Plato and 
 Tacitus have exhausted the powers of language in 
 depicting those " wounds and lacerations " which 
 the minds of tyrants would disclose if they were 
 laid open.* " Far from considering," to borrow the 
 words of Mr. Grote, " success in usurpation as a jus- 
 tification of the attempt (according to the theories 
 now prevalent respecting Cromwell and Bonaparte, 
 who are often blamed because they kept out a legiti- 
 mate king, but never because they seized on unau- 
 thorized power over the people), these philosophers 
 regard the despot as among the greatest of criminals, "f 
 
 Cssar: the murder of the great general and statesman was soon 
 followed by that of the great orator, for such, notwithstanding his 
 faults, he must be called. 
 
 * Plat. Sepuh. ix. pp. 255, 256, Bip.; Tacit. Ann. vi. 6. 
 
 t Grote's History of Greece, vol. iii.p. 36. 
 
 I 
 
114 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 While endeavouring to enforce the importance of 
 the right use of the word " hero," we ought not to 
 lose sight of another distinction which Bacon has 
 also noticed. For while the class above mentioned 
 were honoured but with the titles of heroes or demi- 
 gods, " on the other side," adds Bacon, " such as 
 were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, 
 and commodities towards man's life, were ever con- 
 secrated among the gods themselves : and justly; for 
 the merit of the former is confined within the circle 
 of an age or a nation, and is like fruitful showers, 
 which, though they be profitable and good, yet serve 
 but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where 
 they fall; but the other is indeed like the benefits 
 of Heaven, which are permanent and universal."* 
 
 Now, of this class of benefactors of mankind 
 who rank above heroes, I would here venture to 
 name three, by way of illustration of what Bacon 
 calls permanent and universal benefits, as distin- 
 guished from those confined to one age or one 
 nation. The three names are Simon de Mont- 
 fort, Bacon himself, and Adam Smith. In regard 
 to Adam Smith, there hardly needs any com- 
 ment. In regard to Bacon, if what is here said 
 should appear inconsistent with some parts of his 
 conduct, I would observe that, though the moral 
 obliquity of Bacon's nature was the cause of his 
 
 * Advancement of Learning, pp. 62-3, vol. ii. of Montagu's edition. 
 London, 1825. 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 115 
 
 doing some evil in his time, the evil was compara- 
 tively temporary and local, while the good done by 
 his intellect is permanent and universal. As for 
 Simon de Montfort, besides his title to " hero" for 
 his victories, and death in defence of liberty, I place 
 him with Bacon and Adam Smith for his discovery 
 of what has been called by a modem philosopher 
 " the divine principle" of representative government, 
 for want of which all the ancient practical experiments 
 in government failed. 
 
 Plato, seeing clearly the necessity, for the pur- 
 pose of good government, of identifying the inte- 
 rests of the governors and the governed, but being 
 ignorant of the principle of representation, saw no 
 way of accomplishing the object he had in view 
 but by prescribing a very artificial system of edu- 
 cation for the class of rulers, which should make 
 them philosophers; laying it down as a universal 
 truth, that there can be no happiness for States until 
 either philosophers are the rulers or the rulers philo- 
 sophers — an idea which Bacon has repeated in almost 
 the same words — " turn demum respublicas fore 
 . felices, cum aut philosophi regnant, aut reges philo- 
 sophantur."* 
 
 * Bacon De Augm. lib. i. p. 76, ed. Lugd. Batav. 1645. The 
 same idea is thus expressed in his Advancement of Learning : — 
 " For although he might be thought partial to his own profession 
 that said, ' Then should people and estates be happy, when either 
 kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;' yet so much is 
 verified by experience, that under learned princes and governors 
 there have been ever the best times."— p. 64, Montagu's edition. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 It is difficult to speak with atsolute certainty of a 
 fact so remote. But it appears to be generally ad- 
 mitted that Simon de Montfort first reduced to prac- 
 tice, if he did not first devise, that which has been 
 designated the grand discovery of modem times — the 
 principle of representation. Strange, that a warlike 
 baron, in a rude and dark age, should hit upon that 
 which the greatest philosophers of antiquity had 
 missed in all their profound political speculations; 
 and for want of which all the attempts at good 
 government made by the most free and enlightened 
 nations of antiquity had proved such utter failures : 
 — a discovery, compared to which, if the value of 
 discoveries is to be tested by their results, the boasted 
 discoveries of more recent times must sink into com- 
 parative insignificance. 
 
 When a right estimate of military virtue, and a 
 true measure of military glory, come at last to be 
 taken. Englishmen — ^whether they be of Norman, of 
 Saxon, or of Celtic name or origin — will in time 
 perhaps discover that few indeed of those to whom 
 they have raised monuments and statues possess an 
 equal claim upon their gratitude with the men who 
 died sword in hand with De Montfort on the bloody 
 field of Evesham, fighting for England's rights and 
 the world's liberties and well-being. Simon de 
 Montfort, indeed, their great leader, was not born 
 in England. But, if of any man, it may be said 
 of him who introduced that representative system 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 117 
 
 which the whole world as it gradually emerges into 
 civilization is borrowing from the land to which 
 De Montfort gave it, that the world is his country, 
 and that the world's mightiest mountains form the 
 monument of him " whose realm refused him even a 
 tomb."* 
 
 That degree of honour called by the Greeks 
 " apotheosis," and by the Latins "relatio inter divos," 
 was, as Bacon observes, " the supreme honour which 
 man could attribute unto man: especially when it 
 was given, — ^not by a formal decree, or act of State, 
 as it was used among the Roman emperors, but by 
 an inward assent and belief." Of this supreme 
 honour, given by the inward assent and belief of 
 mankind, there are no stronger proofs, no more en- 
 during records, than those ancient ballads which have 
 transmitted from generation to generation the names 
 and exploits of De Montfort, Wallace, and Robin 
 Hood: for Robin Hood, too, fought on the side of 
 
 * And the words used in the funeral oration of Pericles, " dvSp&v 
 hrvpcuvoiv iraaa yij rafoQ (Thuc. ji. 43) may be applied to De 
 Montfort if the sense which Hobbes has given to 7^ be used — "to 
 famous men all the earth is a sepulchre : " which, however, is 
 not what Thucydides meant here, his meaning, though the word 
 yrj is ambiguous, being, as appears from the context, not the 
 whole earth absolutely, but only the territory of Attica — a meaning 
 conveyed in Byron's lines — 
 
 " A mightier monument command, 
 The mountains of their native land." 
 
118 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Tl. 
 
 De Montfort, for the liberties of England.* Such 
 ballads have more power, rude though they be, than 
 all the polished flattery and falsehood of the greatest 
 court poets that ever existed; even though Virgil and 
 Horace be at the head of them : 
 
 " For one long-cherished ballad's simple staye, 
 Eung from the rock, or mingled with the wave. 
 Hath greater power o'er each tnie heart and ear. 
 Than all the columns conquest's minions rear." 
 
 These three — De Montfort, Wallace, and Kobin 
 Hood — have enjoyed that apotheosis which is conferred 
 by a nation's assent and belief; of which one mani- 
 festation is the popularity of the ballads reciting their 
 deeds. Upon the whole, Wallace in Scotland has 
 enjoyed this apotheosis the longest and the most 
 thoroughly. Of the effect of the rude but simple 
 narrative of the Acts and Deeds of Sir William 
 Wallace" by Henry the Minstrel, I have in the 
 course of my life met with some remarkable proofs. 
 To give one instance: — An old man-of-war's man 
 once said to a friend of mine — " I would do any 
 
 thing for you, sir, — there was a " (pronouncing 
 
 his name) " with Wallace." Here was surely a 
 genuine case of hero-worship. Wallace, and this 
 follower of his, one of his captains who fought and 
 perished for Scotland, had been dead 550 years; but 
 
 * This has been shown in a most able and elaborate paper on 
 Eobin Hood, in the London and Westmitister Bevievi for March, 
 1840. 
 
CHAP. TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 119 
 
 the eye of the dullest peasant in Scotland will still 
 
 brighten at the very sound of their names, though 
 
 the country they saved has raised neither tomb, nor 
 
 temple, nor column, nor even the humblest tablet, 
 
 to their memory ; and though no tribute is exacted 
 
 to keep alive 
 
 " The lamps that burn 
 Before each low and lonely nrn" — 
 
 not the "dying lamps" before the tomb in Melrose 
 Abbey, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, but the 
 lamps that cannot die, or at least •will continue to 
 burn until the race of human beings shall have passed 
 away, to whom those men's names are a spell far 
 more powerful than the names of kings. Burns 
 only expressed more forcibly than they could have 
 done it themselves the sentiments of thousands of 
 his countrymen, when, after saying, " The two first 
 books I ever read in private, and which gave me 
 more pleasure than any books I ever read since, 
 were the Life of Hannibal, and the History of Sir 
 William Wallace," — ^he added, " The story of Wal- 
 lace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, 
 which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life 
 shut in eternal rest." 
 
 The peculiar merit of Simon de Montfort, which 
 gives him a claim to a rank both among " heroes " 
 and among those who are above "heroes," will 
 appear from the sentence with which Bacon con- 
 cludes the paragraph, from which a quotation 
 
120 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TI. 
 
 has been made, in his Advancement of Learning. 
 "The former again," he adds (that is, the benefit 
 derived from the work of heroes), " is mixed with 
 strife and perturbation ; but the latter " (that is, the 
 benefit derived from the labours of inventors and 
 authors of new arts towards man's life) "hath the 
 true character of Divine presence, coming 'in aura 
 leni,' without noise or agitation." Now the work of 
 Simon de Montfort partook of both ; for while it 
 possessed the divine character of permanence and 
 universality, it was necessarily marked also with the 
 heroic character of human strife and perturbation. 
 
 But to return to the more vulgar subject of con- 
 querors and their work. One may form a tolerably 
 correct idea of what sort of evils more remote con- 
 querors inflicted upon mankind, from those inflicted 
 in our own time by nations termed civilized. In a 
 proclamation to the people of Portugal, dated 4th 
 August, 1810, the Duke of Wellington, then 
 Viscount Wellington, said : 
 
 " The time which has elapsed, during which the 
 enemy have remained upon the frontiers of Portugal, 
 has fortunately afforded to the Portuguese nation ex- 
 perience of what they are to expect from the French. 
 
 " The people had remained in some villages, 
 trusting to the enemy's promises, and vainly behev- 
 ing that, by treating the enemies of their country 
 in a friendly manner, they would conciliate their 
 forbearance, and that their properties would be 
 
CHAP. TI.J CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 121 
 
 respected, their women would be saved from viola- 
 tion, and that their lives would be spared. 
 
 " Yain hopes ! The people of those devoted vil- 
 lages have suffered every evil which a cruel enemy 
 could inflict Their property has been plundered, 
 their houses and furniture burnt^ their women have 
 been ravished, and the unfortunate inhabitants whose 
 age or sex did not tempt the brutal violence of the 
 soldiers, have fallen the victims of the imprudent 
 confidence they reposed in promises which were 
 made only to be violated." * 
 
 Again, in a despatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated 
 14th March, 1811, he says: — "I am concerned to 
 be obliged to add to this account, that their (the 
 French) conduct throughout this retreat has been 
 marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never 
 
 surpassed This is the mode in which the 
 
 promises have been performed, and the assurances 
 have been fulfilled, which were held out in the pro- 
 clamation of the French commander-in-chief, in 
 which he told the inhabitants of Portugal that he 
 was not come to make war upon them, but with a 
 powerful army of 110,000 men to drive the English 
 into the sea." f 
 
 Of similar treatment experienced by the Spaniards 
 
 * Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the 
 Duke of Wellington, p. 375, No. 426. 
 
 f Gurwood's Selectitms from the Despatches of Field Marshal the 
 Duke of Wellington, p. 449, No. 507. 
 
/ / 
 
 122 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TI. 
 
 at the same hands, the same authentic documents con- 
 tain abundant evidence. 
 
 But this is only one side of the picture. Such 
 are the dreadful effects of war, that, although the 
 English commander exerted himself strenuously and 
 unceasingly to repress and punish all excesses in his 
 soldiers, the unfortunate inhabitants sometimes suf- 
 fered the like evils from those who came to defend, 
 as from those who came to attack them. On this 
 point the Duke of Wellington says, in the memoran- 
 dum on the proposed plan for altering the discipline 
 of the army, dated 22nd April, 1829— " Let us 
 only refer to our orderly books in the Peninsula. 
 Let us remember the horrors committed by small 
 detachments on their marches to join the army, not- 
 withstanding the anxious care taken to prevent 
 them."* 
 
 And if further and more minute evidence be 
 required, it may be found in many of the memoirs 
 written by officers and soldiers engaged in that 
 war. Perhaps those may be particularly referred 
 to which contain the relation (confirmed by the 
 general order of the Duke of Wellington, dated 
 Badajoz, 8th April, 1812) of the atrocities com- 
 mitted by the British soldiers, after the storm of 
 Badajoz, on the Spanish inhabitants, whom they 
 had come to protect. 
 
 * Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the 
 Duke of Wellington, p. 919, No. 1013. 
 
CHAP. TI.] CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST. 123 
 
 And are all these, then, heroes ? One would think 
 not, with the permission of the hero-worshippers. 
 Truly does the Duke of Wellington, who ought to 
 know something of the matter, say — " Believe me, 
 that every man you see in a military uniform is 
 not a hero." * 
 
 There is a remarkable parallel between an expres- 
 sion of the Duke of Wellington, in a letter to the 
 Earl of Liverpool, dated " Sta. Marinha, 23rd 
 March, 1811," and the sentiment (though no one 
 would accuse the illustrious Duke of being in the 
 ordinary sense of the term a "man of sentiment") 
 put by Homer into the mouth of Hector. The 
 Duke says : — " I shall be sorry if Government should 
 think themselves under the necessity of withdrawing 
 from this country, on accotmt of the expense of the 
 contest. From what I have seen of the objects of 
 the French Government and the sacrifices they 
 make to accomplish them, I have no doubt that if 
 the British army were for any reason to withdraw 
 from the Peninsula, and the French Government 
 were relieved from the pressure of military opera- 
 tions on the Continent, they would incur all risks to 
 land an army in his Majesty's dominions. Then 
 indeed would commence an expensive contest ; then 
 would his Majesty's subjects discover what are the 
 miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, 
 
 ♦ Chirwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the 
 Duke of Wellington, p. 887, No. 986. 
 
124 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 they have hitherto had no knowledge ; and the cul- 
 tivation, the beauty, and prosperity of the country, 
 and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would 
 be destroyed, whatever might be the result of the 
 military operations. God forbid that I should be a 
 witness, much less an actor in the scene." * 
 
 Hector, after alluding to the miseries to be inflicted 
 by the Greeks on Troy when it falls, adds : — 
 
 'AXKa /IE TcBvaSiTa ;ifun) Kara yma koXvvtoi, 
 Upiv y en aijg re jiorJQ aov S'eXkijS/ioIo TniQiadai, 
 
 * Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, No. 515, p. 457. And in his memorable letter to Sir John 
 Burgoyne in 1847, the Duke says, "I am bordering on seventy- 
 seven years, passed in honour. I hope that the Almighty may 
 protect me from being the -witness of the tragedy which I cannot 
 persuade my contemporaries to take measures to avert." 
 
125 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NOEMANS. 
 
 When the world was some fifteen hundred years 
 older since the Latian shepherds founded their 
 city, which was to become in time the imperial city, 
 there arose in another part of Europe a race of men 
 animated at first with the same passion for conquest 
 which marked the Romans. The march of these 
 men too, like that of the Romans, was always on- 
 ward, and they met with no obstacles which they 
 did not finally overcome. But, as elements both of 
 humanity and wisdom unknown to the Romans 
 have entered into their pohcy, it may be concluded 
 that, though their beginning somewhat resembled the 
 beginning of the shepherds who founded the city of 
 the Seven Hills, their end, which is not yet — and 
 which I hope may be far distant — ^will not be like 
 theirs. 
 
 At a time when the ancient civilization, such as it 
 was, might be said to have reached its highest point — 
 the point from which it began rapidly to decline — 
 Horace extolled the courage, which appeared to him 
 
126 STEENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. VII. 
 
 miraculous, of the first man who committed himself 
 
 in a frail bark to the merciless sea. This expression 
 
 of Horace's is only an exponent of the fact that the 
 
 ancients never attained to that skill and confidence 
 
 in navigation which made the lines of a modern poet 
 
 no empty boast, when applied to the Norsemen and 
 
 their descendants — '• 
 
 " Their march is o'er the mountain waves, 
 Their home is on the deep." 
 
 In the fact of this difference, lies, I apprehend, the 
 essential superiority of modern civilization to ancient; 
 and without this, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, 
 with all its antecedents, and still more all its conse- 
 quences, would never have been written. A Roman's 
 notion of the "wealth of nations" consisted, not in 
 the free interchange of the produce of free industry, 
 but in the absorption of the produce of all industry 
 by the military robber, and the consumption of that 
 produce in a life of luxury which combined the 
 politics of a slave with the morals of a hog. 
 
 The whole coast of Norway is surrounded by a 
 fringe of islands, in some places two or three deep, 
 which are separated from the mainland and from 
 each other by channels more or less broad, but 
 always deep. The outer range of these islands is 
 seldom inhabited at all ; never on the seaward sides, 
 which, exposed to the first sweep of the south-wester, 
 are bold rocks, either quite bare or nourishing a 
 scanty growth of stunted fir or ragged juniper, but 
 
CHAP. Til.] THE NORMANS. 127 
 
 affording neither food nor shelter, and rarely fresh 
 water. At the present day, the whole of the coasting 
 trade of Norway is carried on within this barrier, 
 and the houses and villages lie hidden on the shel- 
 tered shores of the numerous channels, or fiords, so 
 as to be altogether unseen from the outside. As a 
 swimmer learns his art first in comparatively smooth 
 and safe water, so the old Norsemen first learnt skill 
 and confidence in the management of their barks, 
 which were in time to change the face of the world, 
 in navigating the deep, but smooth channels within 
 this rocky island barrier that encircled their iron- 
 bound coast. 
 
 In a country like Norway, which (though, in 
 the way above indicated, it may be termed the 
 cradle of modern civilization) has not altered its cus- 
 toms for centuries, may be stiU found the unmis- 
 takeable iudications of those qualities of seamanship 
 which were the characteristics of the ancient Norse- 
 men, and are those of their English descendants. 
 The genius of the Norsemen for naval affairs is still 
 manifest even in their smallest boats : for example, in 
 the Norwegian skiff, the peculiarity of the construc- 
 tion of which consists in the lower part of its bows 
 projecting some distance above the surface of the 
 water, and in its bottom being flat like that of a coble, 
 so as to enable it to rise over the most stormy waves. 
 It is manifest in their larger vessels, built after the 
 model of a whale's body ; in their jagts (the originals 
 
128 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Til. 
 
 of the English yachts, for Norway is the only nation 
 besides England that takes its pleasure on the deep 
 sea) ; in the sharp fore and aft vessels of Bergen, and 
 in the Lyngor lobster smacks. 
 
 To those who delight to track the course of races 
 and nations, it is interesting to follow the fortunes of 
 the early Normans; so full of strange vicissitudes, 
 of adventures so marvellous as to resemble rather 
 the wildest tales of romance than the actual events of 
 history, of enterprises marked by such a combination 
 of great and sustained energy, wonderful sagacity, 
 and unbounded daring. 
 
 About the end of the ninth century the extension 
 by conquest of the dominion of Harold Harfagher, 
 king of a part of Norway, over the whole of that 
 country, caused the destruction of several smaller 
 States which had formerly been independent. Many 
 of the principal men of those States chose to expa^ 
 triate themselves and lead a wandering Hfe by sea, 
 rather than obey a king foreign to their own parti- 
 cular districts. These men became pirates by neces- 
 sity, and a portion of them, who were mostly men 
 of high birth and high military renown, made the 
 Orcades and Hebrides their places of refuge.* 
 
 Soon after, RoUo, a son of one of the Norwegian 
 
 chiefs of the highest rank, having been banished 
 
 from Norway by Harold, collected some barks and 
 
 sailed towards the Hebrides. The Norwegian exiles 
 
 * Thierry, History of the Norman Conquest, liv. ii. 
 
CHAP, vn.] THE NOEMANS. 129 
 
 united all their ships or barks, and thus made up a 
 considerable fleet, under the command of no single 
 chief, but of the confederate captains. Setting sail 
 from the Hebrides, they possessed themselves of one 
 of the finest provinces of France, and there, about 
 the year 912, founded a small independent State, 
 which afterwards conquered some of the fairest and 
 most fertile portions of Europe, and founded one of 
 the greatest empires of the modern world: which 
 thus, like the greatest empire of the ancient world, 
 may be said to have owed its origin to a small band 
 of outlawed men. 
 
 The small fleet of the Norsemen that doubled the 
 northern headland of Scotland and sailed towards 
 the mouth of the Seine, might be said to carry the 
 germ of fortunes greater and more wonderful than 
 those of -Sneas or Casar. It may be here added, 
 that the Saxons' conquest of Britain differed from 
 the Norsemen's conquest of Normandy, England, 
 and Italy, not in being less of a predatory character, 
 but in possessing less of the character of a great 
 enterprise commenced with small beginnings — the 
 " parvis ab initiis profecta " of the historian of the 
 conquerors of the ancient world. 
 
 In regard to the predatory character of the occu- 
 pation of both the early Saxons and Normans, we 
 must allow them the benefit of being judged, so far at 
 least, by the standard of morals of their age. Accord- 
 ing to the popular feeling, and the public opinion of 
 
130 STRENGTH O'E NATIONS. [CHAP. TIL 
 
 their time, the old ng-tional custom of roaming the 
 seas was universally held to be among the most 
 honourable of employments. It was the same in 
 the earlier stages of other nations the most illustrious 
 in history. Thucydides informs us that the early 
 Greeks counted piracy a thing to be proud, not 
 ashamed of.* And we must not forget the very 
 broad distinction between the predatory life of men 
 in the condition of the wild Norsemen of the eighth 
 and ninth centuries — which did not violate, but, on 
 the contrary, strictly conformed to the obligations 
 of their religion, the precepts of their education, and 
 the example of their forefathers — ^and the robberies, 
 whether by force or fraud, of men in a different state 
 of society, who know such acts to be a direct violation 
 at once of the public opinion of their age, and of the 
 laws both of their country and their God. 
 
 The fleet of the Norsemen finally entered the Seine, 
 and ascended that river to Jumieges, five leagues dis- 
 tant from Rouen. The townsmen of Rouen, alarmed 
 at the report of the devastations of the Norsemen, and 
 without hope of immediate succour from the King 
 of France, concluded a truce with Roll and his 
 companions; guaranteeing their free admission into 
 the city, and receiving in retm-n an assurance that 
 
 * OAk exovTos iTdt aiaxvvtiv tovtov tov epyou, 0Epoj'roe Sk n xai 
 W?))ff iiaXKov. — Thuc. i. 5, and see the whole chapter, which 
 describes a mode of life very similar to that of the Scandinavian 
 pirates of times two thousand years later. 
 
CHAP. VII. J THE NORMANS. 131 
 
 they would commit no injury. The Norwegian 
 leaders visited every quarter of the town ; attentively 
 examined the ramparts, the quays, the fountains; 
 and decided on converting the place into a military 
 post and making it the chief town of their intended 
 establishment (a. d. 898). 
 
 Leaving a garrison in Rouen, they continued to 
 ascend the Seine with the main body of their troops, 
 established a fortified camp at the confluence of the 
 rivers Seine and Eure, and there awaited the ap- 
 proach of a French army that was marching, against 
 them. The troops of Karl, or Charles, then king 
 of the French, a degenerate descendant of Karl the 
 Great, or Charlemagne, commanded by Regnauld, 
 who bore the title of Duke of France, took up a 
 position on the right bank of the Eure, at a short 
 distance from the camp of the Normans, 
 
 Three envoys, one of whom was Hasting, formerly 
 a famous sea-king but then Count of Chartres, and 
 the other two, persons who understood the Danish 
 language, were despatched to hold a conference with 
 the Normans. The envoys followed the course of 
 the Eure till they came to the spot directly opposite 
 the Norman intrenchment, and then the Count of 
 Chartres, raising his voice so as to be heard on the 
 other side of the river, shouted, " Hallo, brave 
 warriors 1 what is the name of your lord ? " " We 
 have no lord," replied the Normans : " we are all 
 equal." " Wherefore have you come to this coun- 
 
 K 2 
 
132 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Til. 
 
 try?" asked the envoy, " and wtat do yon intend to 
 do here ? " " To drive out the inhabitants, or subject 
 them to our rule, and to make this our country. 
 But what art thou, who speakest so well our lan- 
 guage ? " " Have ye not heard," answered the 
 envoy, " of Hasting, the famous pirate, who scoured 
 the seas with so many ships and caused so many 
 evils to this kingdom ? " " Doubtless we have," 
 replied the Normans : " Hasting began well, but he 
 has made a bad end." " Are you willing to submit 
 yourselves unto King Charles ? " * asked the envoy. 
 " By no means," was the reply : " we wiU make 
 submission to no one ; and aU. that we can conquer 
 shall belong to ourselves, without reserve. Go and 
 tell this, if you will, to the king, whose envoy you 
 boast yourself." 
 
 In the attack of the intrenched camp which fol- 
 lowed, the French troops were totally defeated ; and 
 thenceforth the greater part of the territory which 
 bore the ancient name of Neustria fell under the 
 dominion of the Norsemen or Normans, and took 
 the name of Normandy (a. d. 900 to 911). "The 
 Normans," says M. Thierry, "guided by a policy 
 which was the result of good sense, ceased from 
 their wonted display of cruelty when resistance was 
 no longer offered to them, and were content with 
 
 » M. Thierry adds, " -who offers you fiefs and honours on the 
 condition of allegiance and knights' service," but this is not in 
 the Latin writers whom he quotes at the foot of his page. 
 
CHAP. VII.] THE NORMANS. 133 
 
 a contribution regularly levied in the towns and 
 country. Good sense also dictated the creation of a 
 supreme leader, to be invested with permanent 
 authority."* The choice fell upon Roll, or RoUo, 
 who, in 912, accepted King Charles's offer of his 
 daughter in marriage, with the hereditary lordship 
 of Neustria and Brittany, and consented to become 
 a Christian, to live in peace with the king, and to 
 be his " feudal man and soldier." He then por- 
 tioned out Normandy among his Norwegians, who 
 became his " feudal men and soldiers." 
 
 Some of the details of the negotiation between 
 the Norman and the Frank king are curiously 
 characteristic of that time, when the fairest portions 
 of Europe fell to the armed robber who had strength 
 and resolution to seize them. When the Arch^ 
 bishop of Rouen came to RoUo with the King of 
 France's offer, which only comprehended the here- 
 ditary lordship of all the country situated between 
 the river Epte and Brittany, Rollo answered, " The 
 king's words are good; but the land which he 
 proffers me is insufficient: it is uncultivated and 
 impoverished; my followers would not find therein 
 what would enable them to live in peace." 
 
 The archbishop returned to the king, who then com- 
 missioned him to make an offer of Flanders, in his 
 name ; although he possessed no other rights over that 
 country than a contested claim — an offer something 
 * History of the Norman Conquest, lir. ii. 
 
134 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Til. 
 
 similar to what at the present day would be a present 
 to a man of a Chancery suit. The shrewd Norse- 
 man did not- accept of this new offer, but replied, 
 that Flanders was a bad country, boggy, and full 
 of marshes. Charles the Simple then seiit word to 
 the 'Norman chieftain that, if he liked, he might 
 hold Brittany in a fief conjointly with Neustria; 
 though the allegiance due to the kings of France 
 therein was for little more than the county of Rennes. 
 But Rollo paid little regard to that obstacle, and 
 accepted the offer. 
 
 ' At the ceremony of ratifying this treaty, when 
 the other forms had been gone through, it was 
 intimated to the Norman chieftain by the French 
 lords that, in conformity with the etiquette an- 
 ciently observed at the court of the Frank em- 
 perors, he must kneel before the king and kiss 
 his foot ; the Norman replied, " Never will I bend 
 the knee to any man, nor will I kiss any man's 
 foot." The lords continuing to insist on this matter 
 of form, Rollo beckoned to one of his men to ad- 
 vance, and kiss, in his steady the king's foot. The 
 Norman soldier took the king's foot, but with- 
 out bending his knee, and raised it so high to lift 
 it to his lips that the king was thrown on his back. 
 A loud shout of laughter burst from the rough 
 Norsemen, and for a moment some tumult arose; 
 but the new feudatories were too formidable, and 
 the French king too weak, for any result to follow. 
 
CHAP, vn.] THE NORMANS. 135 
 
 By way of set-off or counterpoise to the cant 
 of pseudo-philanthropy and false civihzation, another 
 cant has arisen, which is not new, but merely a 
 revival under a somewhat different form of the 
 old cant of Tacitus, of Montaigne, and of Rousseau 
 — the cant of barbarian energy and strength. One 
 set of writers takes up for extravagant eulogy the 
 enterprising energy and unbounded daring of the 
 Normans; another, the bold freedom and manly 
 simplicity of the Saxons. But, in truth, both 
 Normans and Saxons, with some virtues, and the 
 germs of many more virtues, were then chiefly 
 notable for the brutal vices which chaa-acterize all 
 races in the state of civilization in which they were ; 
 and for none more than the tyranny and cruelty 
 with which they treated those whom fortune had 
 placed in their power. In this state of society 
 men differ little from beasts of prey ; save that, in 
 addition to the appetites and instincts of such ani- 
 mals, they have other faculties wliich make them 
 act somewhat under the impulse of human passions, 
 and by the aid of human calculations. In that age, 
 as indeed through all ages, , a man such as the 
 Anglo-Saxon Alfred, as he ias come down to poste- 
 rity, and if we can believe all that has been said 
 of his genius, his wisdom, and his virtues, stands 
 altogether alone, like a solitary star shining through 
 drifting masses of dark, stormy clouds. 
 
 So grievous was the oppression exercised by the 
 
136 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. YU. 
 
 Normans over the unfortunate race which they had 
 deprived of their country, that, in less than a century 
 after the founding of the new State, the old popu- 
 lation formed the resolution of making a strong 
 effort to destroy, at least, the inequality of the two 
 races. It was during the reign of Rikhart, or 
 Richard II., the third in succession from RoUo, that 
 this great project came to a head. In most of the 
 cantons of Normandy the inhabitants of the towns 
 and large villages, of the hamlets and homesteads, 
 began to meet in the evening after the hours of 
 labour, and to talk over the misery of their con- 
 dition. They then entered into an agreement, under 
 the obligation of an oath, to keep in a body and 
 to assist one another against all aggressors, 
 
 "The kind of association," says M. Thierry, "thus 
 entered into was, in those days, known by the word 
 Commune ; a term that became renowned in the cities 
 of France a century later. But that which waa 
 especially to be then remarked, and which never 
 was again the case in any quarter, is, that the com- 
 mune of Normandy, in the year 997, was not 
 restricted to one city, or to a league of several 
 towns, but included the country parts, and com- 
 prised in a great fraternity all classes of the native 
 population. The men affiliated in this association 
 were divided into their respective circles, which 
 the original historians designate by the word con- 
 venticles; there was, at least, one of those for each 
 
CHAP. Yn.J THE NORMANS. 137 
 
 county, and each of them delegated two of its 
 members to form a superior circle, or central assem- 
 bly. That assembly was to prepare and organize, 
 in all the districts, the means of resistance and of 
 a general rising; it despatched from one canton to 
 another, and from village to village, eloquent and 
 plausible emissaries to gain over new associates, and 
 to receive their oaths." * 
 
 While things were in this state, and just about 
 to break out into open rebelHon, news came to 
 the court of Normandy that the villeins were hold- 
 ing parlements. Duke Richard, being of too tender 
 an age to direct affairs by his own judgment, sent 
 for his Tmcle, the Count of Evreux. " Sire," said 
 the Count, "do you remain tranquil, and leave 
 those peasants to me. Do not quit your own 
 court, but send to me as many knights and 
 men-at-arms as you can muster." The Count of 
 Evreux, having learnt by means of intelligent spies 
 the hour and place of meeting of the central as- 
 sembly, marched with his troops, and arrested, 
 in a single day, all the chief delegates of the 
 combination. Without deigning to subject them 
 to trial, he treated his prisoners with extreme bar- 
 barity, condemning them to suffer tortures which 
 his subordinates made it their study to vary. Some 
 had their eyes put out, their hands cut off, and their 
 hamstrings branded ; others were impaled ; others 
 * History of the Norman Conquest, liv. ii. 
 
138 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP.- VIIj 
 
 were roasted at a slow fire, or had molten lead 
 showered on them. The few who survived these 
 torments were sent home to their families, and, led 
 thus mutilated throvigh the villages, thereby to strike 
 terror. The efi'ect intended was produced. "The 
 great association," says M. Thierry, "was broken 
 up; no more secret assembhes took place; and a 
 sorrowful resignation succeeded, during seven cen- 
 turies, the enthusiasm of a brief moment." — (a.d. 997 
 —1013.) 
 
 Such were the tender mercies of . the Normans 
 to their conquered subjects in Normandy. When, 
 some fifty years later, that great expedition against 
 England took place, they obtained, by the myster 
 rious decrees of Providence, the power, for a time, 
 to treat the Anglo-Saxons as they had before treated 
 the Gauls and Franks. This was the last great 
 irruption of the restless barbarians who had for five 
 hundred years convulsed and devastated Europe; 
 after which they seem in some sense to have been 
 at rest, and to cease from troubling. 
 
 I have said what there was to be said for the 
 Normans' invasion of France : they were barba- 
 rians, they were pagans, they were expatriated men. 
 The case some two centuries later was very much 
 altered. . There was no longer ttie excuse that they 
 were in search of a country, and that they were 
 acting in strict accordance both with the precepts of 
 their religion and the example of their forefathers. 
 
CHAP. YH.] THE NORMANS. 139 
 
 They were in quiet possession of one of the finest 
 countries of Europe, and they not only professed 
 themselves, but were, after the fashion of their age, 
 most devout Christians, and especial favourites of 
 his Holiness the Pope of Rome. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, their chief at that time (the bastard son 
 of their last duke, Robert le Diable) made preten- 
 sions to the crown of England, which he ultimately 
 carried at the cost of much bloodshed, and by the 
 exercise of that mixture of craft and cruelty which 
 formed his character. The mode in which William, 
 son of Robert le Diable, went to work, is too charac- 
 teristic, both of the man and the age, to be altogether 
 passed over. 
 
 M. Thierry* states it to be the result of a minute 
 investigation of all the political phenomena presented 
 by the conquests of the middle ages, and of the share 
 which religion, and especially the papal power, had in 
 them, that if the popes did not go on military expe- 
 ditions in person, they were parties to almost all 
 the great invasions, and shared the spoil with the 
 conquerors, even with conquerors who were still 
 pagan; and that it was the destruction of the in- 
 dependent churches effected in Christian Europe, 
 concurring with that of the free nations, which gave 
 validity to the title of " universal " assumed by the 
 Roman Church. " From the fifth to the thirteenth 
 
 * Introduction to the History of the Conquest of England by the 
 Normans. 
 
140 STEEKGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP, VII. 
 
 century," says M. Thierry, " there was not a single 
 conquest that was not profitable to the Court of 
 Rome, as well as to those who had effected it by 
 the lance and the sword ; and this other feature, 
 hitherto overlooked, of the history of the middle 
 ages, has excited in me, with regard to the different 
 national churches which the Church of Rome called 
 heretical or schismatic, the same kind of interest 
 which I have already mentioned as relative to the 
 nations themselves. As the nations had fallen from 
 their independence, so these churches also fell, with- 
 out there having existed any positive right for their 
 destruction ; and the independence which they laid 
 claim to, with respect to their doctrines and their 
 self-government, was an integral portion of the moral 
 liberty which had been consecrated or asserted by 
 the Christian dispensation." 
 
 In 1031, when William was only seven years of 
 age, his father, Robert le Diable, took it into his head 
 to go to Jerusalem on foot, on a pilgrimage for the 
 remission of his sins; and on his proposing to the 
 Norman barons that they should swear fealty to his 
 young son, most of them did what the duke proposed, 
 because, says the old chronicle, they found it con- 
 venient. But several barons, particularly those of 
 the Bessin and the Cotentin, more spirited than the 
 others, and still prouder than they of the purity of 
 their lineage, protested against this election, saying 
 that a bastard was not worthy to command the Nor- 
 
CHAP, til] the NORMANS. 141 
 
 mans.* They levied a numerous army, but they 
 were defeated by the other party, aided by the King 
 of France, in a pitched battle in the Val-des-Dunes, 
 near Caen. As William grew up to manhood, he 
 displayed a disposition ambitious and vindictive to 
 excess. His ambition was (like that of most men 
 to whom the term is applied) to take what did not 
 belong to him, to obtain power and dominion by 
 whatever means and at whatever cost to others, 
 even though the possession of them might be at- 
 tended with the hatred of mankind. 
 
 The succession to the throne of England among 
 the Anglo-Saxons appears to ha,ve been considered 
 as being in certain families ; subject, however, to such 
 occasional deviations as the national will, guided by 
 the public interest, required. At this time the 
 throne was occupied by Edward the Confessor- — a 
 man feeble in mind and body, whose predilections 
 for foreign favourites, and personal weakness of cha- 
 racter, may be regarded as a proximate cause of the 
 Norman invasion of England. Edward was the son 
 of the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred, by Emma, sister 
 of Richard the Fourth, Duke of Normandy ; and as 
 he was only thirteen years old when he first went 
 into Normandy, and somewhat past forty when he 
 ascended the English throne, it was to be expected 
 
 * "Dicens quod nothus non deberet sibi aliisque Normannis 
 imperare." — Willelm. Gemet. Hist. Normann. apud Script. Eer. 
 Normann. p. 268. 
 
142 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TIL 
 
 tliat his habits and taste would be rather Norman 
 than Enghsh. But Edward allowed the force of 
 those foreign tastes and habits to carry him beyond 
 the line not only of prudence, but of his duty as 
 an English king, for he conferred the high offices of 
 trust and dignity on foreigners. The fortresses of 
 the kingdom were placed in the keeping of Norman 
 captains ; Norihan priests obtained English bishoprics, 
 and became the king's chaplains and confidential 
 councillors. 
 
 At the death of Ethelred, the English had chosen 
 for their king, not one of his legitimate children 
 who were residing in Normandy, but a natural son, 
 Edmund surnamed Ironside, who had given some 
 remarkable proofs of valour and skill. Edmund 
 retook London from the Danes, and fought five great 
 battles against them. After one of these battles, in 
 which the Danes were defeated, one of their captains, 
 named TJlf, flying for his life, struck into a wood, with 
 the paths of which he was unacquainted. Having 
 wandered all night, he met at daybreak a young 
 peasant driving a herd of oxen, who told him he was 
 Godwin, son of Ulfnoth, sheltered him all day in his 
 father's cottage, and at night accompanied him as a 
 guide to the Danish camp. Ulf obtained a military 
 command for Godwin from King Knut, or Canute ; 
 and in the course of time, the Saxon herdsman rose 
 to the rank of gpvernor of a province in the part 
 of England occupied by the Danes. 
 
CHAP, vn.] THE NORMANS. 143 
 
 When the Danish King Knut died in 1035, he 
 directed that his son by his Norman wife Emma 
 (the mother of Edward by her former husband, the 
 Saxon King Ethelred), named Hardeknut, or Har- 
 dicanute, should succeed him. Such an express 
 designation of one son generally exercised an in- 
 fluence on those whom the Germanic customs in- 
 vested with the right of election of a new king. 
 But Hardicanute was then in Denmark, and the 
 Danes of England chose Harald, another son of 
 Canute, for their king. This election met with 
 opposition. The south-western provinces proclaimed 
 Hardicanute as king ; while in London, the Danish 
 soldiers and sailors proclaimed Harald. Godwin, 
 son of Ulfhoth, was at that time governor of the 
 ■great province of West-Sex, and he favoured the 
 cause of Hardicanute. War, however, did not then 
 take place, and Godwin and the other Saxon chiefs 
 swore obedience to Harald, who was at his death 
 succeeded by Hardicanute. 
 
 On the death of the latter in 1041, Godwin 
 and his son Harald (or Harold, according to the 
 Saxon orthography) raised the standard for the in- 
 dependence of their country against the Danes, and 
 drove them out of England. Godwin, it has been 
 said, might, had he wished it, have gotten himself' 
 named king of the English. But in accordance 
 with his advice, a great council decided that a mes- 
 sage from the nation should be sent to Edward in 
 
144 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TIL 
 
 Normandy, to announce to him that the English 
 people had made him their king, but on condition 
 of his bringing with him only a small number of 
 Normans. 
 
 It is a long story, of which it is not our business 
 here to tell more than is necessary to render some- 
 what intelligible the pretended claim of William the 
 Norman to the dominion of England. It is sufficient 
 to say that Godwin and his sons opposed all their 
 power and popularity to the foreign influence which 
 Edward brought with him into the English govern- 
 ment ; and that on, the death of Godwin, Harald, his 
 eldest son, succeeded his father in the command of 
 all the country south of the Thames. 
 
 In 1065, Harald asked King Edward's permission 
 to go into Normandy and claim two hostages; one of 
 whom was his brother, and the other his nephew. 
 Edward objected to Harald's going in person, on the 
 ground that the journey would bring some misfor- 
 tune on their country. " I know Duke William," he 
 said, " and his crafty spirit. He hates thee, and will 
 grant thee nothing, unless he sees some great advan- 
 tage therein." Nevertheless Harald had the impru- 
 dence to go and trust himself in the power of William. 
 
 One day William turned the conversation upon 
 his early intimacy with King Edward. " When Ed- 
 ward and I," he said, " lived like brothers under the 
 same roof, he promised, that if ever he became king 
 of England, he would make me heir to his kingdom." 
 
CHAP. Tn.] THE NORMANS. 145 
 
 And he obtained (no doubt, under some degree of 
 constraint) a promise, and then by fraud and con- 
 straint together, an oath, made without Harald's 
 knowledge over the relics of saints, that he would 
 assist in obtaining the fulfilment of the promise of 
 King Edward: a promise which Edward had clearly 
 no right to make, even admitting in all its latitude 
 the power of nominating a successor from their own 
 family, enjoyed by the Danish and Anglo-Saxon kings 
 of that time. 
 
 It was on the pretence of this fraudulently-ob- 
 tained oath over the relics of pretended saints, that 
 the Church of Rome, in accordance with its princi- 
 ples and uniform line of proceeding, aided, with all 
 its unholy parade of the religious sanction, that large 
 act of wholesale rapine and murder called the Con- 
 quest of England by the Normans : or rather the 
 Conquest of England made under William the Nor- 
 man, son of Robert le Diable, by all the confederated 
 ruffians at that time in Europe. For it is observable 
 that the Normans' invasion of England was not cha- 
 racterized by that feature which distinguished so 
 much their other conquests, great enterprises accom- 
 plished by wonderfully small numbers. In the case 
 of England, they took care to be superior in num- 
 bers as well as in arms and discipline. A memorable 
 though mournful testimony to the energy and valour, 
 linder all disadvantages of disunion and inferior gene- 
 ralship, of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 L 
 
146 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TH; 
 
 On the death of Edward, the English elected 
 Harald their king ; and the grandson of the herdsman 
 Ulfnoth showed himself, say the historians, just, 
 wise, affable, and active for the good of his country. 
 As a general, however, he was evidently inferior to 
 the son of Robert le Diable : had it been otherwise, 
 his country might have had another fate. In answer 
 to a messenger sent by William to remind him of his 
 oath, the Saxon King replied : " It is true that I 
 took an oath to William; but I took it under con- 
 straint. I promised what did not belong to me: a 
 promise which I could not in any way perform. My 
 royal authority is not my own; I could not lay it 
 down against the will of the country ; nor can I, 
 against the will of the country, take a foreign wife?" 
 — A noble and memorable answer ! Peace be with 
 the ashes of the herdsman's valiant grandson king! 
 If he erred, he expiated his errors by forfeiting all 
 that man can forfeit. He died like a brave man, 
 fighting valiantly to the last, though in vain, for his 
 lost country. It is an old story now. More than 
 seven himdred years have passed away since the men 
 who then acted and suffered, ceased to breathe ; since 
 their hearts ceased to beat with pride or with agony. 
 But in what was then done and suffered, may still be 
 heard a voice of warning to the present inhabitants of 
 that soil where even the dust of those men's moul- 
 dered remains is no longer to be traced. 
 
147 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "THE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." — THE 
 ANCIENT ENGLISH NATIONAL DEFENCES. 
 
 The warning voice to whicli I have referred at the 
 close of the last chapter, was not lost upon William 
 of Normandy; who possessed, in an ample degree, 
 the two essential qualities of great men, expressed 
 in the word " statesman-soldier ;" * and who, to the 
 character of an able military leader, united that of 
 a cold, hard, far-sighted statesman. He, therefore, 
 adopted the measures which appeared best calculated 
 to prevent any foreign enemy from ever again find- 
 ing the invasion of England the successful enterprise 
 which it had proved to him and his followers. It 
 may be admitted that he had acquired a very com- 
 petent knowledge of the danger to be provided 
 against, and the experience of six hundred years 
 bears testimony to the wisdom of the provisions he 
 devised against that danger. 
 
 The feudal law was at that time the prevailing 
 
 * O'lTivtQ d/ifoTepa av Sivuivrm, Kai voKiTCveaBai Koi arpaTiiyelv. 
 — ^Isocrat. ad Phijipp. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. VIII. 
 
 law of Europe. The part of that law which con- 
 cerns us at present was, that those who hold the 
 latid of a country are bound to defend that country 
 with their own swords, and not to employ the swords 
 of mercenaries. One consequence of this was, that 
 while the sword was in the hands of those military 
 tenants, their country was secure against foreign in- 
 vasioHi Another consequence was, that they them- 
 selves were secure against unlimited power and 
 oppression on the part of their chief or suzerain. 
 Thus when, in process of time, the sword fell out 
 of the hands of those barons, or military tenants, 
 and the princes were allowed to raise armies of 
 mercenaries to do the work formerly done by the 
 barons, the princes became absolute throughout the 
 greater part of Europe, and the barons lost their 
 power, and even their liberty. In order to secure 
 England against any future attempts from its warlike 
 neighbours, the most obvious plan was to place the 
 country on an equal footing with its neighbours in 
 regard to the system of military tenures. The LIT.* 
 Law of William I. forms the foundation of the sys- 
 tem by which this was accomplished. 
 
 In accordance with the law introduced by WiUiam, 
 all the lands in the kingdom were divided into what 
 were called knights' fees, in number above sixty 
 thousand ; and for every knight's fee a knight, or 
 
 » See the Law in Wright's Tenures, p. 65. 
 
CHAP. VIII.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 149 
 
 soldier {miles) was bound to attend the king in his 
 wars with horse and arms for forty days in a year, 
 according to Blackstone* and other authorities ; f or, 
 as there is reason to beheve, for a longer time. By 
 this means the kingdom was always provided with 
 an army of upwards of sixty thousand men-at-arms: 
 that is, horsemen, well mounted and armed. That 
 this was the express condition on which they held their 
 lands, appears from one of the laws of William (c. 58), 
 which enacts " quod habeant et teneant se semper 
 in armis et equis, ut decet et oportet : et quod 
 semper sint prompti et parati ad servitium suum 
 integrum nobis explendum •et peragendum, cum opus 
 adfuerit, secundum quod debent de feodis et tene- 
 mentis suis de jure nobis facer e." 
 
 I have said that there is reason to think that, 
 though both Sir William Blackstone and Sir Martin 
 Wright have stated that the time of service was 
 limited to forty days in every year, the time was 
 not so limited. Blackstone | cites as his authority 
 for this statement " Writ for this purpose in Memo- 
 rand. Scacch. 36, prefixed to Maynard's Tear Booh, 
 Edw. II." On turning to this writ we do not find 
 any mention whatever of the time being forty days. 
 Blackstone further says, " If he held only half a 
 knight's fee, he was only bound to attend twenty 
 days, and so in proportion ; " and for this he cites 
 
 * I Bl. Com. 410; 2 Bl. Cmn. 62. f Wright's Tenures, p. 140. 
 I 2 Bl. Com. 62. 
 
130 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP, TUT. 
 
 " Litt. sect. 95." And it may be here added that this 
 passage of Littleton's Tenures is the only authority 
 of apparent weight cited by Sir Martin Wright* for 
 thie same statement. Now Littleton's evidence on 
 the subject is by no means conclusive, as will 
 appear from his words, which are — " And also it is 
 commonly said, that some held by the service 
 of one knight's fee, and some by the half of a 
 knight's fee. And it is said, that when the king 
 makes a voyage royal into Scotland to subdue the 
 Scots, then he which holdeth by the service of 
 one knight's fee ought to be with the king forty 
 days, well and conveniently arrayed for the war; 
 and he which holdeth his land by the moiety of 
 a knight's fee ought to be with the king twenty 
 days ; and he which holdeth his land by the fourth 
 part of a knight's fee ought to be with the king 
 ten days ; and so he that hath more, more, and he 
 that hath lessj less." For this statement all the 
 authority is, "it is said:" Livy's authority ferunt 
 for bos locutus, and the like prodigies. The whole 
 scheme, in regard to the cutting down the time 
 of service to twenty days, ten days, and less, is 
 evidently quite unsuited to the practical logic of 
 the Anglo-Norman statesmen-soldiers, who would 
 have been unable to accomplish their object with 
 an army liable to dwindle in this way. 
 
 In regard to the alleged time of forty days, a 
 * Wright's Tenures, p. 140. 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 151 
 
 new light has been thrown on the subject by a 
 modem constitutional lawyer. Mr. Toulmin Smith 
 has shown that "every parish was required to 
 furnish one foot soldier, equipped, and armed for 
 sixty days."* Now, it is remarkable that the writs, 
 on the authority of which Mr. Toulmin Smith has 
 shown this, apply to the same point of time, and 
 manifestly to the same occasion as the writ for men- 
 at-arms' referred to by Blackstone. The authorities 
 cited by Mr. Smith are Rolls of Parliament, temp. 
 Edw. II., Appendix No. 1, and Id., Appendix No. 
 25 ; " and the occasion was the preparation for that 
 memorable "voyage royal into Scotland to subdue 
 the Scots," which had its result in the battle of 
 Bannockburn. Since the writ regarding the foot 
 soldier from the parish was for sixty days, we may 
 conclude that the writ regarding the man-at-arms or 
 knight, in the absence of any specific mention of 
 forty days in that writ, would be for the same length 
 of time, namely, sixty days also. 
 
 Besides the advantage to the kingdom of its having 
 by this means, without any expense, an army of 
 upwards of sixty thousand efifective men always 
 ready, another mode in which this ancient consti- 
 tutional machinery for the defence of the kingdom 
 exercised a most beneficial influence, was by checking 
 expensive wars ; not only the great barons, but the 
 
 * The Parish; its Obligations and Powers, Sfc, by Toulmin 
 Smith, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, p. 18, 2nd ed. 
 
152 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. vm. 
 
 knights, and, esquires, and freeholders refusihg, to 
 follow the king into what they considered needless 
 and expensive foreign wars. It was on such an 
 occasion that Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, made 
 that reply to King Edward I. which showed the 
 high spirit and independence of the Anglo-Norman 
 harpns, so different from the titled courtiers of the 
 Tudors and the Stuarts. " By the everlasting God, 
 sir earl, you shall go or hang ! " exclaimed the king. 
 " By the everlasting God, sir king, I will neither go 
 nor hang ! " replied the haron. 
 
 The occasion here referred to was a requisition of 
 the king to some of his bargns and others to follow 
 him in arms to Normandy, or contribute money aids 
 thereto: "which the constable and marshal, and many 
 of the nobility, and of the knights and esquires, and 
 all the freeholders vehemently denied, unless it were 
 so ordained and determined by common consent of 
 parliament."* And, as they constituted a majority of 
 the parliament, they would take care that it shoul4 
 not be so ordained. Very different indeed was the 
 conduct of the parliaments of the eighteenth century, 
 after the fatal change in the constitution. But for 
 the powerful and salutary checks imposed by the 
 ancient English constitution, Edward the First, with 
 his love of war and rage for conquest, and, perhaps, 
 still more, Edward the Third, would have ground 
 down the nation with taxes and loaded it with debt. 
 * Coke, 2nd Inst., 532. 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OP NATIONS." 153 
 
 But this force of sixty, thousand men-at-arms did 
 not constitute the whole of the military defence of 
 the kingdom. The Normans had owed their victory 
 at Hastings, by which they obtained their footing in 
 England, as much to the superiority of their archers 
 as to the valour of their men-at-arms. From policy 
 it might have been two or three generations before 
 the Anglo-Norman government encouraged the use 
 of the long-bow among the Saxons. It is evident, 
 however, that in the time of Henry HI. they had 
 attained great proficiency in it. And by the time 
 of the first and second Edwards, it formed, perhaps, 
 the most -effective part of an English or Anglo- 
 Norman army. It appears that at the same time 
 that the knight-service writs were issued, every 
 parish in England was required to furnish at least 
 one foot soldier equipped and armed for sixty days,* 
 These foot soldiers formed those formidable archers 
 beneath the shower of whose terrible cloth-yard shafts 
 nothing could live. 
 
 The excellence attained by the English in the use 
 of the long-bow, was the effect of great and inces- 
 sant practice. They commenced this education 
 when they were children of sixf years of age. 
 They were first made to practise with a small bow 
 
 * The reference to these writs will be found in Mr. Toulmin 
 Smith's Parish, p. 18, 2nd ed. 
 
 f The words of the statute 3 Henry VIH. c. 3, which refers 
 back to the statute of Winchester (a. d. 1285), are — "every man- 
 child from six years old." 
 
154 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TUI. 
 
 suited to their size and strength, which was every 
 year exchanged for one larger and stronger, till they 
 were able to draw that of a full-grown man. The 
 archers of England were thus not only rendered by 
 constant practice extremely dexterous and good 
 marksmen, but by being taught to draw the bow- 
 string to the ear, while those of other European 
 nations only drew it to the breast, they could use a 
 much longer and, therefore, much more formidable 
 arrow. The result was that the English archers 
 were the best and most formidable ever known in 
 war. On many occasions the strongest and finest 
 armour was found quite unable to resist these 
 arrows. 
 
 The battles of Falkirk, of Halidon Hill, of Ho- 
 mildon, of Cressy, of Agincourt, were won chiefly, 
 some of them solely, by the archers. According 
 to Walsingham, the armour worn by the Earl of 
 Douglas at the battle of Homildon was of the most 
 exquisite workmanship and temper, and cost the 
 artisan who made it three years' labour; yet the 
 Earl was wounded in five places. The fact is, that 
 those English archers who learnt their craft as free- 
 men and citizens, not as the creatures of a drill-ser- 
 geant, were far more formidable than the match- 
 lock-men and musketeers who succeeded them : at 
 least till the introduction of the bayonet in its im- 
 proved form J for there was long a tendency to 
 entertain an exaggerated notion of the superiority 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 155 
 
 of fire-arms, whereas most of the hard work that fell 
 to the share of the infantry in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury was done by the pikemen. Gustavus Adolphus, 
 indeed, made some improvement in the use of the 
 musket which rendered it more serviceable ; but his 
 improvements were not generally adopted thoughout 
 Europe till nearly a century after. 
 
 The various parish records throughout England 
 furnish abundant evidence of the constant use of 
 manly games and athletic exercises in all the parishes 
 of England. Mr. Toulmin Smith, in his very valu- 
 able and learned work. The Parish, says, " It was 
 formerly the custom that every parish should pro- 
 vide a public place for healthy and useful exer- 
 cises ; and the ' Parish Butts ' were required to be 
 everywhere kept up, under heavy penalties." In 
 his work above referred to will be found entries 
 from the churchwardens' accounts for " shefes of 
 arrows," for " bowstrings," for " felling trees for 
 the butts, and cutting them out." And present- 
 ments are often found made against parishes for 
 having the butts in a ruinous state. Mr. Smith 
 says, " In vestry minutes, the repair of the butts 
 is a frequent order." * I well remember that a piece 
 of ground in a town where I lived when a boy, was 
 called "The Butts." Similar names may still be 
 found in many towns and country parishes, desig- 
 nating the places anciently appropriated to the ex- 
 * The Parish, p. 520, note, 2nd ed. 
 
156 STRENGTH 01" NATIONS. [CHAP. Till. 
 
 ercise of the youth in archery. The London artil- 
 lery ground is a place of this kind; and so are 
 Newington Butts and Brentford Butts. 
 
 In some of the old English writers we meet with 
 very interesting evidence of the care with which the 
 ancient English institutions provided for the keeping 
 up of these exercises. Thus in Aubrey's Wiltshire 
 it is said, " In . every parish is a Church-house, to 
 which belonged utensils for dressing provisions. 
 Here the householders met and were merry and 
 gave their charity. The young people were there 
 too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, 
 etc. ; the ancients sitting gravely by and looking 
 on."* 
 
 This picture of the youth of England on a sum- 
 mer evening, shooting at the butts on the village 
 green, the village maidens dancing and " the ancients 
 sitting gravely by and looking on," exhibiting, as it 
 does to the life, the mode in which were formed the 
 hardy soldiers whose unerring cloth-yard shafts won 
 so many battles, forms a strange and striking con- 
 trast with the mode in which the Prussian troops 
 of Frederick II., Adam Smith's model of standing 
 armies, were taught their "expertness in their ex- 
 ercise:" miserably fed, clothed, and sheltered, and 
 
 * This extract is from a note in Mr. Toulmin Smith's Parish, 
 p. 496, 2nd ed. See also an extract from Chauncy's Hertford- 
 shire, in the same note, p. 49.7, as to the extent of land near the 
 church anciently granted for the recreation of the youth of the 
 parish. 
 
CHAP. VIir.J " CHEAP DEFENCE OP KATIONS." 157 
 
 barbarously treated; a beavy cane descending on 
 tbeir sboulders without mercy, if two or three were 
 seen talking together, to disperse them and prevent 
 their plotting. A line of sergeants, each armed with 
 a heavy cane, was planted behind each rank in 
 action, one for every three soldiers, to prevent their 
 running away ; forming a strong contrast with the 
 mode of warfare of free men defending a country 
 and laws which gave them things worth fighting 
 for. 
 
 Every parish in England had also to keep a cer- 
 tain quantity of armour, which was periodically 
 viewed by the justices. In country places this 
 armour was kept in the church for security; and 
 Jience in the parish records we find it sometimes 
 called the " church armour," or " church harness." * 
 The parish records also prove that this armour was 
 kept not for show, but for use; each parish forming 
 a link of the great chain which constituted the mili- 
 tary strength of the nation, f 
 
 If England, then, wishes to preserve her place 
 among the nations, her course is clear. It is to 
 revive her old healthy institutions, with the necessary 
 modifications. It is for that purpose more than im- 
 portant, it is essential, to have in every parish in 
 England the target-practice with the rifle carried on, 
 with the same steady perseverance and the same 
 successful results that the ancient practice of shoot- 
 
 * The Parish, p. 518. t Ibid. p. 523 ; see also ib. p. 18. 
 
158 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TUI. 
 
 ing at the butts with, the English long-bow was 
 cultivated for so many ages. With such an institu- 
 tion, permanent not temporary, what nation in the 
 world would consider it a promising speculation to 
 invade England ? 
 
 Here one thing seems of great importance, that 
 while the English rifleman would be trained to 
 kiU an enemy at a much greater distance than 
 the English archer could, he should be provided 
 with a bayonet, and specially taught the use of it. 
 To teach a large majority of Englishmen to view 
 themselves as qnly charged with the single func- 
 tion of killing an enemy, without fail, at 600 
 yards or so, would be to reduce them to the condi- 
 tion of Bobadil ; or of the courtier, perfumed like a 
 milliner, and talking like a waiting-gentlewoman, 
 who came to Hotspur when the fight was done to 
 demand his prisoners, and said, that " but for those 
 vile guns he would himself have been a soldier." No : 
 the riflemen of England now will have this vast ad- 
 vantage over the archers or musketeers of former 
 days, that they will, if justice be done to them, unite 
 far more than the ancient archers' power of dealing 
 death at a distance, with a power of facing it advan- 
 tageously however close at hand, not inferior to that 
 of Cromwell's pikemen. Men armed so as to feel no 
 confidence in being able to resist either a bayonet 
 charge or a charge of cavalry,, would want the 
 primary mihtary essentials. 
 
CHAP. TIII.J " CHEAP DEEENCE OF NATIONS." 159 
 
 In addition to his bow and arrows, his billhook, 
 hatchet, or hammer, every archer carried a long 
 stake sharpened at the bottom and tipped with 
 iron at the top, which he fixed obliquely before 
 him in the gromid. These stakes formed together 
 a sort of chevaux de frise. At Agincourt the 
 English archers, instead of wearing steel armour, 
 even threw aside their leathern jackets, that they 
 might have a freer use of their arms. What 
 with the defence of the stakes and the incessant 
 flight of arrows, though the French were to the 
 English at the most moderate computation as six to 
 one, very few of the French lances reached the 
 English archers. Only three horsemen penetrated 
 beyond the stakes and they were instantly slain: 
 every arrow told either upon the horses or their 
 riders. The Frenchmen thus thrown into complete 
 disorder, the English archers then left their stakes, 
 and sliaging their bows behind them, rushed with 
 their billhooks and hatchets into the midst of the 
 steel-clad knights; they themselves being almost 
 without clothing, and many of them bare-footed 
 and bare-headed. At Bannockburn the English 
 archers seem to have been unprovided with these 
 stakes. The riflemen's bayonets, of which they 
 would be taught the use, would fully answer the 
 purpose of the stakes of the archers. 
 
 Every parish in England had, as has been shown, 
 a piece of ground set apart for the practice of the 
 
160 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TUI. 
 
 bow, as well as for other athletic games and exer- 
 cises ; and every parish in England ought now to 
 have a cricket-ground and a rifle-ground. These 
 things are as much a part of the ancient English con- 
 stitution (which is not yet, I think, totally destroyed) 
 as the vestry for the deliberative meeting of the 
 parish, the town-hall for that of the borough, and 
 the parliament for that of the nation. Men who 
 have learned to shoot with the bow at the same 
 parish butts, or with the rifle at the same parish 
 target, will not only feel a confidence in each other — 
 a confidence the efiect of which might, before the 
 depopulation of the Highlands, have been seen in the 
 Highland regiments, when the words " Highlanders, 
 shoulder to shoulder!" was a spell of power ; but they 
 will also possess that patriotic spirit which prompts 
 men readily to risk life in the defence of all that 
 which makes life sweet. This was signally exem- 
 plified in the great English constitutional wars of 
 the seventeenth century. Cromwell's troop of Slope 
 Dragoons, the primary element of his famous Iron- 
 sides, was composed of men who had worked 
 together as labourers on the same farm; and his 
 Huntingdon regiment of horse, of freeholders and 
 farmers who had been neighbours all their lives, and 
 felt that confidence in each other which a thorbtigh 
 knowledge of each others' character naturally in- 
 spired. The result was well described in the words 
 of their commander; of him who raised, and trained. 
 
CHAP. Tm.J " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 161 
 
 and led them : " Truly, they were never heaten, 
 and wherever they were engaged against the enemy 
 they beat continually." 
 
 It may be added here, with regard to athletic 
 exercises, that Cromwell, when at Cambridge, dis- 
 tinguished himself far more at football and cudgels 
 than at the exercises of the schools ; and that he, like 
 Marlborough, Clive, and many other great men, 
 would never have risen to the command of armies, 
 if such rise had depended upon a competitive exami- 
 nation, in which prigs and pedants will generally 
 beat men of great force of character or genius for 
 the arts of war or peace. 
 
 Down to the middle of the sixteenth century : that 
 is, while the old system of national defence lasted in 
 England — a system uniting the advantages of the 
 mUitary tenures with the English superiority in the 
 use of the bow — I do not believe it could be shown 
 that Frenchmen dared to talk of the invasion of 
 England in the way they have talked of it of late 
 years. Of many recent instances of this insolence, 
 one may be adduced, as it is reported on good 
 authority. 
 
 At a public meeting on the subject of Volunteer 
 Rifle corps, held at Honiton, Devonshire, on the 
 nth June, 1859, the Right Hon. Sir J. Coleridge> 
 according to the report in The Times of June 15, 
 1859, said he travelled from Turin in a French 
 diligence at the time when Napoleon was at Elba. 
 
 M 
 
162 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [OHAP. Tni. 
 
 Among the company was a French colonel on 
 half-pay, with whom he entered into conversation. 
 The colonel said : " It is all very well for you to 
 talk; but it is nothing but the Channel that has 
 saved you. We should have been upon you but 
 for that, and then all resistance would have been at 
 an end." This reminds one of the fanatical insolence 
 of the Turk in the day of his power and his pride, 
 when he spoke of the Christians as little better than 
 sheep. It surely should be the first duty of English^ 
 men to take care that the French colonel proves a 
 false prophet, and to remember that a nation, howr 
 ever brave, if totally unaccustomed to the use of 
 arms, may be slaughtered like sheep. Sir J. Cole- 
 ridge said in reply : " Well, but you know, the 
 Channel is just as open to you as it is to us. Why 
 don't you cross the Channel?" The answer was, 
 ".You may prevent us." 
 
 Sir J. Coleridge then referred to the time when 
 England, without its present great wealth, without 
 its colonies, and without Scotland and Ireland, had 
 maintained its position against the House of Austria 
 and the kingdom of France, by the stout hearts of 
 the English people and their constant and familiar 
 practice with the bow. "It was part of the law 
 of "the land," said Sir J. Coleridge, « that in every 
 parish two butts should be set up, and the popula- 
 tion were obliged to turn out and practise the use 
 of the long bow. It was this, that made &.e English 
 
CHAP. Tin. J "CHEAP DEFENCE OE NATIONS." 163 
 
 the most effective force with the how in the world ; 
 and .the English yeomen and archers to be re- 
 spected all over the world." Let what, then, was 
 true of the bowmen of the olden time, be true of 
 the riflemen now. Let them be familiar with the 
 use of the rifle, and then there can be no reason 
 why they should not stand in the same situation as 
 their forefathers in the days long past 
 
 In regard to the machinery for carrying out the 
 substitution of rifle target practice for the old shoot- 
 ing at the parish butts, the parish records of England 
 point out the course to be pursued. It appears from 
 those records, that every parish was bound to furnish 
 butts and a certain supply of bows and arrows. So 
 now every parish should be bound by law to supply 
 a certain number of rifles. From the extent of 
 ground requisite, every parish will not be able to 
 have a rifle target : at least in large towns. But one 
 thing is evident, that if this institution is to be permoi- 
 nent — and otherwise it wiU be of no use — we cannot 
 trust for its permanency to rifle-clubs or to voluntary 
 subscription. The institution must be made' a part 
 of those public duties of which the law enforces the 
 strict, and regular, and umremitted performance, for 
 the common well-being and safety of the whole 
 nation. 
 
 Of late years a doctrine has grown up that it is 
 more conducive to the production of wealth, for the 
 mass of a nation, at least when it has reached a 
 
 H 2 
 
164 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. Till. 
 
 certain point of civilization, altogether to throw 
 aside the use of arms, and give up the business of 
 national defence entirely to a class of men who adopt 
 the use of arms as a distinct profession. In some cases 
 this business has been committed in a considerable 
 degree to foreigners, so that the nation, if rich, 
 is pretty much in the situation of a large flock of fat 
 sheep which has been committed to the keeping of a 
 pack of wolves, and can only exist subject to the 
 condition of being constantly preyed on by its own 
 hired wolves, and with the prospect of being totally 
 destroyed as soon as some other beasts of prey over- 
 power its defenders. The people of Rome lived in 
 this condition from the time they trusted to mer- 
 cenary standing armies ; the people of France at the 
 period treated of by Fortescue ; and to this state of 
 degradation, the once great English people were all 
 but reduced during a considerable part of the last 
 century, when they were heavily taxed under the 
 pretence of paying foreign mercenaries to defend 
 them : though, even at that time, any one average 
 Englishman would have been able to thrash any two 
 of those foreign mercenaries. 
 
 The constitutional armed force of England, whe- 
 ther that force be called militia or trained bands, 
 is, and has been for more than a thousand years, 
 composed of the freemen of every county ; bound 
 by the common law to be trained to the use of arms ; 
 not compellable to go beyond the limits of their 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 165 
 
 counties, unless in case of invasion; and never, ex- 
 cept by consent, compellable to go abroad. The 
 sheriff of each county, elective by the freemen at 
 common law, is, by the common law, the leader 
 of the militia or trained bands of each shire. The 
 effect of this great constitutional principle, that the 
 freemen constituting the defensive force were not 
 compellable to go abroad, in checking expensive 
 foreign wars, was shown in one remarkable instance, 
 in which King Edward the First was obliged to 
 abandon a favourite*scheme of a foreign war because 
 the freeholders refused to comply with his requisi- 
 tion. And the grand results of the same constitu- 
 tional principle, together with that of the principle of 
 tenure, which made the expense of wars fall chiefly 
 on the landholders, and therefore rendered them 
 averse to needless wars, signally appears in the fact 
 that the enormous taxation of the people of England, 
 the national debt, and standing armies began at the 
 same time. 
 
 To render still clearer the efficiency of the consti- 
 tutional military system of England, I will give here 
 a notable example. Towards the beginning of the 
 reign of Charles the First, the coasts and ports being 
 unguarded, and the general defences of the nation 
 being in as bad a condition as unbounded folly ac- 
 companied by unbounded presumption could reduce 
 them to, the king held at Whitehall a grand council, 
 to which Sir Robert Cotton, the great constitutional 
 
166 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TOT. 
 
 antiquary aid historian, was called, and his advice 
 asked. In the course of his speech to the council. 
 Sir Robert Cotton said: "For the land forces, if it 
 were for an offensive wax*, the men of less livelihood 
 were the best spared, and were used formerly to 
 make such war : but, for safety of a commonwealth, 
 the wisdom of all times did never intrust the public 
 cause to any other than such as had a portion in the 
 public adventure. And this we saw in 1588" [the 
 year of the Spanish Armada], "when the care of the 
 queen and council did make the' body of that large 
 army no other than of trained bands, which with the 
 auxiliaries of the whole realm amounted to no less 
 than thirty-four thousand. Neither were any of those 
 drawn out of their counties and proper habitations 
 before the end of May, that they might be no long 
 grievance to the public."* After saying that " for the 
 support of the king's ordinary charge, the lands of the 
 crown were settled unalterably, and called ' sacrum 
 patrimonium principis,'" he adds: "From hence it 
 is like there will be no great labour or stiffness to 
 incKne his majesty to an act of resumption " [of the 
 crown lands], " since such desires of the State have 
 found an easy way in the will of all the princes from 
 Henry III. to the last."t The amount of the con- 
 stitutional force here stated to have been raised on 
 such an occasion as the defence of the kingdom 
 against the Spanish Armada, shows what a falling off 
 * Pari. Hist. vol. ii. p. 214. f Ibid. p. 216. 
 
CHAP. Tin.] «. CHEAP DEFENCE OS" NATIONS." 167 
 
 liad taken place in the military capabilities of the 
 kingdom since the military tenants had sought to 
 evade the conditions on which' they held their lands. 
 Nearly three hundred years before, when England 
 was less populous, Edward I. and his son raised 
 armies of one hundred thousand men. 
 
 But as the most elaborate attempts have been 
 made to prove the- superior efficiency in every 
 respect of standing armies over militias, it will be 
 necessary to examine somewhat minutely the argu- 
 ments brought forward, and to sift and test the so- 
 called facts on which those arguments profess to be 
 founded. And at the commencement of this, par-- 
 ticular inquiry, it may be remarked as singular, 
 that the efficiency of a militia in England, even at 
 a time when the English government for its owii 
 purposes was exerting itself to the utmost to bring 
 that ancient and often tried constitutional force into 
 disrepute, was signally exhibited against the power 
 of Louis XIV., a king who kept on foot one of the 
 most powerful standing armies known in the his- 
 tory of the world, down to the time of Napoleon I. 
 Such a fact as that about to be mentioned may most 
 truly be cited as a most instructive example of the 
 " cheap defence of nations." 
 
 David Hume, with that agreeable ingenuousness 
 which he displays occasionally, thus describes the 
 condition of the militia in England during the reigns 
 of Charles II. and James II. "The militia fell 
 
168 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Tllf. 
 
 much to decay during these two reigns, partly by 
 the policy of the kings, who had entertained a diffi- 
 dence of their subjects, partly by that ill-judged 
 law which limited the king's power of mustering 
 and arraying them." Adam Smith's speculations on 
 the subject of militias and standing armies would 
 probably have been more valuable than they are, 
 if he had in general entertained a little more " diffi- 
 dence " than he appears to have done of his friend 
 David Hume's version of historical facts, or even if 
 he had duly weighed the conclusion of the para- 
 graph which contains the sentence above quoted. 
 " In the beginning, however, of Charles's reign, the 
 mihtia was still deemed formidable. De Witt having 
 proposed to the French king an invasion of England 
 during the first Dutch war, that monarch replied,; 
 that such an attempt would be entirely fruitless, and 
 would tend only to unite the English. " In a few 
 days," said he, " after our landing, there will be fifty 
 thousand men at least upon us."* According, there- 
 fore, to this authority, so late as 1666, the most 
 
 * Hume's Hht. of England, ch. 71, cites D'Estrades, 20th October, 
 1666. Hume's quotation is not, however, correct; he does not 
 appear to have consulted the original authority. A reference to 
 D'Estrades' Despatches strengthens the force of the opinion given, 
 which will be seen to have been that of D'Estrades himself, the 
 result of his own observation of the English character and institu- 
 tions, and not that of the king, who could have made no observa- 
 tions of his own, and whose opinion could therefore have been 
 only second-hand. The following are the words of D'Estrades: — 
 " II me proposa ensuite I'attaque de I'lsle de Wight ou cdle de 
 
CHAP. THI.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 169 
 
 powerful king of his time was deterred from an 
 invasion of England by his estimate of the for- 
 midable power of the English militia. Facts like 
 these appear to have been totally overlooked in the 
 argument of those who contend that the circum- 
 stances of Europe compel England to keep up a 
 standing army for defence against invasion. 
 
 Adam Smith, in support of his position that a 
 well-regulated standing army is superior to every 
 militia, cites the superiority of the Macedonian 
 armies under Philip and Alexander^ of the Cartha- 
 ginian armies under Hannibal, and of the Prussian 
 under Frederick. Now in all those cases, the supe- 
 riority was due to the genius of the commanders ; 
 for the troops of none of these nations were par- 
 ticularly remarkable for excellence at other times. 
 Indeed, Hannibal borrowed improvements from the 
 arms of that Roman militia, for he changed the long 
 lances and small shields of his infantry for the long 
 shield and stabbing sword of the Roman soldier. In 
 cavalry, indeed, both light and heavy, Hannibal's 
 
 quelque place en Angleterre.' Je lui dis, que je trouvois beaucoup 
 de drfficultez a faire des descentes; et que, quand elles reussiroient, 
 j'en trouvois encore davantage a les soutenir, et a donner la sub- 
 sistance et les secours necessaires aux troupes qui seroient dans 
 Paction; autre que, selon la connoissance que j'avois del'humeur 
 et des inclinations des Anglais, ce seroit un moyen de reunir tons 
 les parties opposez au roi d' Angleterre, quand ils verroient 
 qu'une armee de votre Majeste auroient mis pied a terre dans leur 
 pais; que je suis certain qu'en peu de temps Us auront cinquante 
 mille hommes sous les armes." 
 
170 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Vm. 
 
 army was decidedly superior to the Roman. But 
 the Romans were never very strong in cavalry. 
 
 It is a great advantage to a nation to have a great 
 general at the head of its armies. ; But the qiiestioii 
 is, how to obtain such institutions for a nation as 
 shall secure to it a constant supply (not of generals 
 of vast genius like Hannibal, for that is impossible), 
 but of men and officers equal to the business of 
 defending their country in all emergencies. Now 
 this was the case with Rome in the earlier period of 
 her history. When individuals were restricted by 
 law to a small portion of land, and the^ owners cul- 
 tivated their farms with their own hands, the repub- 
 lic, could always command an abundant supply df 
 hardy soldiersi ■ It is not true that these men were 
 inferior as soldiers to the mercenaries of Haimibali 
 though the latter were no doubt skilfully selected ind 
 admirably trained; for the Romans did not yield or 
 run away, but were overpowered and slaughtered by 
 Hannibal's unequalled genius for war. It would 
 therefore be a most incorrect conclusion that a. 
 standing army of base mercenaries generally would 
 be superior to a militia, whether of Romans or of 
 Englishmen, fighting for the independence of thpir 
 country. It is true that, as Adam Smith says, the 
 armies of Carthage had the advantage of being dis- 
 ciplined and led by three great generals who suc- 
 ceeded one another in the command, Hamilcar, his 
 son-in-law Hasdrubal, and his son Hannibal. But 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF KATIONS." 171 
 
 Carthage still wanted the materials out of which thi^ 
 best soldiers are made, a native agricxJtural popu- 
 lation, living, as Bacon says, " in convenient, plenty, 
 and no servile condition," but not in luxury. And 
 for the solution of the question it is necessary to go 
 somewhat deeper. 
 
 The whole of Adam Smith's argument for the 
 superiority of standing armies over militias proceeds 
 on the assumption that the bulk of the population of 
 every civilized country must consist of sheep with a 
 pack of wolves to defend them. In such a state of 
 things it is manifest that the lives and properties of 
 the sheep must enjoy but small security, either 
 against their own, or against foreign wolves. Adam 
 Smith professes to ground his conclusion on a series 
 of historical facts, which I will now examine. 
 
 In former chapters I have shown the fallacy of 
 Adam Smith's mode of accounting for the fall of the 
 Greeks and Carthaginians by what he calls the irre- 
 sistible superiority of a standing army over a militia. 
 ''Thus," he says, the army of Philip of Macedon 
 vanquished "the gallant and well-exercised militias 
 of the principal republics of ancient Greece." * An 
 apparently very conclusive fact against militias, if a 
 fact it were. But the fact was exactly the reverse, 
 and Adam Smith had so stated it only about ten 
 pages before, where he has the following words: 
 — "After the second Persiati war the armies' of 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. 
 
172 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Till. 
 
 Athens seem to have been generally composed 
 of mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly of 
 citizens, but partly too of foreigners."* This 
 was the real cause of the success of Philip. The 
 " gallant and well -exercised militias of ancient 
 Greece" were not subdued by Philip's standing 
 army. But Philip was victorious because there no 
 longer existed either the gallant militia, or a Mil- 
 tiades, a Themistocles, or an Epaminondas to lead 
 them. 
 
 I have also shown, in the chapter on the Romans, 
 that the fall of Carthage was not owing to the supe- 
 riority of a standing army over a militia, but to the 
 fact that Carthage possessed no materials out of 
 which to construct a good native militia. 
 
 Among the causes which, according to Adam 
 Smith, contributed to relax the discipline of the 
 
 * Adam Smith does not cite any authority in support of this 
 statement ; but besides many other authorities he might have 
 cited the authority of Thucydides, who represents the ambassadors 
 from Corinth saying at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, — 
 " Aaveifffia ydp Troiijirdfievoi, v-jroXatsTv oloi rlfffitv fiiaQi^ fieil^ovt Toiig 
 ^evovg avTS)V vav^drag. btvrjr^ ycip 'Adijvaluyv y dvvafti^ fidXKov Tj 
 oUeia' ri dk rjiurkpa ^affov av tovto tvclOqi^ toTq aatfiafft ToirXhv 
 hxvovira ri toIq xpij/iaui. juq, re viicy vaviiaxias Kurd rd tiKAfi oKia- 
 KovTai." — Tkuc. i. 121. It is observable that this passage contains 
 in substance two of Lord Bacon's maxims: — 1. That "money is 
 not the sinews of war where the sinews of men's arms are failing." 
 And 2. That " there be many examples where sea-fights have been 
 final to the war." The fact of the almost universal use of mer- 
 cenary troops by the Athenians during the century before the 
 battle of Chseronea, is proved by Plato, by Xenophou, and by 
 almost every page of the pubUo orations of Demosthenes. 
 
CHAP. VIII. j " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 173 
 
 Roman armies, was the dispersion of them in small 
 bodies through the different provincial towns ; from 
 which they were scarce ever removed, but when it 
 became necessary to repel an invasion. " Small 
 bodies of soldiers," he says, " quartered in trading 
 and manufacturing towns, and seldom removed from 
 those quarters, became themselves tradesmen, arti- 
 ficers, and manufacturers. The civil came to predo- 
 minate over the military character; and the standing 
 armies of Rome gradually degenerated into a cor- 
 rupt, neglected, and undisciplined militia." 
 
 Now, so far from the fact of soldiers being trades- 
 men and artificers rendering them bad soldiers, the 
 best soldiers that the world ever saw united the 
 character of soldiers with that of good and indus- 
 trious tradesmen and artificers. The statement of 
 Whitelock, that at the commencement of the civil 
 war between Charles I. and the Parliament, Crom- 
 well " had a brave regiment of horse, most of them 
 freeholders and freeholders' sons," seems to lead to 
 the inference that the bulk of the Ironsides were 
 composed of the agricultural class. However, the 
 expression of Denzil HoUis, that " most of the colonels 
 and officers were mean tradesmen, brewers, tailors, 
 goldsmiths, shoemakers, and the Uke : a notable 
 dunghill, if one would rake into it, to find out their 
 several pedigrees,"* as well as the known facts, 
 
 * Memoirs of Denzil Lord Hollis from the Year 1641 to 1648. 
 London, 1699, p. 149. 
 
174 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. TUL 
 
 prove that tliere were many tradesmen or artisans 
 among Cromwell's troops. 
 
 In regard to the composition of the parliamentary 
 army as modelled by Cromwell, we have the autho- 
 rity of Samuel Pepys to the same effect. Undet 
 date November 9, 1663, Pepys thus writes in his 
 diary : " Of all the old army now you cannot see 
 a man begging about the streets ; but what ? You 
 shall have this captain turned a shoemaker; the 
 lieutenant, a baker ; this a brewer ; that a haber- 
 dasher; this common soldier, a porter; and every 
 man in his apron and frock, &c„ as if they never 
 had done anything else : whereas the other" (those 
 who had belonged to the king's army) ''go with 
 their belts and swords, swearing and cursing, and 
 stealing;* running into people's houses by force, 
 oftentimes to carry away something ; and this is 
 the difference between the temper of one and the 
 other." t Pepys, in many other places of his di^ry, 
 always speaks of these parliamentary soldiers as the 
 men that " must do the king's business," and not 
 those who composed his standing army. Under date 
 June 24, 1663, he cites Mr. Coventry as saying: 
 " In the sea service it is impossible to do anything 
 without them, there being not mbre than three men of 
 the whole king's side that are fit to command almost." 
 
 • A notable example of this may be seen in the trial of Colonel 
 James Turner and others, at the Old Bailey, for felony and bur- 
 glary, in 1664. 
 
 t Pepys' Diary, November 9, 1663. 
 
CHAP. vm.J " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 175 
 
 Such were the men whom Cromwell betrayed 
 and Monk sold. It is the more important to note 
 this, because Adam Smith has stated, as one of his 
 facts, that " the standing army of Cromwell turned 
 the Long Parliament out of doors ;" in which state- 
 ment there are two unwarranted assumptions : (1,) 
 That the parliamentary army had the character 
 of a standing army, and not of a militia; and (2,) 
 That the overthrow of the parliament was the effect 
 of the character of the citizen being in Cromwell's 
 soldiers altogether merged in that of the mercenary 
 soldier. Whereas the fact was that, down to the 
 battle of Worcester, the parliamentary army retained 
 the distinct character of a militia : of free men fight- 
 ing for their religion, laws, and liberties. After the 
 battle of Worcester, Cromwell weeded out of it as 
 many as possible of those who, he knew, would 
 oppose his designs. But even then he could only 
 attain his purpose of destroying the parliament, and 
 setting himself up in its place, by deceiving many of 
 the hest officers, such as Harrison, by an elaborate 
 tissue of cant, hypocrisy, and falsehood. 
 
 The argument, therefore, of Adam Smith in fa- 
 vour of standing armies over militias, drawn from 
 the army of the Long Parliament of England, falls 
 to the ground. Even if it should be proved to have 
 assumed the character of a standing army after the 
 battle of Worcester, it unquestionably did all its 
 work, and performed all its wonderful achievements 
 
1 76 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Tin. 
 
 in the character of a militia ; while the army of the 
 king, being composed in part of men and more of 
 officers, trained in foreign service, possessed far more 
 of the character of a standing army. 
 
 The manner in which the newly-raised London 
 apprentices distinguished themselves at the first battle 
 of Newbury is well known, and has been admitted 
 by their enemies. And although they do not appear 
 to have displayed at Naseby an altogether equal 
 degree of steadiness, there are some remarks of 
 Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun respecting them which 
 are well deserving of attention. 
 
 " The battle of Naseby," he says, " is generally 
 thought to have been the deciding action of the late 
 civil war. The number of forces was equal on both 
 sides, nor was there any advantage in the ground, 
 or extraordinary accident that happened during the 
 fight, which could be of considerable importance to 
 either. In the army of the parliament, nine only of 
 the officers had served abroad, and most of the sol- 
 diers were prentices drawn out of London but two 
 months before. In the king's army there were above 
 a thousand officers that had served in foreign parts : 
 yet was that army routed and broken by those new- 
 raised prentices, who were observed to be obedient 
 to command, and brave in fight, not only in that 
 action, but in all occasions during that active cam- 
 paign. The people of these nations are not a das- 
 tardly crew, like those born in misery, under 
 
CHAP. Tm.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 177 
 
 Oppression and slavery, who must have time to rub 
 off that fear, cowardice, and stupidity which they 
 bring from home. And the officers seem to stand in 
 more need of experience than private soldiers; yet 
 in that battle it was seen that the sobriety and prin- 
 ciple of the officers on the one side prevailed over 
 the experience of those on the other."* 
 
 Fletcher also brings forward in support of his 
 views the actions of the Marquis of Montrose, which 
 he compares with those of Caesar, " as well for the 
 military skill as the bad tendency of them : though," 
 he adds, " the marquis had never served abroad, nor 
 seen any action before the six victories which, with 
 numbers much inferior to those of his enemies, he 
 obtained in one year ; and the most considerable of 
 them were chiefly gained by the assistance of the 
 tenants and vassals of the family of Gordon, "f 
 
 Among his arguments in fevour of standing 
 armies in modern times, Adam Smith enumerates 
 the greater difficulty of preserving any considerable 
 degree of order and prompt obedience from the 
 noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible 
 death to which every man feels himself every 
 moment exposed, as soon as he comes within 
 cannon-shot, and frequently a long tijne before 
 the battle can be well said to be engaged. " In 
 
 * Discourse of Government with relation to Militias, pp. 43, 44. 
 Edinburgh, 1698. 
 t Ibid. pp. 42, 43. 
 
 N 
 
178 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Tin. 
 
 an ancient battle," he says, "there was no noise 
 but what arose from the human voice; there was 
 no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds 
 or death. Every man, tiU some mortal weapon 
 . actually did approach him, saw clearly that no 
 such weapon was near him." 
 
 It is not unworthy of remark that Hobbes endea- 
 vours to account for the courage of the London 
 apprentices in the civil wars, on a principle the 
 reverse of this — namely, the invisible nature of the 
 death. "Among theirs" — that is, the parliament's 
 soldiers — "there were," he says, "a great many 
 London apprentices, who, for want of experience in 
 the war, would have been fearful enough of death 
 and wounds approaching visibly in glistening swords ; 
 but for want of judgment, scarce thought of such 
 death as comes invisibly in a bullet, and, therefore, 
 were very hardly to be driven out of the field."* 
 
 The want of judgment here imputed by Hobbes 
 to the London apprentices, would seem to be very 
 much of the same nature as the stupidity sometimes 
 imputed to the English in later times by their ene- 
 mies, which prevents them from discovering that 
 they have been beaten, and also prevents them from 
 taking to flight as a natural consequence of defeat. 
 But men can very well afford to bear with patience 
 and resignation the imputation of this sort of " want 
 of judgment." 
 
 * Behemoth, p. 188. London, 1682. 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 179 
 
 I have thus attempted to answer some of Adam 
 Smith's arguments against militias as compared with 
 standing armies. It may be added that when Adam 
 Smith contends, that " to maintain, even in tolerable 
 execution, the complex regulations of any modern 
 mUitia, requires the continual and painful attention 
 of government, without which they are constantly 
 felling into total neglect and disuse," * he shows that 
 he was totally unacquainted both with the principles 
 and the practice of the constitutional militia system 
 of England. And when he aiHrms " that the ancient 
 institutions of Greece and Eome seem to have been 
 much more effectual for maintaining the martial 
 spirit of the great body of the people than the esta- 
 blishment of what are called the militias of modern 
 times ;" that they were much more simple, and their 
 influence much more universal, since by means of 
 them the whole body of the people was completely 
 instructed in the use of arms, " whereas it is but a 
 very small part of them who can ever be so in- 
 structed by the regulations of any modern militia ; " 
 he ought to have defined within what limits he uses 
 the term "modem militia," since, if he applies the 
 term generally to what are commonly called mo- 
 dem times in contradistinction to the times in which 
 Greece and Rome flourished, he appears to have over- 
 looked some important facts in modern history. 
 
 Does he mean to include in what he describes as 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. part iii. article ii. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. TUt 
 
 " the complex regulations of modern militias," which 
 are constantly apt " to fall into total neglect and dis- 
 use," the institution or regulation by which England, 
 during five hundred years, won so many great bat- 
 tles : the institution by which all Englishmen of the 
 clasp of yeomen or small freeholders were trained to 
 the use of the bow ? 
 
 Ad9,m Smith also says, that in all the different 
 republics of ancient Greece, to learn his military 
 exercises was a necessary part of education imposed 
 by the State upon every free citizen ; that in every 
 city there seems to have been a public field, in which, 
 imder the protection of the public magistrate, the 
 young people were taught their different exercises 
 by different masters : in which very simple institution 
 consisted the whole expense which any Grecian 
 State seems ever to have been at in preparing its 
 citizens for war ; that, in ancient Rome, the exer- 
 cises of the Campus Martius answered the same 
 pnrpoge; whereas "under the feudal governments, 
 the many public ordinances that the citizens of every 
 district should practise archery as well as several 
 other military exercises, were intended for promoting 
 the same purpose, but appear to have been univer- 
 sally neglected." * 
 
 The complete inaccuracy of this statement has 
 been abundantly shown as regards England; where, 
 in point of fact, the young people were taught 
 
 "^ Wealth of Nations, tk. v. ch. i. 
 
CHAP. Till.] " CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 181 
 
 archery and other military exercises in every parish 
 with as much care, and, I may add, with as much 
 success, as they were taught in every city through- 
 out the different republics of ancient Greece. Adam 
 Smith appears to have fallen into this error from 
 a hasty and very imperfect generalization in this 
 particular case. In the Scottish historians, frequent 
 mention is made of the failure of the repeated ordi- 
 nances respecting the practice of archery in Scot- 
 land to accomplish their object; which ordinances, 
 " either from want of interest in the officers entrusted 
 with the execution of them, or from some other 
 cause, appear to have been universally neglected." 
 Those words, which Adam Smith applies generally, 
 do in part apply to Scotland in the matter of archery ; 
 but to England not at all.* 
 
 * The following note, which I transcribe from Mr. Toulmin Smith's 
 Farisli, pp. 519, 520, 2nd edition, will show on unquestionable 
 authority the inaccuracy of Adam Smith's conclusions: — " The 
 ' arrows ' and ' butts ' named in these parish accounts formed 
 part of that system of accustoming aU the people to the active use 
 of arms and healthy recreation, which was the wise policy of the 
 common law. In the extract already given from Aubrey, it has 
 been seen that shooting at the butts was a usual part of the 
 holiday exercises. Every parish in the land is bound by law to 
 have its butts, to be thus used for the wholesome recreation of the 
 inhabitants. This, which was the ancient law, was re-declared by 
 3 Hen. VIII. c. 3, and 33 Hen. VIII. c. 9. It was one of the 
 regular articles of periodical inquiry, 'If the inhabitants of the 
 town (parish) have made and continued their butts, as they ought 
 to do?' {See Lumbard's Eirenarcha, p. 481); ' and if they exercise 
 themselves with long bows in shooting at the same, and elsewhere, 
 on the holidays and other times convenient ?' {Bokefor aJustyce, 
 p. 24, b). The reader will remember how at the siege of the castle in 
 
182 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [CHAP. Tin. 
 
 Adam Smith, or somebody else, remarks, some- 
 where that the effect of not making war a distinct 
 profession, but making all men soldiers for a time, 
 but none permanently, is, to make six bad or indif^ 
 ferent soldiers and to spoil six good ploughmen; 
 whereas the effect of the contrary course is, that you 
 have five good ploughmen and one good soldier. 
 On the other hand, it is held by Blackstone,* who 
 cites Montesquieu in support of his opinion, that " to 
 prevent the executive power from being able to 
 oppress, it is requisite that the armies with which it 
 is entrusted should consist of the people, arid have 
 the same spirit with the people ; as was the case at 
 Rome, till Marius new-modelled the legions by en- 
 listing the rabble of Italy, and laid the foundation of 
 all the military tyranny that ensued. Nothing, then, 
 according to these principles, ought to be more 
 guarded against in a free State, than making the 
 military power, when such a one is necessary to be 
 kept on foot, a body too distinct from the people. 
 Like ours, therefore, it should wholly be composed 
 of natural subjects ; it ought only to be enlisted for 
 a short and limited time ; the soldiers also should live 
 intermixed with the people; no separate camp, no 
 barracks, no inland fortresses, should be allowed. 
 
 Ivanhoe, Walter Scott, true to popular habits, and therefore using 
 natural similes, makes ' the men complain that they can nowhere 
 show themselves, but they are the mark for as many arrows as a 
 parish butt on a holiday even.' " 
 * 1 Com. 414. 
 
CHAP, TIILJ " CHEAP DEFENCE OP NATIONS." 183 
 
 And perhaps it might be still better, if, by dismissing 
 a stated number and enlisting others at every re- 
 newal of their term, a circulation could be kept up 
 between the army and the people, and the citizen and 
 the soldier be more intimately connected together." 
 
 In this argument of Blackstone, however, it is this 
 very "circulation" that is the objectionable element, 
 according to the argument which I have cited above, 
 — I think it is Adam Smith's — and also according to 
 the arguments of some recent writers, drawn from 
 what they have observed in some continental nations, 
 particularly Prussia : when they say that taking men 
 away from their business for three years, and making 
 them live together in regiments and in barracks, has 
 a most prejudicial effect on their habits, and a perni- 
 cious influence on their future life. Now Blackstone 
 indeed says " there should be no barracks, no sepa- 
 rate camp ; the soldiers should live intermixed with 
 the people." It is probable that when the learned 
 and accomplished commentator on the laws of Eng- 
 land came to the execution of his proposed plan in 
 all its details, he might have met with some difiicul- 
 ties in carrying out this part of it. 
 
 But the argument that there is no choice between 
 a standing army and such a militia as shall spoil six 
 ploughmen without making one good soldier out of 
 them, is fallacious. We have seen that, in the case 
 of the army of the Long Parliament of England, the 
 men, while they were good soldiers, were not spoiled 
 
184 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Till. 
 
 either as ploughmen or artisans ; and, under the old 
 English institutions by which the youth were exer- 
 cised with the bow, and latterly with the " fusee," we 
 may challenge any one to prove that a ploughman 
 would be a worse ploughman for being, like Cuddie 
 Headrigg, a first-rate marksman : which is all that 
 is required. 
 
 The Government of Great Britain has the means 
 of having half a million of riflemen that would 
 make the name of England as formidable now as 
 her archers did at '' Cressy fell and red Poitiersj" 
 and many another hard-fought field. But, in fact, 
 to borrow the words of Fletcher of Saltoun, those 
 who " aimed at absolute power, thinking they could 
 never use it effectually to that end, unless it were 
 wielded by mercenaries, and men that had no other 
 interest in the commonwealth than their pay, have 
 still endeavoured by all means to discredit militias, 
 and render them burdensome to the people, by never 
 suffering them to be upon any right or so much as 
 tolerable foot ; — and all to persuade the necessity of 
 a standing force."* 
 
 In 1732, Mr. Pulteney said in Parliament, and his 
 words may perhaps be found to be as true now as 
 they were 126 years ago, — " By means of their 
 standing armies the nations around us have every 
 one lost their liberties ; it is, indeed, impossible that 
 
 * A Discourse of Government with relation to Militias, p. 8. 
 Edinburgh, 1698. 
 
CHAP. Tin. J "CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 185 
 
 the liberties of. the people can be preserved in any 
 country where a numerous standing army is kept 
 up."* 
 
 In some at least of the countries of which Mr. 
 Pulteney here speaks, the liberties could not be said 
 to be very extensively distributed. But there is no 
 question that in all countries but England, the feudal 
 aristocracy, by turning the military service of their 
 vassals into money, in order to support their costly 
 luxuries in houses, clothes, furniture, and equipage, 
 lost their independence. For, the feudal armies 
 having ceased to exist, the sword thus fell out of the 
 , hands of the barons. To provide a substitute for the 
 ' feudal militia in the defence of the various countries 
 where this change had taken place, princes raised 
 armies of mercenaries, and for their maintenance 
 levied large sums upon the " people grown rich," 
 says Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, f ' "by trade, 
 and dispirited for want of military exercise. Such 
 forces," continues Iletcher, " were at first only 
 raised for present exigencies, and continued no 
 longer on foot than the occasions lasted. But 
 princes soon found pretences to make them per- 
 petual. The oflScers and soldiers of these mercenary 
 armies depending for their subsistence and prefer- 
 ment as immediately upon the prince as the former 
 
 * Pari. Hist. Tiii. 904. 
 
 f A Discourse of Government with relation to Militias. Edin- 
 burgh, 1698. 
 
186 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. Tin.. 
 
 militias did upon the barons, the power of the sword 
 was transferred from the subject to the king, and 
 war grew a constant trade to live by. Nay, many 
 of the barons themselves being reduced to poverty 
 by their expensive way of living, took commands in 
 those mercenary troops ; and being stiU continued 
 hereditary members of diets and other assemblies of 
 State, after the loss of their vassals whom they for- 
 merly represented, they were now the readiest of all 
 others to load the people with heavy taxes, which 
 were employed to increase the prince's military 
 power, by guards, armies, and citadels beyond 
 bounds or remedy." 
 
 While these observations applied to most of the 
 countries in Europe, they did not altogether apply 
 to England ; where, though, as Fletcher remarks, the 
 power of the barons had ceased, yet, at the time he 
 wrote, no mercenary troops were yet estabhshed. 
 " King Charles the First did indeed," says Fletcher, 
 " endeavour to make himself absolute, though some- 
 what preposterously, for he attempted to seize the 
 purse before he was master of the sword." What 
 was peculiar in the fate of England was, that the 
 power of the feudal barons did not, as in most of the 
 other countries of Europe, all pass into the hands of 
 the kings ; but those who had succeeded to the land 
 tenures of the feudal aristocracy, and who formed an 
 oligarchy as opposed to an aristocracy, obtained pos- 
 session of a large portion of it. 
 
CHAP. VIIlJ "CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." 187 
 
 What use they have made of it I will endeavour 
 to show in the next chapter. In the meantime I 
 will sum up what I have here said, in the words of a 
 military friend who has not only studied Jomini but 
 seen actual war. 
 
 " The English archers, citizens and pare volun- 
 teers as they were, were unrivalled in skill. How 
 is it now with regard to English horsemen ? Certain 
 portions of the nation choose to cultivate horseman- 
 ship, and turn out horsemen such as all the military 
 schools of Europe are unable to equal. The man 
 who does a thing every day of his life must do it 
 better than the man who does it occasionally; and 
 this fact, with reference to the two exercises which I 
 have just mentioned, no longer throws itself into the 
 balance in favour of standing armies. The nation 
 practises the one exercise, and did practise the other, 
 every day of its life, as a pleasure ; and with a con- 
 sequent effect which renders any fiiture improve- 
 ments to be superadded by a teacher an inappreciable 
 quantity. And so it may be with rifle markmanship. 
 If the nation adopts rifle-shooting, as it once did 
 archery and now does horsemanship, if it takes 
 pride and pleasure in it, you will be able to raise, 
 at any moment, a militia who, in point of skill with 
 their weapons, shall have nothing to learn from their 
 ' regular ' rivals." 
 
 The same friend also says, in reference to the 
 question how far a standing army has the advantage 
 
188 STRENGTH OF NATION'S. [cHAr. Till. 
 
 over a militia in point of courage, tliat " the lower 
 the natural military qualifications of a people, the 
 greater will be the superiority of the standing army ; 
 and the higher their natural valour, the less will be 
 the superiority ;" and then comes to this conclusion : 
 " So, as I maintain that, with a cowardly people, the 
 superiority in courage of a standing army is as some- 
 thing is to nothing, or, putting it in an algebraical 
 form, is as x : — i.e.> infinite ; with a brave people I 
 believe that the superiority in courage of a standing 
 army over a militia would sink into comparative 
 insignificance, when compared with the valour which 
 each party (each being assumed to be of the same 
 nation or race) would bring into the field. The pro- 
 portion would then stand as as+lOa! : 10 a; — that is, 
 as 11 : 10 — a small superiority." 
 
 Such is the result where the militia is composed of 
 riflemen and horsemen so exercised, and the standing 
 army opposed to it are of the same race, and pos- 
 sessing the same measure of natural courage. It 
 follows that if the standing army opposed to this 
 militia be of another race, not possessing precisely 
 the same measure of natural courage, such standing 
 army will have no superiority whatever over such 
 militia. 
 
 This physical well-being in the free citizens of a 
 free State is necessarily accompanied by moral and 
 mental well-being, by patriotic spirit and general 
 force of character, by moral and mental energy. 
 
CHAP, Tm.J " CHEAP DEFENCE OE NATIONS." 189 
 
 The frequent meeting together of the youth for 
 athletic exercises, and of the men for the discussion 
 of public matters, binds together each little commu- 
 nity; and while it exercises both their minds and 
 bodies, in a very different manner from that in which 
 any State system of education like that of Prussia 
 does, inspires each individual with that love of his 
 country and that force of character which animated 
 the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, and dic- 
 tated the dying words of Sparta's great and heroic 
 enemy on the field of Mantinea : " I have hved long 
 enough, for I die unconquered." 
 
 The patriotism and force of character which were 
 Jiroduced in so eminent a degree in the little repub- 
 lics of ancient Greece, were also signally exhibited by 
 Rome in its early history ; and in later times by small 
 nations, like the Swiss and Scots, which offered a 
 heroic and successful resistance to powerful enemies 
 seeking to deprive them of their independence : Ban- 
 nockburn and Morat may be joined with Marathon 
 and Thermopylse. And there is, as it appears to me, 
 even a still greater degree of patriotic spirit and un- 
 conquerable courage displayed in bearing up against 
 repeated defeats, as the Romans did against Hanni- 
 bal, and the Scots under Wallace against Edward I. 
 Of men with souls thus invincible — men who might 
 be overpowered by numbers and superior general- 
 ship, but could never be reduced to despair — despe- 
 rare de republicd — consists the real strength of 
 
190 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. Tin. 
 
 nations, and not of the power to buy foreign mer- 
 cenaries. 
 
 The incapacity to understand this spirit rendered 
 David Hume, with all his intellectual power, unfit 
 to write history, as well as unable to fathom some 
 of the depths of hmnan nature. The whole force of 
 the Roman empire, although exerted to the utmost 
 under Sever us, one of its most warlike princes, could 
 not totally subdue the nation of the Caledonians; 
 whose invincible spirit in defence of freedom* at 
 last obliged that empire, after granting them peace, 
 to spend nearly two years in building a wall of solid 
 stone, twelve feet high and eight feet thick, with 
 forts and towers at proper distances, and a rampart 
 and ditch, from the Solway firth to the mouth of 
 the Tyne, about sixty-eight miles, to repress their 
 inroads. And Severus, in his attempts to subdue 
 Caledonia, is said to have lost no less than fifty 
 thousand men.j And yet Mr. Hume says that the 
 Romans entertained a contempt for Caledonia.^ 
 
 But there is no nation in ancient or modern times 
 that possessed, as far as I am aware, institutions so 
 eminently fitted to produce both patriotic spirit and 
 force of character as those of England, while they 
 remained in their healthy and uncorrupted state ; 
 and before the attempts had commenced to assimi- 
 
 * Devita morti pectora liberce. Hor, Od. iv. 14, 18. 
 f mvre fivpidSag iiXoie' Dio, 1. Ixxyi, c. 13. 
 J Hist of England, ch. i. 
 
CHAP. Tin.] " CH^lAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS." ,191 
 
 late them to the slavish institutions of continental 
 Europe : particularly to those of Prussia, the people 
 of which have been described by a modern writer 
 as " the most superintended, the most interfered 
 with, the most destitute of civil freedom and poli- 
 tical right — ^in a word, the most enslaved people in 
 Western Europe, and the most educated." * 
 
 * Laing's Observations on Europe in 1848 and 1849, p. 188. 
 
192 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DEAE DEFENCE OF NATIONS. — THE MODERN 
 ENGLISH NATIONAIi DEFENCES. 
 
 In the sixth chapter I have quoted some very signi- 
 ficant words of the great Duke of Wellington. " If 
 the French should succeed in landing an army in 
 England, then, indeed," says the duke, " would 
 commence an expensive contest, whatever might he 
 the result of the military operations." The duke 
 was led to make these remarks by the just com- 
 plaints of the English people on account of the enor- 
 mous expense of the war in which they were then 
 engaged. Under the circumstances of the present 
 time, a question, which is not new, forces itself upon 
 public attention — the question, viz.. What are the 
 causes of this enormous expense of modern wars 
 undertaken by Great Britain ? 
 
 Some writers, and particularly David Hume, seem 
 to think that the question is solved by the considera- 
 tion of the greater facilities and means for borrowing 
 which existed after the Revolution, and did not exist 
 before it. In his Essay on Civil Liberty, published 
 in 1742, Hume says : " Among the modems, the 
 
CHAP. IX. J THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 193 
 
 Dutch first introduced the practice of borrowing 
 great sums at low interest, and well nigh ruined 
 themselves by it. Absolute princes have also con- 
 tracted debt ; but as an absolute prince may make a 
 bankruptcy when he pleases, his people can never 
 be qppressed by his debts. In popular governments, 
 the people, and chiefly those who have the highest 
 offices, being commonly the public creditors, it is 
 difficult for the State to make use of this remedy; 
 which, however it may be sometimes necessary, is 
 always cruel and barbarous. This, therefore, seems 
 to be an inconvenience which nearly threatens all 
 free governments, especially our own at the present 
 juncture of affiairs.* And what a strong motive is 
 this to increase our frugality of public money, lest 
 for want of it we be reduced by the multiplicity of 
 taxes, or, what is worse, iy our public impotence and 
 inability for defence, to curse our very liberty, and 
 wish ourselves in the same state of servitude with 
 all the nations that surround us." 
 
 Ten years later, when the debt had risen to seventy- 
 six millions, Hume, in his Essay on the Balance of 
 Power, comes to the conclusion "that above half 
 of our wars with France, and all our public debts, 
 are owing more to our own imprudent vehemence 
 than to the ambition of our neighbours ; that our 
 
 * At that time the funded debt Tras about fifty millions. What 
 would Hume have said when it had risen to nearly twenty times 
 that amount? 
 
194 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 allies always reckon upon our force as their own, 
 and, expecting to carry on the war at our ex- 
 pense, refuse all reasonable terms of accommoda- 
 tion ; and, finally, that we are such true combatants 
 that, when once engaged, we lose all concern for 
 ourselves and for posterity." 
 
 But all this amounts rather to a statement of 
 effects than an explanation of causes. For it alto- 
 gether fails to explain why our wars carried on 
 under Edward I., Edward III., and Henry V., had 
 no tendency to reduce us to the state of "public 
 impotence and inability for defence" pointed out in 
 the passage I have quoted. At all events, it affords 
 a very imperfect solution of the question. And as 
 the problem is one which now presses, and every 
 succeeding year will press with constantly increasing 
 force, upon the people of England, it appears to be a 
 matter of paramount importance to attempt to arrive 
 at some satisfactory solution of it. 
 
 Many persons have probably heard of Burke's 
 celebrated expression " the cheap defence of nations," 
 who do not very clearly understand its meaning ; or 
 at least assume that it is a mere figure of rhetoric 
 belonging to his lamentation, usually considered more 
 eloquent than wise, for the departure of the age of 
 chivalry. The statement of a few facts that nearly 
 concern all of us who pay taxes, without finding our- 
 selves in the number of those gentlemen who are in 
 possession of lands that " were formerly the property 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 195 
 
 of the crown, and subjected to all the feudal 
 tenures,"* will show how full of meaning is the 
 expression "the cheap defence of nations." 
 
 From the battle of Hastings, and the commence- 
 ment of the Norman dynasty and the feudal system 
 (strictly so called) in England, to the restoration of 
 Charles II., is a period of 594 years. During that 
 time, England kept her national defences in so com- 
 plete a state that no foreign power dared to attempt 
 invading her, and carried on besides a vast number 
 of great wars, in the course of which she planted 
 her flag on the walls of Acre, made one king of 
 France prisoner, and dethroned another, restored a 
 king of Spain to his throne, destroyed the Spanish 
 Armada, and finally made the name of Englishman 
 as much respected over the world as that of Roman 
 had been. And all this she did without contracting 
 a farthing of debt! 
 
 From the restoration of Charles II. to the year 
 1815 is a period of 155 years. During that com- 
 paratively short time (very little more than a fourth 
 of the former), England, in carrying on wars which 
 should certainly not have cost her greater efforts 
 than those above referred to ; in making war for the 
 Dutch ; for the succession to the crown of Spain ; in 
 making war, first for, and then against the House of 
 Austria ; in conquering Canada ; in losing America ; 
 in the wars of the French Revolution ; and, in the 
 * 1 Bl. Com. 307. 
 
 2 
 
196 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 course of all this, in subsidizing more than half 
 Europe ; — contracted a debt of upwards of 800 mil- 
 lions ! while taxes to an enormous amount were levied 
 on the labouring and commercial classes of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 These results of the two periods present a contrast 
 so startling, that a strong desire must naturally arise 
 in the mind of every reflecting Englishman to en- 
 deavour to learn the causes ctf that contrast; in other 
 words, to attempt a solution of the great political 
 and historical problem which such a phenomenon 
 presents. 
 
 The solution of this question, as it appears to me, 
 is to be sought for in some great organic change that 
 must have taken place in the English constitution in 
 the course of the seventeenth century. If we look 
 into any of the historians who have treated of the 
 events of that period, we shall find nothing to lead us 
 to suppose that anything was then done which could 
 lead to such momentous consequences. Neverthe- 
 less, an Act of legislation was then passed, which 
 worked a change so important in the fundamental 
 laws of England, as almost to amount to a fresh 
 conquest of the country. 
 
 Although it may be laid down as an indisputable 
 truth that every man who puts himself forward to 
 represent a body of his countrymen in Parliament, 
 ought to possess a competent knowledge at least of 
 that portion of the laws of his country which forms 
 
CHAP. II. J THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 197 
 
 what is called its constitution, it is no less true that to 
 acquire such a measure of knowledge demands an 
 amount of time and study which a very small pro- 
 portion of members of the legislature have ever been 
 found to have devoted to that purpose. During the 
 first thirty years of the seventeenth century, however, 
 the House of Commons had the advantage of possessing 
 among its members some of the greatest constitutional 
 lawyers that England has ever produced. In answer 
 to those who sneer at lawyers, however great, it is 
 to be observed that these men — Coke, Selden, and 
 others — are not held up as the perfection of human 
 wisdom themselves, but as the faithful and exact 
 depositaries of that knowledge embodied in the com- 
 mon law of England; which is the result of the 
 experience, through innumerable ages, of the most 
 practically sagacious race of men that the world has 
 ever seen. Much of that invaluable knowledge is 
 found throughout the debates on the Petition of 
 Right and other great constitutional questions; and 
 a summary of it is embodied in the Petition of Right 
 itself, drawn by the hand of Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 The king, however, who, after many evasions, 
 at last passed the Petition of Right, determined to 
 elude his own act; and the laws embodied in it, 
 though the undoubted ancient constitutional birth- 
 right of Englishmen, had to be long and obstinately 
 fought for, not in Parliament, but on fields of battle. 
 But though the close of the conflict left those who 
 
198 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. . [CHAP. II. 
 
 fought for the Petition of Right victorious, it hy no 
 means left the great constitutional question in pre^ 
 cisely the state in which the great constitutional 
 lawyers referred to would have considered it as justly 
 settled. 
 
 AH through the reign of James I., a question 
 which occupied very much of the time and attention 
 of the Parliament was the question of getting rid of 
 the feudal tenures. The same hand which drew the 
 Petition of Right drew up an account of a motion 
 made at the Parliament, in the eighteenth year of the 
 reign of James I., for commuting the feudal tenures 
 and payments into a " competent yearly rent, to he 
 assured to his Majesty, his heirs and successors." 
 This motion Coke stamps with his approbation, 
 " hoping that so good a motion will some time or 
 other, by authority of Parliament, one way or other, 
 take effect and be established."* The amount of 
 the rentcharge which was to be substituted for the 
 feudal payments, was equal to nearly one-half of the 
 whole revenue of the kingdom at that time;'|' and as 
 the value of the land would increase with the in- 
 crease of the wealth and revenue of the kingdom, 
 the proportion would remain the same at present. 
 The lawyers, however, who succeeded Coke and 
 Selden, both in the Long Parliament and the Con- 
 vention Parliament, such as Sir Anthony Ashley 
 
 * 4 htst., 202, 203. 
 
 t Sinclair Hist. jReven. vol. i. pp. 233, 244. 
 
CHAP. IX. J THE DBAE DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 19^ 
 
 Cooper and Sir Heneage Finch, took a very diflferent 
 view of the matter. 
 
 The importance of this change, from a parUament 
 guided by such lawyers as Coke and Selden, to par- 
 liaments guided by such lawyers as Ashley Cooper 
 and Heneage Finch, is proved by the difference be- 
 tween the proceedings of the parHaments of the 
 eighteenth century, and those of the parliaments of 
 former times. What was the cause of this difference? 
 The cause was simply this. Under the old Enghsh 
 constitution, the legislating classes had a direct per- 
 sonal interest in keeping down the expenses of the 
 government: that is, those who voted for wars and 
 subsidies carried on the wars and paid the subsidies 
 with their own blood and their own money ; whereas, 
 under the constitution substituted in the room of it, 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century, those 
 who voted for wars and subsidies carried on the wars 
 and paid the subsidies with other people's blood and 
 other people's money. Those, therefore, who profess 
 to be the advocates of good and economical govern- 
 ment, will never attain their object till they obtain 
 the restoration of that part at least of the principle 
 of the old constitution, which gave to those who had 
 the power a strong and direct interest in keeping 
 down the expenses of the government. A rent- 
 charge proportioned in amount to the incidents or 
 branches of tenure by knight-service in time of peace, 
 and to the main trunk, or a certain number of days' 
 
200 STEENGTH OF NATIONS, [cHAP, IX. 
 
 actual military service, in addition to those incidents, 
 in time of war, would effectually accomplish its 
 object, and save the nation from the ruin in which 
 the system of the last two hundred years, if per- 
 sisted in, will overwhelm it long before another 
 period of two hundred years has elapsed. 
 
 So blind to all this were the statesmen and legis- 
 lators of the Long Parliament, that they had the 
 foolish profligacy to abolish the Court of Wards 
 and Liveries,* and all tenures by knight-service, 
 without any compensation or equivalent whatever to 
 the State. The vote or ordinance to this effect, 
 which passed on the 24th of February, 1646, was an 
 act of robbery of the State on the largest scale. It 
 was, however, not acted upon at the time ; not from 
 any feelings of compunction on the part of the per- 
 petrators of it, but from the necessities of the time. 
 The dues of wardship, and all the other dues which 
 were the fundamental conditions on which the lands 
 of England had been granted as private property, 
 continued to be rigorously exacted till 1656; when 
 Cromwell, having become a large landholder as well 
 as Protector — in other words, an unconstitutional 
 tyrant in the seat of the ancient constitutional 
 kings of England— the last vestige of the English 
 constitution was destroyed : an assembly of his crea- 
 
 * The Court of Wards and Liveries was established to super- 
 intend and regulate the necessary inquiries as to the payments 
 due in each case in respect of the feudal tenures. 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE DEAE DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 201 
 
 tares called a parliament, which passed an Act " for 
 the further establishing and confirming " the ordi- 
 nance above mentioned. 
 
 The military service and its commutation or sub- 
 stitute, called Scutage or Escuage, was the main 
 body, or trunk, of the system by which England was 
 governed and defended, without national debt, for six 
 hundred years. The jurisdiction of the Court of 
 Wards comprehended only the incidents or branches 
 of the main trunk. Now, since the main part of this 
 system, the defence of the kingdom, only came strictly 
 into operation in time of war, in such a reign as that 
 of James I. it would almost be lost sight of; while in 
 less, peaceful reigns, it would form a large portion of 
 the public revenue. It may, therefore, be concluded 
 that the amount of the rent-charge proposed in the 
 reign of James I. was rather below than above a 
 perfectly fair average. The amount of the rent- 
 charge then proposed was 200,000Z. a year ;* and, 
 since it appears from the account which has ,been 
 published, of James the First's revenue during the 
 first fourteen years of his reign, that his ordinary 
 income did not exceed 450,863it a year, it follows 
 that, at that time, the portion of the public revenue to 
 be derived from the proposed rentcharge was equal 
 to not much less than one-half of the whole public 
 
 * Old Pari. Hist, vol v. pp. 264, 267 ; Sincl. Hist. Eeven. vol. i. 
 p. 233. 
 •f Sincl. Hist. Eeven. vol. i. 244. 
 
202 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 revenue of the kingdom : and that, too, upon an old 
 valuation of estates at a time when the principal 
 part of the system, the active military service, 
 had fallen somewhat out of view. Now, as that 
 proportion would have continued, the rentcharge 
 would at this time have amounted to more than 
 twenty million pounds sterling. The effect of such 
 an arrangement would also have been to keep the 
 burden of making wars, and of subsidizing foreign 
 States, where the English constitution had wisely 
 placed that burden — namely, on those who made 
 laws and voted for wars and subsidies ; and conse- 
 quently, half, at least, of the wars and subsidies of 
 the eighteenth century would have been avoided. 
 
 It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of all the 
 pernicious consequences of this act of injustice. But 
 the nature of it may be made intelligible to all men, 
 who are capable of comprehending that an act which 
 confirms rights while discharging them fi-om their 
 correlative obligations, and thus creates rights with- 
 out obligations, is at once a moral and legal ano- 
 maly, which cannot exist without a logical absurdity 
 and a moral fraud. 
 
 The land of England was held on certain well- 
 defined conditions, which conditions were, in the 
 strictest sense, the purchase-money of that land- That 
 purchase-iQoney may be very accurately described 
 to have been made payable as a perpetual annuity to 
 the State, increasing in value as the land increased 
 
CHAP. IX. J THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 203 
 
 in value, just as tithe is payable to the clergy, and 
 copyhold and other rents and profits to the land- 
 holders. But the members of the Long Parliament 
 and of the Convention Parliament of 1660 — in the 
 face of the emphatic protest of Prynne and other 
 sound constitutional lawyers — voted that the holders 
 of the land of England should be totally exonerated 
 from the future payment of this perpetual annuity, 
 which constituted the purchase-money of their estates ; 
 and that this annuity, or purchase-money, should for 
 the future be paid, in the shape of an excise, by other 
 people, who held none of the land for which they 
 were thus made to pay. 
 
 Before this change, first made by the Long Parlia- 
 ment, and confirmed by the Act 12 Car. IL c. 14, 
 passed by a majority of two — the votes being 151 for 
 the resolution, and 149 against it — the government 
 of England was (as has been shown in the preceding 
 chapter) so constituted, that the defensive force of 
 the kingdom was bound to be efficiently furnished 
 by those whose lands were granted to them on that 
 express and specific condition. In the debate on the 
 resolution in 1660, many members spoke vehemently 
 against the measure proposed; some saying that if 
 this biU were carried, every man who earned his 
 bread by the sweat of his brow must pay excise to 
 excuse the nobiHty and other landholders from the 
 payments which were the conditions on which their 
 estates had been granted. The most profound lawyer 
 
204 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 of that time, Prynne, said it was not fit to make all 
 housekeepers hold in capite, and to free the nobility ;. 
 and inveighed passionately, says the Diary, against 
 the excise, which was to be substituted in lieu of the 
 payments for which the lands of England had been 
 granted to be held as private property. However, 
 Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper spoke for the excise, and 
 carried his point ; though it will hardly be contended 
 that his voice carried much more constitutional than 
 moral weight with it* 
 
 In the sixth chapter, we have seen some of the 
 fearful consequences of a great successful crime 
 perpetrated by one great man. The people of 
 England have now got to pay the interest of eight 
 hundred millions of debt, as one of the consequences 
 of a great crime hitherto successfully perpetrated, not 
 by one great man, but by 151 small men. 
 
 Hume, in the passage quoted in a preceding page, 
 says, that borrowing is the peculiar inconvenience of 
 what he calls free governments, and that the Dutch 
 first introduced the practice. 
 
 Now, in the first place, I think that the English 
 government may be fairly called a free government 
 under the Plantagenets: though not under the Tudors 
 and Stuarts. For instance, Edward I. sent a requi- 
 sition to some of his barons and others to follow him 
 in arms to Normandy, or contribute money aids 
 
 * Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 148, 149 ; Comm. Journ. 
 Not. 21, 1660. 
 
CHAP. IX. J THE DEAR DEEKNCE QF NATIONS. 205 
 
 thereto ; " which," says Coke, " the constable and 
 marshal, and many of the nobility and of the knights 
 and esquires, and all the freeholders, vehemently 
 denied, unless it were so ordained and determined 
 by common consent of Parliament." The " free 
 government " will then hardly account for our no 
 debt before, and our enormous debt after, the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 Again, the cases of Holland and England are very 
 different. It might be a good, or at least a necessary 
 policy for the Dutch to borrow, when borrowing was 
 a policy neither good nor necessary in the case of 
 England. It is evident to any one who looks at a 
 map, that if Holland was to make any figure among 
 the nations of Europe, it could not be by such 
 resources as those which had made England a great 
 power for the six hundred years preceding the year 
 1660. 
 
 The Normans took from the Anglo-Saxons their 
 country; but bound themselves by engagements, 
 which they fulfilled for six hundred years, to de- 
 fray at least the principal expenses of governing it 
 in peace, and defending it in war. Upon these con- 
 ditions they enjoyed (to a certain extent as private 
 property) the productive powers of the soil 6f a 
 country which contained a very large quantity of 
 good and fertile land. For those who had thus 
 become possessed of this large amount of fertile 
 land upon these conditions — namely, that the rest 
 
206 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 of the community were to be relieved from the 
 burden of taxation — to throw off these conditions^ 
 and declare that in future the expenses of the go- 
 vernment in peace and war should be supplied by- 
 taxes on the poor, was to reduce the bulk of the com- 
 munity to the condition of a people like the Dutch ; 
 who, as they had little land to pay rent to the State, 
 must, if they aimed at being a considerable nation, or 
 even at defending themselves from their more power- 
 ful neighbours, have recourse to excises and other 
 taxes, and even to loans. 
 
 For a government and a legislature to set about 
 dehberately to substitute for the land-rent, which 
 had maintained the expenses of the government for 
 six hundred years, a vast number of taxes on in- 
 dustry and commercial enterprise, was to reduce a 
 country Hke England to the condition of a country 
 like Holland. When it is added, that the example 
 of Holland was followed so far as to introduce the 
 funding system, and even the system of raising 
 money by lotteries, and to leave nothing untaxed 
 — from the salt that was necessary to the poorest 
 labourer, to the French wine which the tax ren- 
 dered no longer accessible to the middle class, 
 or to any but the landholding legislator, whose 
 means were increased by that system which de- 
 stroyed the well-being and the comforts of all the 
 other classes — we fear we must say, that to do all 
 this was to do precisely what Lord Bacon describes 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 207 
 
 the ants as doing in an orchard or garden. And it 
 partakes of the nature of those "extreme self-lovers," 
 who, as Bacon says, " will set a house on fire and it 
 were but to roast their eggs. ... It is the wisdom 
 of rats — it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out 
 the badger who digged and made room for him — it is 
 the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they 
 would devour." 
 
 By the political constitution of England, as well as 
 by its physical form and structure, the expenses of 
 the government were to be paid without taxing the 
 inhabitants. They were to be paid in part from the 
 lands that belonged entirely to the State, and in part 
 from the rent reserved on those the usufruct of 
 which had been granted to individuals. What, then, 
 shall be said of that policy which, in order that a 
 few might revel in wealth and luxury, deprived the 
 people of England of nearly all the natural advan- 
 tages of soil and climate which Providence had be- 
 stowed upon them ? The result was precisely as if 
 the landholders had put into their own pockets the 
 difference between the quantity of land in England 
 and the quantity in Holland, making the people of 
 England supply from their hard-won earnings the 
 deficiency thus caused. 
 
 " Taxes upon the necessaries of life," says Adam 
 Smith, " have nearly the same effect upon the cir- 
 cumstances of the people ag a poor soil and a bad 
 climate. Provisions are thereby rendered dearer, in 
 
208 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 the same manner as if it required extraordinary 
 labour and expense to raise them. , . . Such taxes, 
 when they have grown up to a certain height, are a 
 curse, equal to the barrenness of the earth and the 
 inclemency of the heavens ; and yet it is in the 
 richest and most industrious countries that they 
 have been most generally imposed. No other coun- 
 tries could support so great a disorder. As the 
 strongest bodies only can live and enjoy health 
 under an unwholesome regimen, so the nations 
 only that in every sort of industry have the greatest 
 natural and acquired advantages, can subsist and 
 prosper under such taxes. Holland is the country 
 in Europe in which they abound most, and which, 
 from peculiar circumstances, continues to prosper; 
 not by means of them, as has been most absurdly 
 supposed, but in spite of them." * 
 
 The question of the difference between the an- 
 cient and modern national defences of England may 
 be shortly stated thus : — 
 
 By the fundamental laws of England, the con- 
 dition on which the land was granted to be held 
 as private property was, that the landholders should 
 have 60,000 men always ready, thoroughly armed 
 and disciplined, and of such military excellence as 
 to be a sufficient protection against any force that 
 Europe could bring against England, at a time 
 when the population of England and of Europe 
 * Wealth of Nations, hk. iv. ch. a. 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE DEAR DEFENCE OF NATIONS. 209 
 
 may be estimated at atout a tenth of what it now 
 is. If the fundamental part of the English con- 
 stitution remained now in force, England, instead 
 of having a debt of more than 800 millions, would, 
 allowing for the increased population, and the in- 
 creased value, of the land, have the power of raising, 
 at twenty-four hours' or twelve hours' notice, an 
 army of 600,000 of the best soldiers, and a navy 
 in proportion, of the best sailors in the world. We 
 should not' then, I think, have to hear of Frenchmen 
 talking of invading England as if such an enter- 
 prise were a promising speculation. At the same 
 time it concerns the people of England moat nearly 
 to attend to the fact that, in the present condition of 
 their government, it is a promising speculation. 
 
 A certain orator of the last century said, with all 
 the confidence of incapacity, — " I believe that I can 
 save this country, and that no one else can." What 
 is urgently needed now is, some public man who can 
 look somewhat farther than orators usually look, and 
 can see somewhat more clearly than orators usually 
 see, how to save this nation from the fate to which 
 the system of the last 200 years has been hurrying 
 it, and on which it is now drifting with a constantly 
 increasing velocity. 
 
210 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENGLAND AND FEANCE. 
 
 I HATE said, in the first chapter of this work, that 
 the subject might be more satisfactorily elucidated 
 from the negative than the positive aspect of it : that 
 is, from observing the principal causes that have led 
 to the decline of the strength, and ultimately to the 
 ruin, of nations. I propose to devote this chapter to 
 an attempt to discover whether there are any such 
 causes at present in active operation in this country. 
 It may, I believe, be stated as a general fact, that 
 men employed in agriculture, or as herdsmen and 
 shepherds, make better soldiers than men employed 
 in the more delicate kinds of commerce and manu- 
 factures. " It is certain," to borrow the apt words 
 of Lord Bacon, " that sedentary and within-door arts 
 and delicate manufactures (that require rather the 
 finger than the arm) have in their nature a contra- 
 riety to a military disposition ;"* while, on the other 
 hand, he observes, that tillers of the ground and 
 handicraftsmen of strong and manly arts, as smiths, 
 
 * Bacon's Essay on the true Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates. 
 
CHAP. X.j ENGLAND AND FSANCE. 211 
 
 masons, carpenters, and the like, are best fitted t& 
 make good soldiers. 
 
 And it is equally true, as has been remarked by 
 Adam Smith, that " those who live by agriculture 
 generally pass the whole day in the open air, ex- 
 posed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. The 
 hardiness of their ordinary life prepares them for 
 the fatigues of war, to some of which their neces- 
 sary occupations bear a great analogy. The ne- 
 cessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to work 
 in the trenches, and to fortify a camp as well as to 
 inclose a field. The ordinary pastimes of such hus- 
 bandmen are the same as those of shepherds, and 
 are in the same manner the images of war. But 
 as husbandmen have less leisure than shepherds, 
 they are not so frequently employed in those pas- 
 times. They are soldiers, but soldiers not quite so 
 much masters of their exercise."* 
 
 It follows from this, that the larger the proportion 
 of men in any nation employed in agriculture, and 
 the smaller the proportion employed in manufactures, 
 the better will that nation be able to defend itself; 
 and the greater the proportion employed in manu- 
 factures, and the smaller employed in agriculture, 
 the less able will it be to defend itself. This may be 
 stated as the general rule, to which, as to other gene- 
 ral rules, there are exceptions ; among which may be 
 reckoned such a case as that of many of the best 
 * Smith's Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. part i. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 soldiers of Cromwell, and any case in wMch the na- 
 tural valour of the men of one nation employed in 
 manufactures is superior to the natural valour of 
 the men of another nation employed in agriculture. 
 There cannot be a doubt, however, that, generally, 
 constant sedentary and within-door occupations are 
 not favourable either to strength of nerve or strength 
 and hardiness of body. It is also of the first im- 
 portance to call attention here to another general 
 fact mentioned by Adam Smith, as the consequence 
 of national wealth. " Military exercises come to be 
 as much neglected by the inhabitants of the country 
 as by those of the town, and the great body of the 
 people becomes altogether unwarlike. That wealth, 
 at the same time, which always follows the improve- 
 ments of agriculture and manufactures, and which in 
 reality is no more than the accumulated produce of 
 those improvements, provokes the invasion of all 
 their neighbours. An industrious, and upon that 
 account a wealthy nation, is of all nations the most 
 likely to be attacked; and, unless the State takes 
 some new measure for the pubhc defence, the natural 
 habits of the people render them altogether incapable 
 of defending themselves." * 
 
 Now, England is a wealthy nation, — the most 
 
 wealthy, perhaps, at present, in the world. It is, 
 
 therefore, of all nations the most likely to be attacked 
 
 and to provoke the invasion of its neighbours. Its 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. v. oh, i. part i. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 213 
 
 nearest neighbour is France, with which England 
 has often had to contend before ; but since the time 
 in which the earlier, and even the later, struggles 
 occurred between England and France, certain 
 changes have taken place in the internal condition 
 of the two countries, which require the most minute 
 and careful attention of English statesmen ; for they 
 tfiaj have a most important effect in any future strug- 
 gle between the two countries. 
 
 The relative condition of England and France 
 usually appealed to by English writers is that which 
 existed towards the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, 
 as described by Sir John Fortescue, for many years 
 chief justice, and afterwards chancellor, to Henry VI. 
 Fortescue, as an Englishman, and from his position, 
 is a high authority on the subject of England ; and, 
 in regard to France, he describes that of which 
 he was an eye-witness, having retired thither with 
 the wife and son of the unfortunate Henry. He 
 thus describes the manner of life which gave strength 
 to the arms of the yeomen who drew the English 
 bowstrings at Agincourt : — 
 
 " Every inhabitant of England useth and enjoyeth 
 at his pleasure all the fruits that his land or cattle 
 beareth, with all the profits and commodities which 
 he gaineth by his own labour or that of those he 
 retains in his service. They drink no water, unless 
 at certain times upon a reUgious score, and by way 
 of doing penance. They are fed in great abundance 
 
214 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X» 
 
 with all sorts of flesh and fish, of which they have 
 plenty everywhere; they are clothed throughout in 
 good woollens ; their bedding and other furniture in 
 their houses are of wool, and that in great store. 
 They are also well provided with all other sorts of 
 household goods, and necessary implements for hus- 
 bandry, and all things which conduce to make life 
 easy and happy, according to their several condi- 
 tions."* 
 
 In another work, Fortescue has forcibly depicted 
 the poverty and misery of the more than half- 
 starved, of the wretchedly-clothed, overworked, and 
 brutally-treated people of France ; and the different 
 effects on the people of such food, clothing, and 
 treatment as they had in France and England re- 
 spectively in his time. In France, " their nature 
 is much wasted, and their race brought to nought, f 
 They are crooked and feeble, not able to fight and 
 to defend their country ; iior have they weapons 
 nor money to buy their weapon withal; but verily 
 they live in the most extreme poverty and misery, 
 . . . But, blessed be God, this land (England) 
 is ruled under a better law, and, therefore, the 
 people thereof be not in such penury, nor thereby 
 hurt in their persons, but they be wealthye [well-to- 
 do], and have all things necessary to the sustenance 
 
 * Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Anglice, cap. 36. 
 
 t The former extract is a translation from Fortescue's Latin. 
 The work of Fortescue from which I now quote being in English, 
 I have only modernized a little the spelling and style. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 215 
 
 of nature. Wherefore, they be mighty, and able 
 to resist the adversaries of the realm, and to be at 
 other realms that do or will do them wrong."* 
 
 It appears that at that time there were between 
 forty and fifty freeholders, besides a knight and an 
 esquire, in every hamlet in England, f It can also 
 be shown, upon good authority, that about the same 
 time the labourer earned two pecks of wheat a day. 
 But a change was about to come over the scene. 
 
 The pohtical and social causes that convulsed 
 Europe during the sixteenth century, though they 
 did not produce the same effects in England which 
 they did in the other European nations, produced 
 changes of considerable importance. They destroyed 
 the old feudal aristocracy. Many noble families 
 became extinct ; and many others lost all, or a great 
 part of, their lands; while new men rose on their 
 ruin or misfortunes. The practice of the contend- 
 ing factions, particularly of Edward IV., was to 
 spare the soldiers, but to slay the nobles and gentry ; 
 few of whom escaped. Stow, in describing the battle 
 
 * Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Anglia, cap. 29. 
 
 f The Difference between 'Dominium Regale' and 'Dominium 
 Politicum et Regale' chap. iii. This is the title which the treatise 
 bears in the MS. in the British Museum and in the Archbishop's 
 library at Lambeth. The title in the printed copy is " The Differ- 
 ence between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy, by Sir John 
 Fortescue, Knight, Lord Chief Justice and Lord High Chancellor 
 of England under King Henry VL Published by John Fortescue 
 Aland, of the Inner Temple, &c. London, 1714." Fortescue's 
 account is confirmed by the Mimoires de Philippe de Commines, 
 ch. 18, 19. 
 
216 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAF. X. 
 
 of Northampton, says, " The tenth day of July, at 
 two of the clock afternoon, the Earls of March 
 and Warwick let cry ihorow the field that no man 
 should lay hand upon the king, ne on the common 
 people, but on the lords, knights, and esquires."* 
 
 Confiscation followed slaughter. As the law of 
 entail, founded on the statute De Donis, had often 
 saved estates from forfeiture, the judges of Ed- 
 ward IV. removed the obstacle, by deciding that 
 a common recovery was a valid conveyance ; and the 
 same object was further promoted by the Statute 
 of FineSjf in the reign of Henry VII. Though 
 in the course of time an oligarchy was to rise in 
 the place of the aristocracy thus destroyed, there 
 was an interval of a transition state, extending from 
 the accession of the Tudors to the expulsion of the 
 Stuarts, during which the new nobility constituted 
 neither an aristocracy nor an oligarchy, but were 
 the mere creatures and satellites of the court ; and as 
 they were the creatures, so also were they often the 
 victims of the monarch's caprice and convenience. 
 
 By the large confiscations of landed property 
 arising out of the wars of York and Lancaster, and 
 the removal of the restrictions on the alienation of 
 land, large tracts of land passed from old families 
 into other hands. The nobility now sought the 
 distinction which they could no longer obtain by 
 numbers of armed retainers, by indulgence in ex- 
 * Page 409. -f 4 Hen. VIL c. 24. 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FEANCE. 217 
 
 pensive habits of luxury. To obtain money for 
 this purpose, they not only diminished the number 
 of their followers, but dismissed great numbers of 
 small tenants, and let their lands in large tracts, 
 with the view of obtaining higher rents. Though 
 this system was openly opposed by Henry VII. — 
 a statute for keeping up farmhouses in confor- 
 mity with previously existing laws against depopu- 
 lation having been passed during his reign — it was 
 not effectively resisted ; and, indeed, it may be sup- 
 posed to have been secretly encouraged by him, as 
 favourable to his policy of increasing his own power 
 for the time. 
 
 The new purchasers of the lands of the old nobility, 
 being bound by none of the old ties that existed 
 between their predecessors and their dependants who 
 lived on their lands, pursued the system of expul- 
 sion with unrelenting barbarity. Many authentic 
 accounts have come down to us from that time, of 
 the misery of those who, no longer necessary for 
 power or pomp, were mercilessly driven from their 
 homes and deprived of the means of subsistence. 
 In a proclamation of King Edward VI. in 1548, 
 the misery thus arising is described in strong 
 colours. In some places where there used to be 
 one hundred or two hundred inhabitants, there was 
 then scarcely one poor shepherd. " Houses decayed, 
 parishes diminished, the force of the realm weakened, 
 and Christian people, by the greedy covetousness 
 
218 STRENGTH 'OF NATIONS, [citAP. X. 
 
 of some men, eaten up and devoured of brute 
 beasts, and driven from their houses by sheep and 
 bullocks."* " Now the robberies, extortions, and 
 open oppressions," said a preacher before Edward VI., 
 "of covetous cormorants have no end nor limits, 
 no banks to keep in their vileness. As for turning 
 poor men out of their holds, they take it for no 
 offence, but say the land is their own ; and so they 
 turn them out of their shrowds like mice. Thousands 
 in England, through such, beg now from door to 
 door, who have kept honest houses."! 
 
 This state of things could not fail to attract the 
 attention of the legislature ; but it was to no pur- 
 pose, when it was the interest of the legislators to 
 elude their own enactments. The statute of 1489, 
 a repetition of former enactments for keeping up 
 farmhouses, pronounced by Bacon " a statute of sin- 
 gular policy," did not relieve the misery of the people. 
 The law provided that all houses of husbandry, used 
 with twenty acres and upwards, should be main- 
 tained and kept up for ever with a competent pro- 
 portion of land attached to them, under the penalty 
 of seizure of half the profits by the king or the 
 lord of the fee till the statute were complied with. 
 
 Bacon's argument on this is, that the principal 
 strength of an army consists in the infantry; that 
 to make good infantry requires men bred not in a 
 
 * Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. ii. p. 92, &o. 
 f Bernard Gilpin, ibid, p. 441. 
 
CHAI>. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 219 
 
 servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and 
 plentiftil manner ; that, therefore, if a State run 
 most to noblemen and gentlemen, and the husband- 
 men and ploughmen be but as their workfolks and 
 labourers, or else mere cottagers, "which are but 
 housed beggars," you may have a good cavalry, but 
 never good stable bands of foot.* 
 
 But the landholders maintained that they acted by 
 their right of property : that they had a right to do 
 what they liked with their own, and still continued 
 their work of expulsion and depopulation ; partly for 
 the purpose of consolidating farms, and partly of 
 turning arable land into pasture, with a view to the 
 increase of their rents. And their rents certainly did 
 increase prodigiously, f 
 
 In 1597, more than a century after the passing of 
 the statute of Henry VII., Bacon brought the matter 
 before the House of Commons; and his speech, of 
 which D'Ewes has preserved a short note, shows 
 that the work of expulsion was still going on, 
 
 * Bacon's History of King Henry VII., pp. 235, 236, Montagu's 
 edition. 
 
 f Bishop Latimer, in one of his sermons (Latimer's Sermons, 
 p. 32), says that whereas his father paid 3l. or 4/. by the year of 
 rent for his farm, " he that now hath it payeth 16/. by tlie year 
 or more." And in another sermon preached before Edward VL, 
 in 1549, he says, "That heretofore went for 20 or 40 pound by 
 year now is let for 50 or 100 pound by year." And Harrison, 
 ■while he complains of the misery of the working^ people, bears 
 testimony to the same effect: — "In my time," he says, "per- 
 adventure 4 pounds of old rent be improved to 40, 50, or even 
 100 pounds." — Descript. of Engl, 188. 
 
220 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 bringing in its train idleness, decay of tillage, sub- 
 version of houses, and decay of charity, and im- 
 poverishing the state of the realm. " I would be 
 sorry," said he, "to see within this kingdom that 
 piece of Ovid's verse prove true — 'jam seges ubi 
 Troja fiiit ;' so in England, instead of a whole town 
 full of people, nought but green fields, but a shepherd 
 and his dog."* 
 
 The statute 31 Eliz. c. 7, which forbids building 
 cottages unless there be four acres of land to each, 
 would appear to have been, in a great measure, in- 
 operative. It is remarkable, that just four years 
 after this, was passed the famous statute f of Eliza- 
 beth, for the relief of the poor, which provided the 
 new nobility with a mode of relieving themselves of 
 the inconveniences arising from their having driven 
 thousands to beggary who had once "kept honest 
 houses." This, unquestionably, was one main cause 
 of this poor law. But there were other causes at 
 work. 
 
 The process by which the number of men em- 
 ployed in agricultural pursuits in England has been 
 diminished, is of a twofold nature — the destruction 
 of the class of small proprietors, and the destruction 
 
 * D'Ewes' Journ. p. 551. Latimer {Sermons, p. 32) uses the 
 same expression. He says, that where there had been " a great 
 many householders and inhabitants, there is now but a shepherd 
 and his dog." And he charges the new nobility with intending 
 " to make the yeomanry slavery, and the clergy slavery." 
 
 t 43 Eliz. c. 2. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FEANCE. 221 
 
 of the class of small farmers. Sir Thomas Smith, in 
 his Commonwealth of England,* has stated, as the 
 condition requisite to make a yeoman, the heing able 
 to spend of his own free land, in yearly revenue, to 
 the sum of forty shillings. It appears, however, that 
 the term "yeoman" was popularly applied without 
 the condition stated by Sir Thomas Smith. Bishop 
 Latimer, in one of his sermons, in which he describes 
 his father's mode of living about the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, says : — " My father was a yeoman 
 and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm 
 of Zl. or 4Z. by the year, at the uttermost; and, 
 hereupon, he tilled so much as kept half a dozen 
 men. He was able and did find the king a harness, 
 with himself and his horse, while he came to the 
 place that he should receive the king's wages. I can 
 reriiember that I buckled his harness when he went 
 to Blackheath fields. He kept me to school, or else 
 I had not been able to have preached before the 
 king's majesty now."f 
 
 In regard to the class of small proprietors, it was 
 established beyond question, before the parliamentary 
 committee of 1824, that the employers of agricul- 
 tural labour — landholders and farmers — combined, 
 not in individual parishes, but generally throughout 
 England, to compel the small freeholders and copy- 
 holders to sell their holdings and become paupers. 
 In consequence of the great fall in the value of 
 * Book i. ch. 23. t Latimer's Sermons, p. 32. 
 
222 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 money in the course of the sixteenth century (caused 
 partly by the debasement of the coin, partly by the 
 fall in the real value of the precious metals), and the 
 corresponding rise in the price of all other commo- 
 dities except labour (the wages of labour being kept 
 down by Act of Parliament), towards the end of the 
 sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the wages of the agricultural labourer did not 
 procure him above a third of the quantity of food 
 which they procured him in the fifteenth century. 
 
 As the labourer could not live on the wages thus 
 allowed him, the legislature made up the difference 
 by a tax called a poor-rate. Part of this tax in aid 
 of wages being levied on persons who were neither 
 employers of labour nor receivers of rent; the farmers, 
 having to pay less in wages, could and did pay much 
 more in rent.* Such increase of rent was, therefore, 
 at least in part, a tax paid by the rest of the com- 
 munity, not to the State, but to the receivers of rent ; 
 as the still greater rise of rent since 1790, and parti- 
 cularly that caused by the corn law of 1815, was 
 also. 
 
 Under the system which, in extension of the statute 
 
 * BiBhop Latimer, in the sermon before quoted, says, that 
 whereas his father paid 3/. or 4/. by the year of rent for* his farm, 
 and out of the said farm made provision for his children, and kept 
 hospitality for his poor neighbours, and gave alms to the poor, 
 " he that now hath it payeth 16^. by the year or more, and is not 
 able to do anything for his prince, for himself, or for his children, 
 or to give a cup of drink to the poor." 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 223 
 
 of Elizabeth, prevailed from 1795 to 1834, a large 
 portion of the wages of agricultural labour being 
 paid out of the poor-rates, persons who were 
 neither employers of labour nor receivers of rent 
 were taxed to a much greater extent than they had 
 been before, to pay for the cultivation of other 
 people's lands. This system fell, with peculiar hard- 
 ship and crushing effect, upon the class of small pro- 
 prietors, whether freeholders or copyholders. The 
 holdings of many of these persons being not quite 
 sufficient for their subsistence, they had been accus- 
 tomed to supply the deficiency by obtaining employ- 
 ment from those who might stand in need of the 
 labour of others to cultivate either their farms or 
 freeholds. But now, these small proprietors, who 
 did not employ any labour but that of their own and 
 their children's hands in cultivating their small free- 
 holds or copyholds, were not only compelled to pay 
 poor-rates (in other words, to pay for the cultivation 
 of their richer neighbours' lands), but the farmers 
 refiised to employ them as labourers so long as they 
 possessed any property. Thus, by a system which 
 would seem equal to any the wit of man coidd devise 
 for the ruin of a nation, the class of small proprietors 
 was almost wholly swept away. 
 
 The small proprietors were now reduced to the 
 condition of labourers. We have seen how superior 
 the condition of England was to that of the con- 
 tinental nations in the fifteenth century. In the 
 
224 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 course of his examination before the Lords' Com- 
 mittee on the Poor Laws in 1831, Earl Stanhope, 
 being asked, — " Does your lordship mean to say that 
 the landowners ought to be bound to employ the^ 
 labourer ? " replied, — " I think they certainly ought, 
 when those labourers have not, by allotments of land 
 or in other modes, other sources of support. And I 
 would here observe, that in several, if not in all, of 
 the States of Germany, the labourers are copyholders, 
 and derive great advantage from the occupation of 
 land; which, however, in some States is heavily 
 burdened by direct taxes, land-tax, and others ; but 
 such are the advantages which they receive, that 
 in those countries poor-rates do not exist; and as 
 far as my experience, which is very considerable, 
 extends, I am fully convinced that the labourers in 
 those countries live in much greater comfort than 
 they do in this."* 
 
 It has been stated by witnesses of unexceptionable 
 authority before parliamentary committees, that 
 before 1793 the agricultural labourers of England 
 brewed their own beer. I have had this statement 
 confirmed by good authorities. I may mention in 
 particular the experience of a gentleman who had 
 farmed part of his own estate in the county of Kent 
 for fifty-five years, and who had always paid to his 
 labourers wages somewhat above the general average 
 of the district. This gentleman informed me th^t 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 213. 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 225 
 
 he was persuaded ttat the condition of the agricul- 
 tural labourer was not so good as it was previously 
 to the war of 1793. He did not farm to any extent 
 till towards the close of 1793; and his labourers 
 did not then, nor have they since brewed with malt. 
 Some labourers, however, had recourse to bran and 
 sugar, as substitutes ; but generally, brewing, either 
 with malt or bran, may be considered to have 
 ceased. 
 
 I met with a rather curious corroboration of this 
 statement as to the previous condition of things. 
 There was in the neighbourhood of the gentleman 
 I refer to an old shopkeeper, who had a perfect recol- 
 lection, when assisting in the shop of his grandfather, 
 of serving customers with small quantities of malt, 
 from a peck to a bushel. But that was prior to 
 1793. To the best of his recollection the labourers 
 discontinued generally, in that part of the country, 
 to brew about that period. The proximate cause of 
 this was doubtless the increase of the duty upon 
 malt; but the labourer's discontinuing to brew was 
 dependent on many other causes, more or less re- 
 mote, but all converging to one point — the depres- 
 sion of his condition. 
 
 According to the scale of the Berkshire magis- 
 trates in 1795, 6s. 9d. per week was the magistrates' 
 allowance to a family of four persons, when the 
 gallon loaf was Is. 5d. Out of this they had to pro- 
 cure not only food, but clothes and shelter. It is 
 
 Q 
 
226 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 now admitted, even by those who formerly con- 
 tended that the corn laws were teneficial to the 
 labourer, that with wages reduced to six, or eight, or 
 nine shillings a week, the English peasant could no 
 longer boast that, however coarse his fare, at least 
 he had enough of it. 
 
 The extreme hardship and injustice of compelling 
 persons to pay poor-rates in the agricultural dis- 
 tricts, who, being able to cultivate their own land 
 with their own hands, would therefore get no re- 
 turn of the money thus paid, in the shape in which 
 the farmers and larger landholders did, will further 
 appear from the following evidence of Henry Drum- 
 mond, Esq., J. P. for the counties of Hampshire and 
 Surrey, given in his examination before the Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons on labourers' 
 wages in 1824. 
 
 Mr. Drummond stated that much of the money 
 paid returned to the farmers in the labour performed 
 on their farms ; that he had never known any in- 
 stance where gravel-digging or stone-picking was 
 paid for by gentlemen, but that it was always paid 
 by the overseer. Again, that a great part of the 
 allowance which the labourer received, returned to 
 the farmers and landowners in the shape of exorbi- 
 tant rent for cottages. " I have known," said Mr. 
 Drummond, " many instances where the amount 
 paid by a labourer fo^ a cottage was greater than 
 the amount of relief, wliich he received from the 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 227 
 
 overseer. The rent of cottages is so high that it is 
 one of the chief causes of the agricultural labourers 
 being in a worse state now than they ever were. 
 Before the war, the average rent of cottages with 
 good gardens, was \l. 10s. a year; it is now in our 
 own neighboiurhood commonly as high as five, seven, 
 or even ten pounds per annum ; and where cottages 
 are in the hands of farmers, they always prohibit 
 the labourers from keeping a pig, and claim the 
 produce of the apple-trees, and of the vine which 
 
 usually covers the house In some 
 
 parishes, where cottages are at this exorbitant rate, 
 the poor have built themselves turf huts on the 
 wastes. The farmers have pulled them down, and 
 the people have rebuilt them. The farmers inva- 
 riably refuse to relieve those who occupy these huts, 
 alleging that they are possessed of property, and 
 that they will not relieve them nor give them work, 
 unless they give up their huts," * 
 
 " The widow," says Mr. Carlyle, " is gathering 
 nettles for her children's dinner ; a perfumed seign- 
 eur, delicately lounging in the (Eil de Bceuf, has an 
 alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third 
 nettle, and name it rent and law." 
 
 In regard to the class of small farmers, the present 
 
 practice in Engljmd, and still more in Scotland, is 
 
 completely at variance with the principle of the old 
 
 statutes respecting farms, so much contended for 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 47. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 by Lord Bacon. The small farms have everywhere 
 disappeared, or are fast disappearing. Some political 
 economists may profess to show that the produce of 
 ■^e land is greater hy this process ; but if it should 
 appear in the end that this process proves the ruin 
 of Great Britain, as it had before proved the ruin of 
 Sparta and Rome, it will turn out but a penny-wise 
 and pound-foolish policy. Of course the landholder 
 obtains a higher rent, or he would not throw several 
 small farms into one large one ; and within certain 
 limits, a man may do what he likes with his own. 
 
 It is evident, however, that the maxim "a man may 
 do what he likes with his own," must have certain 
 limits. For example, a man, for some advantage 
 to himself, but not to the public, may not blow up 
 his house with gunpowder to the injury or destruc- 
 tion of his neighbours' houses. To take another 
 example : if a given number of persons were to por- 
 tion out among themselves the kingdom of Great 
 Britain, and, driving all its population into close 
 towns where there was not space for them to obtain 
 air and exercise sufficient for health and strength, 
 were to cultivate the land by machinery, and deprive 
 the nation of such an agricultural population as 
 should form an efficient defence against an invader, 
 the nation might, and would, resist such a measure 
 as contrary to the very fundamental principles of 
 civilized society as well as of the British constitu- 
 tion. The nation might, at the same time, raise the 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND PEANCE. 229 
 
 question, " By what right do these men call this 
 territory their own?" The nation might then go 
 on to argue that the territory belonged to the State, 
 and not to those individuals, who were merely the 
 descendants or otherwise the representatives of indi- 
 viduals, to whom the State had assigned the use 
 or usufruct of it on condition of supporting the 
 expenses of the government in peace and war; and 
 moreover, of defending the country when attacked, 
 either in their own persons, or by efficient substi- 
 tutes; consequently, that these individuals, by thus 
 attempting to " do what they liked with their own," 
 had incurred, by the laws of England, a forfeiture 
 of what they called their own. 
 
 This is the argument which applies to that portion 
 of the lands of the United Kingdom held under 
 the system of tenures introduced into England by 
 William the Norman (a subject which has been 
 treated more fully in a former chapter), or under 
 the similar system of tenures introduced into Scot- 
 land and Ireland subsequently to the time of William 
 the Norman. But it must not be forgotten that 
 all the land of Great Britain was not brought under 
 this feudal system of tenure. Nearly all the High- 
 lands of Scotland remained in their original state. 
 In that part of the kingdom, certain districts of 
 country were occupied by certain tribes or clansj 
 whose internal government was regulated pretty 
 much by what is called the patriarchal principle. 
 
230 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 In the case of these clans, the confusion between 
 sovereignty and property, which was made by the 
 kings of England when they alienated the ancient 
 demesnes of the crown of England, has been car- 
 ried to a fearful extent; those who claimed the 
 rights of sovereignty in this case not being content 
 to claim a part of the public property, but claim- 
 ing the whole as their private property, and deal- 
 ing with it in such a way as to inflict a vast 
 amount of individual misery and national loss of 
 strength. 
 
 On the evening before the battle of Bannockbum, 
 Robert Bruce promised that the heirs of all who 
 fell should receive their lands free.* Now it is 
 beyond a doubt that, with the exception of the 
 MacDougals of Lorn, almost all the Highland chief- 
 tains, with their followers, were at the battle of 
 Bannockburn. If the EngUsh had won the battle 
 of Bannockburn, the followers and clansmen of these 
 Highland chieftains would probably have been in as 
 good a condition as the English copyhold tenants, who 
 were originally the conquered bondmen of the Anglo- 
 Normans. It is evident that the laws of England 
 would not permit any lord of an English manor, 
 imder the pretence of improving his property, to 
 expel the copyholders of his manor. But the High- 
 landers, who have of late years been expelled from 
 the country which their forefathers had occupied 
 * Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 307. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 231 
 
 for so many ages, so far from being in the condition 
 of conquered bondmen, were the freemen by whose 
 swords their chiefs had so long held their territories, 
 and, in many cases, had first acquired them. The 
 promise of Robert Bruce, moreover, would, at least 
 in some cases, confer a positive title, though there 
 might be considerable difBculty in establishing the 
 prpof of heirship to those who fell on the day of 
 Bannockburn. But the question is so important 
 that it demands a more minute examination. 
 
 The mountainous region of the north of Scotland 
 contained large tracts of moorland, which were 
 anciently employed chiefly for the rearing of cattle. 
 It was found at a later period that these extensive 
 pastures might be employed with much greater ad- 
 vantage in the feeding of sheep. For this latter 
 occupation the Highlanders were by nature and 
 education as unfit as they were qualified for that 
 of rearers of cattle. The result was, that the sheep- 
 fermers of the south of Scotland made offers of large 
 rents to the Highland chiefs, with which the High- 
 land tenants, or tacksmen, were unable to compete ; 
 and the latter, being deprived at once of their lands 
 and their occupation, left the country, with large 
 numbers of those employed under them as herds- 
 men, and emigrated to North America and other 
 foreign settlements. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott says that he can well recollect 
 the indignation with which these proceedings were 
 
232 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 regarded by the ancient Highlanders. He says* 
 he remembers hearing a chief of the old school 
 say, in sorrow and indignation, the words following : 
 " When I was a young man, the point upon which 
 every . Highland gentleman rested his importance 
 was the number of men whom his estate could sup- 
 port ; the question next rested on the amount of his 
 stock of BLACK cattle; it is now come to respect 
 the number of sheep ; and I suppose our posterity 
 will inquire how many rats or mice an estate will 
 produce." 
 
 It has not yet come to rats or mice ; but red deer 
 are superseding sheep. The clergyman of one parish 
 said lately that within the last few years he has lost 
 about one hmidred and twenty of his small congre- 
 gation, who have been obliged to leave the country 
 where their forefathers had been settled for cen- 
 turies, because their landlord, a man of enormous 
 landed possessions, had resolved to turn a glen of 
 some ten miles in extent into a deer forest. And 
 it may be added that, in a late session of Parlia- 
 ment, the motion of a Scotch member for the 
 equitable assessment of deer forests and other shoot- 
 ing grounds was set aside. 
 
 Now when it is said that the change here referred 
 to was a necessary consequence of the great altera- 
 tion in the social and economical system, and that 
 
 * History of Scotland contained in Tales of a Grandfather, vol. 
 ii. p. 572.. Edin. 1846. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND ITIANCE. 233 
 
 therefore it was an inevitable evil, it is to be ob- 
 served that this question has not merely a politico- 
 economical, but also a legislative or rather jurispru- 
 dential aspect ; and it is under this latter aspect that 
 we must now examine it somewhat minutely. 
 
 The question under this aspect is, by what right 
 do these Highland chiefs claim a property so exclu- 
 sive in the soil of the districts over which their rights 
 of chieftainship extended, as to give therh the power 
 of expelling from their tenements in those districts, 
 by their mere fiat, tenants of the land, who held 
 their land by customary tenures at least as ancient 
 and of more respectable origin than those of the 
 copyholders of England? The answer, it would 
 seem, is, by the right of sovereignty. Their ancestors, 
 they say, were sovereign in those parts, and they 
 are the representatives of those ancient sovereigns. 
 Their claim to the property is based on their claim 
 to the sovereignty. Let us admit their claim to the 
 ancient sovereignty in its fullest extent. Let us 
 admit, for example, that their claim to the sove- 
 reignty of their respective glens and mountains was 
 as substantial as the claim of William the Norman 
 to the sovereignty of England. Let us even admit 
 that it was more so: for the sovereignty in Eng- 
 land never resided altogether in the King; but 
 first in the King and his Great Council or Great 
 Barons, and afterwards in the three powers (or 
 estates, as it is rather inaccurately expressed, since. 
 
234 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 strictly, the three estates were the Lords, the Clergy, 
 and the Commons) — the King, the Lords, and the 
 Commons. 
 
 What follows ? William the Norman might pos- 
 sibly have expelled or exterminated (it matters not 
 which, and in fact he did so, or very little short 
 of it) all the Saxons who did not acknowledge his 
 sovereignty ; but could he have expelled or extermi- 
 nated all the Normans, if such had been his wish ? 
 Most assuredly not. No more could any Highland 
 chief, in his capacity of sovereign, have expelled or 
 exterminated all his clansmen or vassals, when it 
 was his will and pleasure to do so. The proposition 
 (that they could do so) is so monstrously absurd, that 
 no man would ever venture to propound it thus, in 
 its naked and true form, even to the rudest and most 
 obtuse understanding. Yet these petty sovereignties 
 having become united to the British empire, the 
 representatives of their ancient sovereigns come for- 
 ward to the British Parliament, and ask it to lend 
 them the aid of its overwhelming power to enable 
 them to do what, in their capacity of sovereigns (the 
 capacity, be it observed, in which their claim of pro- 
 perty is grounded), they could no more have done 
 than King George the Fourth could have sold all 
 the land in England without consulting the holders 
 of it, and put the money in his pocket. Sancho 
 Panza's notable scheme for deriving advantage from 
 the government of an island by selling all the in- 
 
CHAP. X,J ENGLAKD AND FEANCE. 235 
 
 habitants for slaves and putting the money in Ms 
 pocket, is an illustration of the transaction. And as 
 Sancho declared to his worshipful master his capa- 
 city for government on any scale of magnitude — " I 
 beseech your worship that you forget not your pro- 
 mise concerning that same island ; for I shall know 
 how to govern it, be it never so big : let them be 
 never so black, I wiU transform them into white and 
 yellow ; " — so has it been with these Highland chief- 
 tainships: whether their "bigness" was confined to 
 one small glen, or extended to nearly a whole 
 county. 
 
 It would be a case precisely analogous, if, when 
 Scotland was united to England, the family on the 
 throne of the United Kingdom had claimed the right, 
 as representative of the ancient kings of Scotland, 
 of expelling all the holders of land in Scotland, and 
 converting the land to their own use and profit, as 
 if it were their private property ; or if Great Britain 
 were to be united to some kingdom the power of 
 which might enable the representatives of the pre- 
 sent race of kings of Great Britain to claim all the 
 land of Great Britain as their private property. The 
 Highland chiefs held their sovereignty by the same 
 right by which the Norman kings held the sove- 
 reignty of England — by the right of the sword : the 
 ultima ratio to which all rights, legal as well as 
 moral, ultimately refer themselves. But as it was 
 by the sword of their vassals that the Norman kings 
 
236 STEENGTH OP NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 held their sovereignty, so it was by the sword of 
 tJmr vassals, or clan, that the Highland chiefs held 
 theirs. 
 
 The tenure by which the Norman king and the 
 Celtic chief held not merely their possessions, but 
 their very existence, was the swords of their respec- 
 tive vassals. In the case of the Celtic chief, the title 
 was fairly written and very duly stamped; as any 
 one can satisfy himself who will examine the temper 
 of some of those admirably poised basket-hilted 
 broad-swords, bearing the name of Andrew Ferrara 
 engraved on their blades, which were drawn by their 
 masters for the last time at CuUoden. The Normaii 
 kings acknowledged the force and necessity of the 
 mutual bond by assigning to their vassals portions 
 of the conquered territory, and securing to them 
 those portions by the same tenure by which they 
 held their crown. There cannot be a doubt that, in 
 the generality of cases, the Highland chiefs were as 
 much indebted to their vassals for the tenure of 
 their chieftainship, as the Norman kings of England 
 were to theirs for the crown of England. But cir- 
 cumstances, principally of a moral nature, placed 
 the Highland chiefs under less iinperative necessity 
 of repaying the debt of long and most important, 
 nay, of inestimable service, which they owed their 
 clan, by giving them a secure and vested interest 
 in the soil which they had defended with then* blood 
 through tanumerable ages. 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FEANCE, 237 
 
 The chief of these circumstances was, that the 
 clan bearing the same name, and considering them- 
 selves as of the same blood with their chief, looked 
 upon him as their common father (only that the filial 
 feeling was mixed up with a feeling more deeply 
 reverential than that ordinarily entertained by chil- 
 dren towards their parents), and no more thought of 
 asking any securities from their chief of their right 
 to a portion of the soil which their swords had 
 first won in far distant times, and had defended 
 through so many succeeding ages, than a son of 
 ordinarily good feelings would ask his father to give 
 him the same securities that he would not disinherit' 
 him, which he would deem necessary to his safety in 
 dealing with a stranger. 
 
 It is true that, in civilized communities, it is the 
 common practice to leave nothing of this kind to 
 chance, as appears from every well-drawn marriage 
 settlement, but carefully to define and secure the 
 rights of the children, even against their own parents. 
 But it is to be recollected that the Scottish Celts, of 
 whom we speak, were a rude and unlettered people, 
 whose cardinal point of honour was a deep and pas- 
 sionate attachment to their country, rocky and barren 
 and bleak though it might be ; to their chiefs, and to 
 the honour of their race. What, then, shall be said 
 of the representatives of those chiefs coming forward 
 now to take advantage of the unguaranteed state in 
 which the honourable feelings of this rude and simple 
 
238 STRENGTH Or NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 people had left tlieir dearest rights, to expel them 
 from the fields and mountains and dwellings of their 
 forefathers — converting their very virtues into the 
 instruments of their destruction, and turning the noble 
 qualities of devoted loyalty, of reverential and un- 
 suspecting confidence in the honour and affection of 
 their chiefs, to the ruin of those who nourished these 
 qualities ? What shall be said, too, of the conduct of 
 the government, calling itself civilized, which could 
 lend the sanction of its name and the support of its 
 power to the perforniance of such a deed ? And yet 
 this is what the government of Great Britain has 
 done within the last fifty years. 
 
 If it should be alleged that, by the union of their 
 petty sovereignties with the kingdom of Great 
 Britain, these Highland chiefs acquired the same 
 right over the territories held by the clans who 
 acknowledged them as their cliiefs, as any Anglo- 
 Norman baron had over his fief — that is, that they 
 became in regard to those districts, in the language 
 of the English lawyers, " seised in their demesnes as 
 of fee"* — ^we distinctly deny the doctrine; which is 
 precisely similar to the doctrine that, by the union 
 of a smaller principality with a larger, the represen- 
 tatives of the family which had been sovereign in 
 the smaller should become, by such union, abso- 
 lute owners of all the property of their former sub- 
 jects. 
 
 * Litt. § 10. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 239 
 
 Moreover, if anything of this kind had taken place 
 — ^if one part of the feudal system had been intro- 
 duced, and those Highland chiefs had become 
 " seised in their demesnes as of fee " — it being an 
 indispensable condition of that system that the 
 leader should amply reward his military followers, 
 those by whose swords he made his acquisitions — 
 the tacksmen, or those who, under the Celtic system, 
 held immediately of the chief, would have been lords 
 of manors; and all the clansmen, who belonged to 
 the conquering caste, would have been possessed 
 of knights' fees. 
 
 Nothing of this kind has taken place ; and it is 
 surely by a strange system, both of law and logic, 
 that those Celtic persons, called Highland chiefs, 
 should come forward and claim aU the incidents of 
 feudal tenure which are favourable to them, while 
 they repudiate all those which are on the side of 
 their followers or clan. The Anglo-Norman con- 
 querors treated even their conquered bondmen a 
 hundred degrees better than these Celts treat their 
 conquering followers ; those to whom they owe their 
 being Highland chiefs. The copyhold tenants of 
 England were, according to the opinion of the 
 greatest English lawyers, originally villeins ; that is, 
 they were conquered bondmen, who performed the 
 agricultural drudgery of the lords' land; but in 
 process of time, by the liberality and indulgence 
 of their lords, they acquired a secure and vested 
 
240 STRENGTH OF NATIONS, [cHAP. X, 
 
 interest in a portion, at least, of the lands they 
 tilled.* 
 
 We have seen how the early strength, both of 
 Rome and England, was bound up with the exist- 
 ence of a large class of hardy men who tilled their 
 own land with their own hands, and whose rights 
 were secured to them by law. The Roman writers 
 have attributed the final ruin of Rome to the destruc- 
 tion of this class ; and the English writers, both con- 
 stitutional lawyers like Fortescue, and lawyers and 
 philosophers like Bacon, have always spoken of this 
 class as the sheet-anchor of England's strength. 
 There is a deep significance in the fierce exhortation 
 put by Shakspeare into the mouth of the last Plan- 
 tagenet on his last field, which does not apply to any 
 other modern nation — " Eight, gentlemen of England 
 — fight, hold yeomen ! " But it seems that the Eng- 
 lish laws which fostered this class that made England 
 so long invincible, have changed their character ; and 
 while they are framed for the aggrandizement of the 
 few, pay less regard to the rights of the many than 
 any other laws in Europe. 
 
 A distinguished modern continental writer, M. 
 Sismondi, says: "It is by a cruel abuse of legal 
 
 * It was laid down by Danby, Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, in 7 Edward IV., and by his successor, that a copyholder, 
 observing the customs of the manor, and performing his services, 
 should, if put out by the lord, have an action of trespass against 
 him — a doctrine which has long been fully established. — Litt. 
 § 77 ; 1 Inst. 60 b ; 1 Cru. Dig., 269. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND PEANCE. 241 
 
 forms — it is by an unjust usurpation — tliat the tacks- 
 men and tlie tenants, whether of the county of 
 Sutherland or of the rest of Scotland, are considered 
 as having no right to the land which they have occu- 
 pied for so many ages, and their former leaders, or 
 chiefs, are authorized to violate the contract which 
 has existed [though an unwritten contract] for so 
 many generations." And he then proceeds thus : — 
 
 " The vast extent of seignorial domains is not a 
 condition peculiar to England. In all the empire of 
 Charlemagne, in all the West, whole provinces had 
 been taken possession of by warlike chiefs, who had 
 them cidtivated for their use by the vanquished, by 
 slaves, or sometimes by their companions in arms. 
 In the ninth and tenth centuries, Maine, Anjou, 
 Poitou, were, for the counts of those provinces, three 
 great farms, rather than three principalities. Swit- 
 zerland, which in so many respects resembles Scot- 
 land, in its lakes, and mountains, its climate, the 
 character, manners, and habits of its children, was 
 likewise at the same period parcelled out among a 
 small number of lords. If the counts of Kyburg, 
 of Lentzburg, of Hapsburg, and of Gruy^res, had 
 been protected by the English laws, they would find 
 themselves at the present day precisely in the con- 
 dition in which the earls of Sutherland were twenty 
 years ago ; * some of them would, perhaps, have had 
 the same taste for improvements, and several republics 
 * This work of M. Sismondi was published in 1837. 
 
242 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 would have been expelled from the Alps to make 
 room for flocks of sheep. But whatever may have 
 been originally the right of the lord, legislation has 
 not ceased during eight centuries, throughout the 
 whole of Europe, to guarantee and ameliorate the 
 condition of the feudatory, of the vassal, of the serf, 
 who held of him ; to strengthen the independence of 
 the peasant, to cover him with the buckler of pre- 
 scription, to change his customs into rights, to shelter 
 him from the exactions of his lord, and to raise gra- 
 dually his tenancy-at-wiU to the rank of property. 
 The law has given to the Swiss peasant the guarantee 
 of perpetuity, while it is to the Scottish lord that it 
 has given that same guarantee in the British empire, 
 leaving the peasant in a precarious situation."* 
 
 The result has been thus described by one who 
 may be considered no mean authority on such a sub- 
 ject. " In many instances," says Sir Walter Scott, 
 " Highland proprietors have laboured with laudable 
 and humane precaution to render the change intro- 
 duced by a new mede of cultivation gentle and gra- 
 dual, and to provide, as far as possible, employment 
 and protection fpr those famihes who were thereby 
 dispossessed of their ancient habitations. But in 
 other, and in too many instances, the glens of the 
 Highlands have been drained, not of their super- 
 fluity of population, but of the whole mass of the in- 
 
 * Etudes mr I'Economie Politique, par J. C. L. Simonde de 
 Sismondi, tome i. p. 230 : Paris, 1837. 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 243 
 
 habitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice, 
 which will be one day found to have been as ' short- 
 sighted as it is unjust and selfish. Meanwhile, the 
 Highlands may become the fairy ground for romance 
 and poetry, or subject of experiment for the profes- 
 sors of speculation, political and economical. But if 
 the hour of need should come — and it may not, per- 
 haps, be far distant — the pibroch may sound through 
 the deserted region, but the summons will remain 
 unanswered. The children who have left her will re- 
 echo from a distant shore the sounds with which they 
 took leave of their own — Ha til, ha til, ha til, mi tulidh! 
 — 'We return — we return — we return — no more!'"* 
 Let us now see what has taken place in France of 
 late years in regard to agriculture. Some ten years 
 ago, M. Passy, peer of France, and a former minister 
 of commerce and finance, published a work on large 
 and small farms, including a view of the progress of 
 the division of the soil in France since 1815, from 
 which it appears that, though there are no means of 
 knowing the exact number of the owners of the soil, 
 the number of landed properties inscribed in the 
 registers of the land tax is very great. 
 
 Years. 
 
 No. of Properties 
 as taxed. 
 
 Population. 
 
 1815 .. 
 1826 .. 
 1835 .. 
 1842 .. 
 
 . ... 10,083,751 ... 
 . ... 10,296,693 ... 
 . ... 10,893,528 ... 
 . ... 11,511,841 ... 
 
 ... 29,152,742 
 ... 31,851,543 
 ... 33,329,575 
 ... 34,376,723 
 
 * Review of Culloden Papers. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 Now as many of the tax-payers have lands and 
 houses in different parts of the country, as there are 
 also properties portions of which extend into several 
 districts, the number of properties is much greater 
 than that of proprietors. There cannot exist a doubt, 
 however, that the number of proprietors is great. 
 
 The figures given above show an increase of 
 fourteen per cent, in the number of properties during 
 the twenty-seven years between 1815 and 1842. 
 This is a yearly addition of scarcely more than one- 
 half per cent. ; an addition rendered still smaller hy 
 the consideration that during the same period the 
 population has increased about eighteen per cent. 
 It follows, therefore, that the prediction of those who 
 said that the change of law in France had led or was 
 leading to infinitesimal subdivisions of landed pro- 
 perty, is completely falsified ; since, instead of having 
 multiplied beyond measure, the number of proprietors 
 has not even followed the general increase of popula- 
 tion : indeed it was, in proportion to the total num- 
 ber of the population in France, a little less in 1842 
 than it was in 1815. 
 
 But the question with which we are here specially 
 concerned is the condition of the French agricultural 
 population. Those who predicted about forty years 
 ago that, in half a century, France would be the 
 greatest pauper warren in Europe, drawing their 
 conclusion from what had been observed in Ireland, 
 ponfovmded two things that are quite distinct — the 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 245 
 
 extent of farms, and the nature of their tenure. Cul- 
 tivators of any kind, small or large, holding their 
 land without leases and at high rents, like the French 
 farmers whom Arthur Young saw, or the Irish farmers 
 of late years, must, as a matter of course, be unpro- 
 sperous and miserable. The reports of intelligent 
 and trustworthy observers state that, though gene- 
 rally the hired labourers are well oS', the peasantry 
 are observed to be most prosperous in those parts of 
 France in which the largest proportion of them are 
 proprietors. And the concurring testimony of cre- 
 dible eye-witnesses is to the effect that, upon the 
 whole, the French peasantry are the most prosperous 
 and the happiest in Europe. Now, if we compare 
 such a peasantry as this with the peasantry described 
 by Sir John Fortescue or by Arthur Young, we 
 shall see that France now possesses a vast deal more 
 of that strength which consists of the materials for 
 making hardy soldiers, than she did in former 
 times. 
 
 The English constitution intrusted the defence of 
 England to those who held the land of England. 
 The commercial and manufacturing elements of the 
 population may supply means for maintaining the 
 colonies and dependencies, but the old constitutional 
 laws have emphatically prescribed the agricultural 
 element as the defensive force of England itself. It 
 therefore becomes the duty of English statesmen to 
 inquire diligently whether Great Britain, under pre- 
 
246 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 sent circumstances, ought to decrease generally her 
 agricultural population ; and, in particular, whether 
 she ought to permit that portion of her territory 
 which once produced a numerous, hardy, and warlike 
 population, to be turned into a deer forest for the 
 profit or the pleasure of a few individuals. For 
 when the hour of need shall come — and Sir Walter 
 Scott said, some thirty years ago, " it may not 
 perhaps be far distant" — though the summons of 
 the pibroch will remain unanswered in that now 
 deserted region, it is not yet too late to repair a part 
 at least of the mischief done. 
 
 But the whole case has not yet been stated, inas- 
 much as we have spoken only of the materials for the 
 defence of the country, not of the handling of those 
 materials. It has been shown over and over again 
 in the course of this work, that an army composed 
 of men of inferior military qualities may, in the 
 hands of a great general, beat an army composed of 
 men of superior military qualities. So, troops hke 
 the English, possessing the very highest military 
 qualities, unequalled bodily strength and endurance, 
 and indomitable courage — which no superiority of 
 numbers, no amount of adverse circumstances, no 
 extremes of heat and cold, and not even pestilence, 
 can reduce to despair — may be wasted and ruined, 
 as if they were things of no value, by a vicious mili- 
 tary system: a system which persists in acting as 
 if military genius were not the gift of God, to be 
 
CHAP. I.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 247 
 
 indeed cultivated afterwards for use by the inces- 
 sant labour of man, but could be purchased by 
 money, or came by inheritance. And if a nation's 
 means of producing men possessed of the best mili- 
 tary qualities are constantly decreasing, while at the 
 same time the government of that nation is such 
 that the chances are about ten to one, or rather a 
 hundred to one, against the general's being a man 
 possessing military genius, we should say that such 
 a nation was in a rather bad way for defending 
 itself against a daring, powerful, and ambitious 
 neighbour, who might have special and potent reasons 
 for desiring to conquer, or at least to injure and 
 humble, that nation. 
 
 Now let us look closely at one or two facts of 
 somewhat recent date. 
 
 To those who have read with care and discrimi- 
 nation the history of England for the last century, 
 I may, perhaps, appear to have been in error when I 
 said, in the third chapter of this work, that it is 
 impossible to conceive any amount of incapacity, 
 feebleness, and disorder exceeding that exhibited by 
 the Athenian democracy in the last half-century of 
 its existence. The same effects may be expected to 
 flow from the same causes, and the orators who, 
 through the influence of their rhetoric on the English 
 Parliament, govern England, may be fairly said to 
 have equalled, or very nearly equalled, in mischief, if 
 not in eloquence, the Athenian orators of ancient days. 
 
248 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Of the English orators the most famous are the 
 two Pitts — father and son. In regard to the elder 
 Pitt, it is enough to mention his small abortive expe- 
 ditions against the coast of France, so different from 
 those of the Plantagenets ; and so different from the 
 descent of an efficient force at Boulogne, Calais, 
 or Port I'Orient, as proposed by Frederick to the 
 English ambassador. Lord Macaulay, in his splendid 
 eulogy on the first Pitt's eloquence and patriotism, 
 says : " Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely 
 entitled to all the praise which Ms contemporaries 
 lavished upon him. We, perhaps from ignorance, 
 cannot discover in his arrangements any appearance 
 of profound or dexterous combination. Several of 
 his expeditions, particularly those which were sent 
 to the coast of France, were at once costly and 
 absurd. Our Indian conquests, though they add 
 to the splendour of the period during which he was 
 at the head of affairs, were not planned by him." 
 
 To find the military errors of the orator father 
 reproduced on a larger and still more costly scale in 
 the administration of the orator son, is perhaps but 
 what we had too much reason to expect. It is stated 
 by Dr. Pellew, Lord Sidmouth's son-in-law and 
 biographer, that Lord Sidmouth often told his friends 
 that, after his accession to the government, he called 
 for a statement of the losses, from every cause, in- 
 curred by the British forces on foreign service, 
 especially in the West Indies, since the commence- 
 
CHAP. X.j ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 249 
 
 ment of hostilities in 1793, a period of about nine 
 years, and that it amounted to the number of 1,350 
 officers, and 60,000 men : a loss probably not greatly 
 exceeded by that incurred by the Duke of Wellington 
 in his six Peninsular campaigns. 
 
 Wellington only became successful on a great 
 scale when he had acquired sufficient weight to be 
 let alone. His published despatches fully show this. 
 They show how constantly he was thwarted and 
 embarrassed, not only by the obstinate imbecility 
 of the military government at home, but by the 
 effects of parliamentary interest in forcing upon him 
 inefficient military materials of all kinds. The Duke 
 is also reported to have said that when all his papers 
 were published, some of the grand statues raised by 
 the government would have to come down again. 
 Whether such a report be true or not, a careful 
 analysis of his published papers may be thought 
 to establish sufficiently such a conclusion. But 
 the most instructive fact which these voluminous 
 despatches establish, is the fact itself of their very 
 existence in such bulk ; proving what an amount of 
 time and labour it was necessary for the Duke of 
 Wellington to take, from the vast multitude of 
 immediately and urgently pressing concerns around 
 him, in order to endeavour to introduce sense and 
 knowledge into heads which did not hold brains 
 enough to govern a henroost or drive a flock of 
 geese across a common. 
 
250 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 A nation must be going fast to ruin when it is 
 governed by orators who can drive it into needless 
 and most expensive wars without ever risking their 
 own blood ; as the two Pitts, and as numbers of the 
 English ohgarchy, who have figured as governors- 
 general of India for the last half-century, have driven 
 England ; and when the foremost places among states- 
 men are assigned to such men. 
 
 The only glory in conquest must be in the valour 
 and military skill displayed. A man who obtains 
 the appointment of governor-general of the British 
 empire in India by rhetorical displays in the British 
 Parliament, and then, by way of adding to his rheto- 
 rical renown the military glory of a conqueror, sits 
 and plans an annexation of new territory to an 
 empire already much too extensive, and picks a 
 quarrel at his desk, can have no solid title to honour 
 from the result of such a proceeding, however ably 
 the general who is employed under him may act. 
 
 As the first Pitt, with his doings, was reproduced 
 some half-century baek in the second Pitt, so was 
 the second Pitt, with his doings, reproduced in our 
 parliamentary orators of 1854, with their doings. 
 The amount of imbecility displayed by the English 
 government in the conduct of its military affairs 
 would be incredible if we had not seen and had not 
 too great cause to remember it. Great, indeed, must 
 be the moral as well as the physical strength and 
 energy of the nation which has so long endured. 
 
CHAP. X.J ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 251 
 
 without utterly perishing, such an amount of in- 
 capacity in its rulers, with all the disorder, the pro- 
 digality, the waste of treasure, blood, and strength, 
 which such incapacity brings in its train, 
 
 " The truth is," says a writer in The Times of the 
 19th of Dectftnber, 1854, " that organization and 
 system seem to be totally foreign to the military 
 and official mind. If we trace our stores from 
 England to their destination, or, placing ourselves 
 in imagination at the seat of war, inquire into the 
 wants of the soldiers and their cause, we shall 
 equally arrive at the same conclusion. The stores 
 are put on board, but no care is taken to see where or 
 in what order they are packed. That which is wanted 
 at Constantinople, is at Varna ; that which is wanted 
 in the Crimea, is at Constantinople. Drugs are 
 buried under shot and shell, and shot and shell 
 cannot be landed, because there is but one jetty for 
 twenty or thirty ships; till drugs and shell go together 
 to the bottom, because there is no attempt to regulate 
 the respective positions of the. fleet, or to establish 
 order and regularity in the harbour of Balaklava. 
 The army is starved, the siege is interrupted, the 
 horses perish, because it is found impossible to carry 
 food, ammunition, and fodder over unformed tracks 
 which the rain has converted into quagmires. 
 
 "Now, it is not too much to say that all this 
 misery and disaster might have been avoided by 
 attention to the single matter of organization. Had 
 
252 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 one-haJf of tie care, energy, and attention which 
 goes to the management of a railway, a manufactory, 
 or a steam-packet company, been bestowed upon the 
 conduct of this expedition, on which the freedom of 
 Europe, the regeneration of Asia, and the destiny 
 of the whole human race for the next century 
 depend, we should not have to chronicle these dis- 
 asters, or complain of these miseries. For a very 
 few pounds a week, Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown are 
 able to arrange that continuous chain of subordi- 
 nation and inspection which pervades a single esta- 
 blishment, employing thousands of men, to produce a 
 single result. But that practical ability which any 
 man can get for a few hundreds a year, all our appa- 
 ratus of peerages, titles, pensions, and honours, fails 
 to call into existence." 
 
 What would be the natural inference that a 
 daring, able, and ambitious man, at the head of a 
 powerful mihtary nation bordering on England, 
 would draw from all this ? The manifest inference 
 would be that England, with a military system in a 
 state of such hopeless imbecility — at least apparently 
 hopeless, for the delinquents were rewarded, not 
 punished — was precisely the country, with its enor- 
 mous wealth and its enormous military weakness, to 
 attack which were a speculation likely to pay. It 
 would seem as if nothing could have hindered such 
 a man, in such a position as has been described, 
 from attacking England before this time, but a spirit 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 253 
 
 of forbearance. It will not do, however, for a nation 
 like England to trust to any man's forbearance. 
 Moreover, whatever may be the personal qualities of 
 the present ruler of France, and whatever may be 
 his friendly disposition towards England, it is autho- 
 ritatively affirmed that the bulk of the French 
 nation is very desirous to attack and invade England; 
 and it is notorious that France has long been, and is 
 now, building steam-vessels for the transport of large 
 bodies of troops. 
 
 In the third chapter of this work it was shown 
 that the Athenians, with their government of ora- 
 tors, were all talk and no do. The government 
 of England, at present, in respect to military affairs, 
 while its parliamentary element furnishes the usual 
 supply of talk, is ominously characterized at once by 
 doing many things that ought not to be done, and 
 by leaving undone many things that ought to be 
 done. On the other hand, the French government 
 is all do and no talk. 
 
 tinder these circumstances it must be evident, 
 to a nation so practical and so sagacious as the 
 English nation, that its military system must be 
 changed at once, and changed thoroughly. The 
 English love to walk by precedent. In this case 
 their own history furnishes them with a precedent 
 which produced the best soldiers, the best officers, 
 and the most invincible army the world ever saw. 
 The New Model of the army of the Parliament 
 
254 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. X. 
 
 of England, when the army was taken out of the 
 hands of Essex and Manchester, and placed in those 
 of Fairfax and Cromwell, who led it to uninterrupted 
 victory, was nothing more nor less than an applica- 
 cation to the conduct of military affairs of the 
 common rules of prudence and good sense, which 
 every successful man of business in England em- 
 ploys unceasingly in the management of his daily 
 transactions. 
 
 Whv the soldiers of Cromwell and the seamen of 
 Blake were the best the world ever saw, wiU be 
 apparent when to the evidence of their excellence, 
 already quoted, is added the testimony of one whose 
 troops were second to none, except their country- 
 men, the Ironsides of Cromwell. The Duke of 
 Wellington thus writes on the 18th of July, 1813, 
 soon after the battle of Yittoria : — " It is an unri- 
 valled army for fighting, if the soldiers can only be 
 kept in their ranks during the battle." His Grace 
 then, after mentioning some qualities it wants, thus 
 proceeds : " The cause of these defects is the want 
 of habits of obedience and attention to orders by the 
 inferior officers, and, indeed, I might add, by all. 
 They never attend to an order with an intention to 
 obey it, or sufficiently to understand it, be it ever so 
 clear, and, therefore, never obey it, when obedience 
 becomes troublesome, or difficult, or important." * 
 
 * GuTwood's Selections from the Duke of Wellington's Despatches, 
 p. 713, No. 799. 
 
CHAP. X.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 255 
 
 Does not this show a want of intelligence, such as 
 Would not have been found in Cromwell's troops ? 
 
 The Duke of Wellington has also thrown further 
 light on the question, by what means was it that 
 Cromwell's army became a machine so perfect as 
 even to exceed the perfection of that army of which 
 his Grace said, " I always thought that I could have 
 gone anywhere and done anything with that army." * 
 The Duke says : " Indeed, we carry this principle of 
 the gentleman, and the absence of intercourse with 
 those under his command, so far, as that, in my 
 opinion, the duty of a subaltern officer as done in 
 a foreign army is not done at all in the cavalry or 
 the British infantry of the line. It is done in the 
 Guards by the sergeants. Then our gentleman 
 officer, however admirable his conduct in a field 
 of battle, however honourable to himself, however 
 glorious and advantageous to his country, is but a 
 poor creature in disciplining his company in camp, 
 quarters, or cantonments."! 
 
 * Evidence on military punishments : Gunoood's Selections, 
 p. 929. 
 
 f Memorandum on plan for altering the discipline of the army, 
 GurwooHs Selections, p. 920. See, in the same work (p. 626), 
 General Order as to the officers commanding companies inspect- 
 ing the ammunition at every parade, in order to ascertain " that 
 every soldier in the ranks has at all times in his possession sixty 
 rounds." Of the neglect of this precaution, " the consequence is, 
 as happened in a late instance, that before the soldiers are en- 
 gaged for five minutes, ammunition is wanting, and the stores are 
 necessarily exhausted, at a great distance from all means of sup- 
 plying them." One may judge, by comparing what the Duke of 
 
256 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. X. 
 
 Ttis indicates some of the points that marked 
 Oliver Cromwell and his Ironside officers as dif- 
 ferent from our modern idea of officers; and, no 
 doubt, from the royalist as well as the early parlia- 
 mentary officers of his time. Oliver Cromwell's 
 Ironside officers, though, in the estimation of Lord 
 HoUis, they might be a " notable dunghill," were 
 assuredly not "poor creatures in disciplining their 
 companies in camp, quarters, or cantonments." 
 
 The officers who raised themselves in the parlia- 
 mentary army and navy appear to have enjoyed 
 in the highest degree the confidence and love of 
 those who served under them. 
 
 Wellington says, in the memorandum on the discipline of the 
 army above cited (while he praises the gallantry and courage), 
 of the inefficiency in some respects, and want of intelligence, of his 
 officers, with the efficiency and intelligence of Cromwell's officers, 
 what his army would have been with Cromwell's officers and 
 soldiers and sixty rounds of cartridge in each man's cartridge- 
 box. 
 
257 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUEOPE. 
 
 TEdTTGH the English, not without cause, prided 
 themselves on the part they had in the destruction 
 of the Spanish Armada, and of the Spanish naval 
 power generally, the soverieignty of the seas may 
 he said to have passed from the Spaniards, not at 
 first to the English, but to the Dutch. During 
 the first half of the seventeenth century the Dutch 
 seamen were esteemed the best in the world ; and 
 the confidence and haughtiness of the Dutch govern- 
 ment were proportionally great. It was the genius 
 of Blake and the valour of his seamen, animated 
 to the highest degree of daring at once by the 
 enthusiasm of free men fighting for their country's 
 independence and honour, and by the knowledge 
 that the highest commands in the fieet of the Par- 
 liament of England were open to all as the rewards 
 of skill and valour, which first showed to the world 
 that the sovereignty of the seas was destined to 
 belong neither to the Dutch nor the Spaniards : by 
 deeds which, undimmed as they were by the stain 
 of civil strife and brothers' blood, still live in the 
 most popular of our national songs. 
 
 s 
 
258 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. II. 
 
 As it was proved by the victories of Cromwell that 
 the military affairs of England could he admirably 
 conducted without the cumbrous and costly appa- 
 ratus of *' peerages, titles, pensions, and honours," 
 so was it thoroughly proved, by similar achievements, 
 that the naval affairs of England could be most ad- 
 mirably conducted also. And here a great commer- 
 cial nation has a counterbalancing advantage to 
 make up somewhat for its loss in the agricultural 
 element of strength ; for a great commercial nation, 
 which maintains a large commercial navy, and has 
 an extensive line of coast, necessarily, possesses at all 
 times a large number of hardy seamen bred in hex 
 fishing-boats and her merchant ships. 
 
 In 1649 the Parliament of England found itself 
 suddenly at war not only with the Dutch, but with 
 all the kings of Europe. The French had fitted out 
 ships which, under the flag of Charles II., made 
 prize of English vessels not strong enough to resist 
 them. In Portugal a fleet under Prince Rupert was 
 protected from the fleet of the Parhament. In 
 Russia the English merchants were insulted and ill- 
 treated by the government. Ascham, the agent of 
 the Parhament in Spain, was assassinated in Madrid. 
 Even in Holland (where, though the government 
 was in name repubHcan, the Princes of Orange, 
 closely allied by marriage to the House of Stuart, 
 were rendering themselves as absolute under the 
 name of stadtholders as any kings in Europe), 
 
CHAP. XI.J THE NAVAIi POWERS OF EUROPE. 259 
 
 Dorislaus, the resident minister of the ParKament, 
 was assassinated by a band of royalists, headed or 
 directed by persons of the highest rank under the 
 Stuarts. 
 
 In the midst of this apparently overwhelming com- 
 bination of enemies, it is instructive and memorable 
 to all time to observe attentively the proceedings of 
 the statesmen who then ruled England. 
 
 That was the golden age of the British navy : not 
 only most strangely contrasted with that of the 
 Restoration, but even with those times that came 
 after, when the Commodore Trunnions complained 
 that men with family interest, " who scarce knew a 
 mast from a manger," were advanced over their 
 heads, while they who had nothing to trust to but 
 their courage and skill were laid aside and forgotten. 
 
 Besides the great energy and abiHty with which 
 the affairs of the navy were conducted by the par- 
 liamentary committee of the Admiralty and Navy, of 
 which Vane was at the head. Providence sent to the 
 Long Parliament a man whose career, in the conduct 
 of the Dutch and all their other foreign wars, was 
 as singular and wonderful as that of Cromwell had 
 been in the conduct of their domestic wars. This 
 was Robert Blake. He, like Cromwell, had received 
 a university education, but, imlike Cromwell, had 
 pursued with some diligence the xmiversity studies^ 
 though not with sufficient success to attain the object 
 of hig youthfol ambition — a fellowship in his col- 
 
 S 2 
 
260 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XU 
 
 lege.* Though Blake became a member of the Long 
 Parliament, he never appears to have formed any 
 part of the "talking apparatus" of that potent 
 assembly. He proved, however, a very essential part 
 of the acting apparatus. 
 
 Blake was past fifty years of age when he was 
 appointed to the command of the English fleet; which, 
 as it was commanded by a landrofficer who had 
 received a university education (the ordinary educa- 
 tion of an English gentleman of that age) was for 
 the most part manned by land-soldiers, draughted 
 fi-om Cromwell's best regiments — men formed in that 
 school which gave its pupils, with the habits and 
 discipline that ensure victory, the resolution, never 
 to be beaten. 
 
 Blake's first service was against Prince Rupert^ 
 whom he pursued from Kinsale to the coast of Por- 
 tugal, and chased into the Tagus. The King of 
 Portugal refused Blake admittance, and assisted 
 Prince Rupert to escape; thereupon Blake made 
 prize of twenty Portuguese ships richly laden, and 
 
 * Dr. Johnson says, in Ms Life of Blake, " It is observable that 
 Mr. Wood (in his Athena Oxonienses) ascribes the repulse he met 
 with at Wadham College, where he was competitor for a fellow- 
 ship, either to want of learning, or of stature. With regard to the 
 first objection, the same writer had before informed us that he was 
 an early riser and studious, though he sometimes relieved his atten- 
 tion by the amusements of fowling and fishing." Dr. Johnson 
 makes a slight mistake as to the college where Blake stood for a 
 fellowship, which, according to Anthony & Wood, was Merton 
 College. Sir H. Davy mentions, in his Salmonia, that Nelson was 
 fond of fly -fishing. 
 
G'HAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OE EUROPE. 261 
 
 threatened still further vengeance. The King of 
 Portugal then made all possible submissions, and 
 was at last admitted to negotiate the renewal of his 
 alliance with England. 
 
 Blake's next service was against the Dutch, who, 
 as their seamen were then reckoned the best, had also 
 at that time the two most renowned admirals in the 
 world — Van Tromp and De Ruyter. Nevertheless, 
 Colonel, now General, Blake — very ably seconded 
 by two other land-officers, Deane and Monk, who, 
 like Blake, became excellent sea-officers — defeated 
 the Dutch in repeated engagements. 
 
 The energy of the Parliament of England, and the 
 valour and ability of the officers they employed, are 
 well described in the words of a member of that 
 Parliament. " When Van Tromp," says Algernon 
 Sidney, " set upon Blake in Folkestone Bay, the 
 Parhament had not above thirteen ships against 
 threescore, and not a man that had ever seen any 
 other fight at sea than between a merchant-ship and 
 a pirate, to oppose the best captain in the world, 
 attended with many others in valour and experience 
 not much inferior to him." * And even the accounts 
 that may be considered as less favourable to the 
 Parliament, describe the Dutteh force as double the 
 Enghsh; Van Tromp having a fleet of forty-two 
 Sail, Blake one of about half that number, in this 
 
 * Algernon Sidney's Discourse concerning Government, chap. ii. 
 sect. 28. 
 
262 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 first engagement. After a fight which lasted from 
 two or three o'clock in the afternoon till night (19th 
 of May, 1652) — and in which the oflBcers and sea- 
 men fully justified the wisdom of Parliament in 
 choosing men only for their merit and never press- 
 ing any men in all their wars — ^the English had the 
 better.* 
 
 We shall not enter into the details of all these 
 sea-fights, but a short account of some of them will 
 serve to show the spirit with which BlaJce fought. 
 
 On the 29th of November, 1652, when Blake had 
 only thirty-seven ships with him, Yan Tromp faced 
 him in the Downs with eighty sail of men-of-war 
 and ten fire-ships. Blake, whose maxim ' was that 
 the English flag should never decline the challenge 
 of an enemy whatever his advantages, engaged with 
 the whole Dutch fleet ; and fought furiously from ten 
 in the morning till six at night, when darkness saved 
 the English fleet; with the exception of one ship 
 burnt, one taken, and three sunk. But the Dutch 
 fleet had also sustained great damage. After this- 
 fight. Van Tromp fixed a broom to his masthead, 
 as if to proclaim that he meant to sweep the seas of 
 the English navy. 
 
 But the Dutch were somewhat premature in their 
 
 indecent exhibition of triumph, and appear to have 
 
 miscalculated greatly the energy and resources of 
 
 the Rump of the Long Parliament of England. Not 
 
 * Hobbes's BeAemoi/i, p. 290; Hume, chap. 60. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OP EUROPE. 263 
 
 many days after this battle was fought. Vane reported 
 the navy estimates to the house. The most prompt and 
 vigorous measures were immediately adopted to repair 
 their shattered fleet and fit out another. Vane brought 
 in a bill, and had it at once read a first and second 
 time, to sell Windsor Park, Hampton Court, Hyde! 
 Park, the Royal Park at Greenwich, Enfield Castle, 
 and Somerset House; the proceeds of the whole 
 to be for the use of the navy. But the main source 
 of the supplies was the land-tax and property-tax 
 — a hond-fide tax on real and personal property, 
 and not like the sham land-tax and sham property- 
 tax devised in later times. The sum required was 
 raised by a rate on all real and personal property, 
 "according to the value thereof; that is to say, so 
 much upon every twenty shillings rent, or yearly 
 value of land and real estate, and so much upon 
 money, stock, and other personal estate, by an equal 
 rate, wherein every twenty pounds in money, stock, 
 or other personal estate, shall bear the like charge as 
 shall be laid on eyery twenty shillings yearly rent, or 
 yearly value of land, as will raise the monthly sum 
 or sums charged on the respective counties, cities, 
 towns, and places."* 
 
 Early in February, Blake was again at sea, having 
 with him Deane and Monk, and eighty men-of-war. 
 
 Upon the 18th of February he descried, oflF the 
 
 * One of the enactments is preserved in Scobett's Collection, 
 part ii. p. 400. The assessments were made every month. 
 
264 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI, 
 
 isle of Portland, a Dutch fleet of seventy-six men- 
 of-war, with a convoy of three hundred* mer- 
 chantmen, and brought them to action, at first with 
 only thirteen of his ships ; Blake and Dfeane being both 
 on board the THiwnpA, which received seven hundred 
 shots in her hull. Van Tromp, and, imder him, De 
 Ruyter, commanded the Dutch. When the rest of 
 the English fleet came up, a most furious fight en- 
 sued. For three days was the combat continued with 
 the utmost fury and obstinacy. On the second day 
 Blake renewed the fight ofi" Weymouth, while Van 
 Tromp put his merchantmen before him, and fought 
 retreating towards the port of Boulogne. On the 
 third day, a Sunday, Blake again brought Van Tromp 
 to action, and fought him with advantage till foiir 
 o'clock in the afternoon ; when, the wind proving un- 
 favourable to the English, Van Tromp got to Calais 
 sands. The Dutch lost 11 ships of war, and 30 mer- 
 chantmen, had 2,000 men killed, and 1,500 taken 
 prisoners. The English, though many of their ships 
 were extremely shattered, had but one sunk. Their 
 killed were not much inferior in number to those of 
 the enemy. The Speaker was directed to write a 
 
 * Some accounts say two hundred, and some thirty. Accoraing 
 to the account in the Parliamentary History taken from the 
 letters from the three admirals of the fleet — Blake, Deane, and 
 Monk-r-to the Speaker, dated aboard the Triumph, Feb. 27th, in 
 Stokes Bay, and read in the House, March 1, the Dutch fleet 
 vas seventy-six vessels, with a convoy of three hundred mer- 
 chantmen.-^PoW. Hist. vol. iii, p. 1380. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OE EUROPE. 265 
 
 letter of congratulation to each of the three admirals, 
 "taking notice of the Parliament's resentment* of their 
 great and faithful services in the late engagement, 
 with thanks to them and the several commanders 
 imder them;" and a collection was ordered to be 
 made in the house for the widows of sailors killed 
 in the action, f 
 
 Between the times of Edward III. and Henry V., 
 when England might seem to have almost been in 
 a position to aim at a universal empire in Europe, 
 and the time when Cromwell seized upon the powers 
 of the Long Parliament, a great change took place 
 in the state of Europe. The sanguinary civil wars 
 which arose in the time of the unfortunate son of 
 Henry V. are computed to have cost the lives of 
 eighty princes of the blood, and they almost entirely 
 annihilated the ancient nobility of England. This 
 for a time gave a great preponderance to the royal 
 power, till the balance was restored by the rise of 
 the Commons, or rather of the smaller nobility or 
 gentry. 
 
 About a century later, a part of the phenome- 
 non, namely, the weakening of the power of the 
 great nobility, without the rise of any other power 
 corresponding to that of the English gentry, appeared 
 in France. When Henry IV. obtained the crown 
 
 * The word in use at that time for what is now expressed by. 
 the word " sense." The modern phrase would be, " the Parlia- 
 )ftent's sense of their great and faithful services," &o. 
 - t Pari. Hist. Tol. iii. p. 1380. 
 
266 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XT. 
 
 of France, lie found it so easy to govern nobles ex- 
 hausted and weakened with a long civil war, that he 
 had time and inducement to form a design of settling 
 permanently the balance of Europe. Of this great 
 scheme (which comprehended an idea worthy of the 
 great and amiable prince who formed it) tof a uni- 
 versal and permanent peace, he, as Dr. Johnson has 
 observed in his paper, written as an introduction to 
 the Political State of Great Britain, "lived not to 
 see the vanity, or to feel the disappointment, for he 
 was murdered in the midst of his mighty prepara- 
 tions." In the succeeding reign. Cardinal Eichelieu 
 completed the work of depressing and crushing the 
 power of the nobility, and elevating and establishing 
 that of the king, with such a result that France began 
 to assume an air of superiority to which she had never 
 before made pretensions. 
 
 Between the time when England had ceased to 
 be in the position she was in at the death of 
 Henry V. and the rise of the pretensions of FrancCj 
 Spain, chiefly in consequence of her naval supre- 
 macy, openly pretended to give law to other na- 
 tions. But with the destruction of the Spanish 
 Armada, and the successful revolt of the Dutch, 
 backed by the same English force that had destroyed 
 the Armada, perished, if not the pretensions, the pre- 
 dominant power, of Spain. During the seventeenth 
 century, with the exception of the years in which the 
 Long Parliament — composed, according to the cele- 
 
CHAP. XI.j THE NAVAL POWERS OE EUROPE. 267 
 
 brated saying of Bishop Warburton, of " a set of the 
 greatest geniuses for government that the world ever 
 saw embarked together in one common cause" — 
 assisted by a naval commander whose genius and 
 valour were worthy of those who employed himj 
 again asserted for her more than her old place among 
 the nations, England continued to sink under the 
 profligate but feeble and short-sighted tyranny of 
 the Stuarts, till her very ambassadors were insulted 
 at foreign courts, and the name of Englishman, from 
 being a name of respect, terror, or hatred, became 
 one of contempt, obloquy, and derision. In the 
 meantime, while England grew weaker, her neigh- 
 bours the Dutch and the French were growing 
 stronger, till France, under Louis XIV., began to 
 aim at universal empire. 
 
 ^pain having been the last power in Europe at 
 that time which had openly pretended to give law to 
 other nations, even so clear and far-sighted a poli-* 
 tician as Cromwell overlooked the real state of facts 
 when he assisted the French to drive the Spaniards 
 out of Flanders, at a time when it was the interest 
 of England to have supported the Spaniards against 
 France, as she formerly did the Dutch against Spain. 
 But CromweU, as Sir William Temple informs us, 
 discovered his error, and intended, had he lived, to 
 have withdrawn his troops from the side of France, 
 and sent them to the assistance of Spain, with a view 
 of redressing and adjusting the balance of power ia 
 
268 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAF. XI,' 
 
 Europe.* Sinfie that time all our exertions have been 
 made, and aU our money has been spent, against the 
 power of France, in assisting Holland, Austria, 
 Prussia — ^nay, in assisting and subsidizing nearly all 
 Europe. 
 
 When the supreme authority was violently seized 
 upon by Cromwell, Blake, though he preferred the 
 republican form of government, declared that he 
 should still be ready to discharge his trust and to 
 defend the nation from insults, injuries, and en- 
 croachments. "It is not," said Blate, "the busi- 
 ness of a seaman to mind State affairs, but to 
 hinder foreigners from fooling us."t Notwithstand- 
 ing this, one of Cromwell's first acts of power was 
 the substitution of Monk for Blake, in the chief 
 command of the fleet which the Long ParHament 
 had so ably provided, and of which they' had ap- 
 pointed him to the command with such signal and 
 successful results. Blake icheerfully submitted to 
 command under the man thus sent to supersede him 
 in the supreme command. " There," truly has 
 Mr. Forster observed, " as in every other action of 
 the life of Blake, spoke out the heroic spirit which 
 moved, ia later but not such glorious years, the 
 
 * Sir William Temple's Works, vol. i. p. 356. Sir William 
 Temple gives, in the same place, a curious account of the designs 
 of Cardinal Richelieu in regard to Flanders, and as to fomenting 
 the discontents of Charles I.'s subjects against him. 
 
 1 t Lives, English and Foreign, toI. ii. p. 109. 
 
CHAP, XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS 01" EUROPE. 269 
 
 passionate love and admiration of the English people 
 at the mention of the name of Nelson."* 
 
 On the 2nd of June, and the 31st of July, 1653, 
 the Dutch were again completely defeated. The last 
 great battle, in which the Dutch lost thirty ships and 
 their renowned Admiral Van Tromp, put an end to 
 the war. 
 
 Cromwell, towards the close of 1654, despatched a 
 large armament under Admiral Penn and General 
 Venahles, to attack the Spanish power in the West 
 Indies. The main object of this expedition was to take 
 Hispaniola, in which object it totally failed ; its only 
 result was the acquisition of Jamaica, an acquisition 
 of which Cromwell's sagacity saw more of the value 
 and importance than most of his contemporaries. 
 
 About the same time that this expedition was 
 despatched to the West Indies, Blake was sent by 
 Cromwell into the Mediterranean with a powerful 
 fleet. The contrast now became manifest between 
 these times and those when the English flag was 
 insulted by every maritime power in Europe, and 
 when the Barbary corsairs disembarked on the 
 Enghsh shores, pillaged the villages, and carried the 
 inhabitants into slavery to the number of several 
 thousands : and all this, too, after the raising of ship- 
 money. No English fleet had been seen in those 
 seas since the time of the Crusades; and it soon 
 appeared that, from one extremity to the other of the 
 * Eorster'B Life of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 173. 
 
270 STRENGTH OF NATION'S. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Mediterranean, there was no naval power. Christian 
 or Mahometan, that could resist an English fleet 
 commanded by Blake. 
 
 Blake's business was to demand reparation for 
 all the injuries done to the English during the 
 civil wars. Casting anchor before Leghorn, he 
 exacted from the Duke of Tuscany satisfaction for 
 the losses which English commerce had sustained 
 from him. He then sailed to Algiers, and de- 
 manded, and obtained, reparation for the robberies 
 committed upon the English by the pirates of that 
 place, and the release of the captives of his nation. 
 He next appeared before Tunis, and having there 
 made the same demands, the Dey answered him 
 with scorn, and bade him behold his castles. Blake's 
 answer to this bravado soon convinced the Dey 
 that times were changed since Buckingham was 
 Lord High Admiral of England. He sailed into 
 the harbour within musket-shot of the castles, and 
 tore them in pieces with his artillery ; he then seni 
 out his long boats, weU manned, and burned every 
 ship which lay there. " This bold action," says 
 Hume, " which its very temerity, perhaps, rendered 
 safe, was executed with little loss, and filled all that 
 part of the world with the renown of English 
 valour."* He sent home, it is said, sixteen ships 
 
 * Hume, Hist, chap. 61; Johnson's Life of Blake; Whitlooke, 
 p. 608 (8th June, 1655); Cromwell's Letter to General Blake, 
 13th June, 1655. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWEES OF EUROPE. 271 
 
 laden with the effects which he had received from 
 several States, and no doubt in part with the English 
 captives whom he had restored to liberty. One can 
 hardly imagine a stranger scene than the casual 
 presence of some of those liberated English captives, 
 and of some of his old seamen who had shared in his 
 unexampled achievements, in St. Margaret's church- 
 yard, on that memorable day, when the bones of the 
 hero were taken from their grave and cast, like those 
 of a masterless dog, into a pit, where they still lie. 
 
 The respect with which Blake obliged all foreigners 
 to treat his countrymen, appears, as Dr. Johnson has 
 observed,* from the story told by Bishop Burnet, 
 which has been often repeated since. When Blake 
 lay before Malaga, before the war broke out with 
 Spain, some of his sailors went ashore, and, meeting 
 a procession of the Host, not only refused to pay any 
 respect to it, but laughed at those who did. The 
 people, incited by one of the priests to resent this 
 indignity, fell upon them and beat them severely. 
 When they returned to their ship, they complained 
 of their ill-treatment; upon which Blake sent to 
 demand the priest who had set the people on. The 
 viceroy answered that, having no authority over the 
 priests, he could not send him ; to which Blake re- 
 plied, " that he did not inquire into the extent of 
 the viceroy's authority, but that if the priest were 
 
 * See Dr. Johnson's Life of Blake, Johnson's Works, vol. xii. 
 p. 57. London, 1810. 
 
272 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. xr. 
 
 not sent within three hours, he would burn the 
 town." The viceroy then sent the priest, who 
 pleaded the provocation given by the seamen. Blake 
 answered, that if he had complained to him, he would 
 have punished them severely, for he would not have 
 his men affront the established religion of any place ; 
 but that he was angry that the Spaniards should 
 assume that power, for he would have all the world 
 know " that an Englishman was only to be punished 
 by an Englishman." So having used the priest 
 civilly, he sent him back. This conduct greatly 
 pleased CromweU. He read the letter in council 
 with great satisfaction, and said, " he hoped to make 
 the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a 
 Roman had been." 
 
 England now, indeed, occupied a truly command- 
 ing position. Blake had exacted satisfaction of the 
 just demands of England from the Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, from the Deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tri- 
 poli. The Republic of Genoa thanked Cromwell 
 by a special embassy, for having thus afforded pro- 
 tection to maritime, commerce. The Vaivode of 
 Transylvania sought his aid against the Turks ; the 
 King of Poland applied to him for support against 
 the growing power of Russia; and the canton of 
 Zurich appealed to him as the natural guardian 
 of Protestant States. The Dutch were humbled. 
 Treaties favourable to England had been signed 
 with Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal. France 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWEES OF EUROPE. 273 
 
 and Spain had sent embassies, and contended for 
 the friendship of England. 
 
 Cromwell, as we have seen, had decided in favour 
 of France. It is due to him to state that he made 
 his decision subservient to one praiseworthy object. 
 He refused to sign the French treaty till he had 
 received an assurance from the King of France of 
 protection to the Vaudois (Protestant subjects of 
 the Duke of Savoy) in the valleys of Piedmont, 
 against the inhuman persecutions of their ruler; 
 who had attempted to convert them by violent 
 means to the Roman Catholic religion, and, failing in 
 his object, had proceeded to drive them from their 
 homes and country, " not without slaughters and tor- 
 tures by the road."* At length it was announced 
 that the Duke of Savoy, at the request of the King of 
 France, had granted an amnesty to the Yaudois, and 
 confirmed all their ancient privileges. This merciless 
 persecution and the redress obtained for it by Eng- 
 land, are rendered memorable by Milton's sonnet, 
 and the letters he wrote in conducting the nego- 
 tiation as Latin secretary to Cromwell; and, still 
 fiirther, by the public collection of money for the 
 Protestants of Piedmont ; f part of which, we believe, 
 was formed into a permanent fund, which still re- 
 mains in some degree available for its original 
 objects, and a monument, "beyond the power of 
 marble," in honour of those who raised it, even 
 
 * Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 358. f Ibid. p. 364, 
 
 T 
 
274 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 though some of them may be without other monu- 
 ment, and their dust may have been scattered by 
 sacrilegious hands to the four winds of heaTen. 
 
 Blake, in pursuance of the instructions of Crom- 
 well, to " use his best endeavours to intercept at sea, 
 and fight with and take, or otherwise fire and sink " 
 the King of Spain's fleet, as also any other of his 
 ships bound for the West Indies with provisions of 
 war,* and of the secret instructions, ''touching the 
 silver fleet of Spain coming from America," f cruised 
 for a long time about the Straits of Gibraltar. 
 When he had been, at last, obliged, in September, 
 1656, for want of water, to make sail towards Por- 
 tugal, Captain Stayner, whom he had left on the 
 coast with a squadron of seven ships, fell in with 
 the plate fleet. The Spanish admiral ran his ship 
 ashore ; two others followed his example ; and two 
 were set on fire. The English took two ships, valued 
 at near two millions of pieces of eight. Thirty-eight 
 waggonJoads of silver were conveyed from Ports- 
 mouth to lie Tower of London. J 
 
 About six months after this, when Blake lay at 
 the mouth of the harbour of Cadiz, he received intel- 
 ligence that the Spanish plate fleet lay at anchor in 
 the bay of Santa Cruz, in the isle of Teneriffe. On 
 
 * Cromwell's Letter to Blake, 13th June, 1655; Thurloe, vol. iii. 
 p. 547. 
 
 t Blake's Letter to Cromwell, George, 12th June, 1655; Thurloe, 
 vol. iii. p. 541. 
 
 X Thurloe, vol. v. pp. 399, 433; Whitlocke, p. 643. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OP EUROPE. 275 
 
 the ISth of April, 1657, he departed from Cadiz, and 
 on the 20th arrived at Santa Cruz Bay, in which he 
 found the Spanish fleet of sixteen ships disposed in 
 a very formidable position. Blake had twenty-five 
 ships; but the bay of Santa Cruz, shaped like a 
 horseshoe, was defended at the entrance by a strong 
 castle, weU provided with cannon, and in the inner 
 circuit with seven forts, all united by a line of com- 
 munication, manned with musqueteers. The Spanish 
 admiral drew up all his smaller ships close to the 
 shore, and stationed six great galleons with their 
 broadsides to the sea. 
 
 This formidable aspect of things, which those who 
 did not know Blake might have thought would at 
 least make him pause before beginning his attack, 
 whatever sense of the danger of the enterprise it 
 may have produced, caused no irresolution. And 
 the wind,* blowing full into the bay, in a moment 
 brought him among the thickest of his enemies. 
 Here, having, with his twenty-five sail, fought for 
 four hours with seven forts, a castle, and sixteen 
 ships, of six of which the least was bigger than the , 
 biggest of his- own ships, he silenced the castle and 
 forts, and destroyed the whole of the Spanish fleet. 
 The Spaniards abandoned their ships, which were 
 
 * "In all his expeditions," says the quaint but forcible and 
 graphic writer of the Perfect Politician, "the wind seldom deceived 
 him, but most an end stood his Mend, especially in his last under- 
 taking at the Canary Islands." 
 
 T 2 
 
276 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [OHAJ". SI. 
 
 sunk or burned, with all tLeir treasure ; the English 
 ships being too much shattered in the fight to bring 
 them away. And then the wind, suddenly shifting, 
 carried them out of the bay,* 
 
 " The whole action," says Clarendon, *' was so 
 incredible, that all men who knew the place won- 
 dered that any sober man, with what courage soever 
 endowed, would ever have undertaken it ; and they 
 could hardly persuade themselves to believe what 
 they had done ; while the Spaniards comforted them- 
 selves with the belief that they were devils and not 
 men who had destroyed them in such a manner, j So 
 much a strong resolution of bold and courageous 
 men can bring to pass, that no resistance or advan- 
 tage of ground can disappoint them; and it can 
 hardly be imagined how small a loss the English 
 sustained 'in this unparalleled action, not one ship 
 being left behind, and the killed and wounded not 
 exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter 
 
 * Dr. Johnson, in reference to the remark of Sapin, that " the 
 Spaniards sustained a great loss of ships, money, men, and mer- 
 chandize, whUe the English gained nothing hut glory," says, " Ag 
 if he that increases the military reputation of a people did not 
 increase their power, and he that weakens his enemy in effect 
 strengthens himself "—Life of Blake, Johnson's Works, voL xii. 
 p. 59. London, 1810. 
 
 t If Vice- Admiral Dupetlt-Thouars^^ whose evidence will be 
 found in a subsequent page, is to be relied on, the English 
 character must have altered greatly since 1657. This French 
 Vice- Admiral says, "The English have not the warrior spirit, 
 and if we have war with them, we should have but one thing to 
 do, that is, a lauding." 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EtTUOPE. 277 
 
 on board the Spanish ships and on shore was incre- 
 dible." 
 
 Blake cruised for some time afterwards with his 
 victorious fleet at the mouth of the harbour of Cadiz 
 to intercept the Spanish shipping. But finding his 
 constitution broken by the toils and hardships of the 
 last three years, he wished to return and behold 
 once more his native country, for which he had 
 fought so well. He accordingly sailed for England, 
 and in this his last sickness he often, it is said, in-' 
 quired for land, which, however, he never lived to 
 see. " His dreams were of Old England's welcome 
 shore." Perhaps he dreamt, too, " of toils rewarded 
 and of dangers o'er." And his toils were, indeed, 
 nearly over. How they were rewarded by the nation 
 he had served so well we shall see also. His constitu-- 
 tion was now completely worn out by long and arduous 
 service and by the sea-scurvy ; and he " who would 
 never strike to any other enemy, struck his topmast 
 to Death." He expired as he was entering Plymouth 
 Sound, 17th August, 1657, in his fifty-ninth year.* 
 
 * Wood's Fasti,!. 371; Biog. Brit, in voce. Hume, with strange 
 inaccuracy, states the time of his death to have been the 20th of 
 April, 1657, the day on which he destroyed the Spanish fleet at 
 Santa Cruz ; though there is a letter to him from Cromwell of the 
 10th of June, with a jewel of 500Z. value, voted him by the Parlia- 
 ment for his victory at Santa Cruz on the 20th of April. Hume 
 also seems to be inaccurate in saying that had the wind not 
 changed and carried him out of the bay, his fleet must have been 
 destroyed by the fire of the castle and forts, after he had destroyed 
 the Spanish fleet; whereas, the better account is, that he had 
 completely silenced the fire of the eastle and forts. 
 
278 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 I have a singular pleasure in quoting the testi-^ 
 mony of the ablest writers of the opposite party on 
 the character and services of Blake. "This," says 
 Hume, "was the last and greatest action of the 
 gallant Blake. He w^s consumed with a dropsy and 
 scurvy, and hastened home that he might yield up 
 his breath in his native country, which he had so 
 much adorned by his valour. As he came within 
 sight of land, he expired. Never man, so zealous 
 for a faction, was so much respected and esteemed, 
 even by the opposite factions. He was by principle 
 an inflexible republican; and the late usurpations, 
 amidst all the trust and caresses which he received 
 from the ruling powers, were thought to be very 
 little grateful to him. ' It is still our duty,' he said 
 to the seamen, ' to fight for our country, into ■v^hat 
 hands soever the government may fall.' Disin- 
 terested, generous, liberal, ambitious only of true 
 glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies, he 
 seems one of the most perfect characters of the age 
 [ay, and of any age], and the least stained with 
 those errors and violences which were then so pre- 
 dominant. The Protector ordered him a pompous 
 funeral at the public charge ; but the tears of his 
 countrymen were the most honourable panegyric on 
 his memory."* 
 
 I have now before me the Life of Blake written by 
 Dr. Johnson, who will not be suspected of any poli- 
 * Hist, of England, chap. 61. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUEOPE. 279 
 
 tical predilections in his favour, and it is wonderful 
 to see in what terms the staunch Tory and High 
 Churchman speaks of the staunch Republican and 
 Independent. The reader may judge of the extent 
 of the doctor's praise by the terms in which he cen- 
 sures Blake for acting on one occasion with temerity. 
 " We must thus admit," he says, " amidst our eulo- 
 gies and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the 
 valiant Blake was once betrayed to an inconsiderate 
 and desperate enterprise, by the resistless ardour of 
 his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of the honour of 
 his country." 
 
 Though the country he so gloriously served, and 
 to which his noble character, no less than his genius 
 and valour, did so much honour, refused and re- 
 fuses him even a tomb, his great and heroic deeds 
 have been commemorated, even by his enemies, 
 on some of the brightest pages of that country's 
 annals. " Nor has any writer," to use the words of 
 Dr. Johnson, " dared to deny him the praise of intre- 
 pidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of his 
 country." " He was the first man," says Clarendon, 
 " that dechned the old track, and made it apparent 
 that the sciences might be attained in less time than 
 was imagined. He was the first man that brought 
 ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever 
 been thought very formidable, but were discovered 
 by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who 
 could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first that 
 
280 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 infused that proportion of courage into seamen, by 
 making them see by experience what mighty things 
 they could do if they were resolved, and taught them 
 to fight in fire, as well as upon the water ; and, though 
 he has been very well imitated and followed, was the 
 first that gave the example of that kind of naval 
 courage, and bold and resolute achievements." 
 
 " He was jealous," says a contemporary writer, 
 the author of Lives, English and Foreign, " of the 
 liberty of the subject and the glory of his nation; 
 and as he made use of no mean artifices to raise him- 
 self to the highest command at sea, so he needed no 
 interest but his merit to support him in it. He 
 scorned nothing more than money, which, as fast as 
 it came in, was laid out by him in the service of 
 the State, and to show that he was animated by that 
 brave public spirit which has since been reckoned 
 rather romantic than heroic. And he was so dis- 
 interested, that though no man had more oppor- 
 tunities to enrich himself than he, who had taken 
 so many millions from the enemies of England, yet 
 he threw it all into the public treasury, and did not 
 die 500Z. richer than his father left him ; which the 
 author avers from his personal knowledge of his 
 family and their circumstances, having been bred up 
 in it, and often heard his brother give this account of 
 him. He was religious according to the pretended 
 purity of those times, but would frequently allow 
 himself to be merry with his officers ; and his tender- 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE. 281 
 
 ness and generosity to the seamen had so endeared 
 him to them, that when he died they lamented his 
 loss as that of a common father." 
 
 Such was Blake, and such was the navy which he 
 led to victory, and which first gave to England her 
 naval supremacy. With the restoration of Charles II., 
 a strange change came over the scene — a change which 
 reduced England from power and glory to weakness 
 and ignominy. Most readers are acquainted with the 
 state of our navy then, as set forth in the Diary of the 
 Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Pepys. But, unfor- 
 tunately, the change referred to was not a temporary 
 and passing one, though it might be supposed that the 
 " parliamentary talent," which was thenceforth to 
 raise men in England to political power, would ensure, 
 among other blessings, an able administration of the 
 navy. " From the time of Charles the Second down 
 to our own days," says Lord Macaulay, in his article 
 on Sir William Temple, " parliamentary talent has 
 stood in the place of all other acquirements. It has 
 covered ignorance, weakness, rashness, the most fatal 
 maladministration. This is the talent which has made 
 judges without law, and diplomatists without French; 
 which has sent to the Admiralty men who did not 
 know the stern of a ship from her bowsprit, and to 
 the India Board men who did not know the differ- 
 ence between a rupee and a pagoda ; which made 
 a foreign secretary of Mr. Pitt, who, as George the 
 Second said, had never opened Vattel ; and which 
 
282 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 was very near making a Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 of Mr. Sheridan, who could not work a sum in long 
 division." 
 
 The effect of the removal of the dead weight of 
 corruption, jobbing, and nepotism on the resources 
 and energies of a great and brave nation was never 
 more signally exemplified than in the rapid rise of 
 England to maritime supremacy. " Such," says 
 Algernon Sidney, "was the power of wisdom and 
 integrity in those that sat at the helm, and their 
 diligence in chusing men only for their merit was 
 blessed with such success that, in two years, our 
 fleets grew to be as famous as our land armies ; the 
 reputation and power of our nation rose to a greater 
 height than when we possessed the better half of 
 France and the Kings of France and Scotland were 
 our prisoners. All the states, kings, and potentates 
 of Europe most respectfully, not to say, submissively 
 sought our friendship ; and Rome was more afraid of 
 Blake and his fleet, than they had been of the great 
 King of Sweden when he was ready to invade Italy 
 with a hundred thousand men."* These, it may 
 be said, are the words of a friend. Let us hear the 
 words of enemies. " To say the truth," says Roger 
 Coke, " they were a race of men most indefatigable 
 and industrious in business, always seeking for men fit 
 for it, and never preferring any for favour, nor by im- 
 
 * Algernon Sidney's Discourse concerning Government, chap. ii. 
 sect. 28. 
 
CHAP, xr.] THE NAVAL POWEES OF EUROPE. 283 
 
 portunity. You scarce ever heard of any revolting 
 from them, except by the Levellers in 1649 ; no 
 murmur or complaint of seamen or soldiers for want 
 of pay. Nor do I find that they ever pressed either 
 soldiers or seamen in all their wars."* Even David 
 Hume ascribes their success to their preferring men 
 by merit, by courage, skill, and services, and not by 
 favour. And Clarendon describes their army, in- 
 cluding in that word their navy, as " an army to 
 which victory was entailed, and which, humanly 
 speaking, could hardly fail of conquest whitherso- 
 ever it should be led; an army, whose order and 
 discipline, whose sobriety and manners, whose 
 courage and success, have made it famous and 
 terrible over the world." 
 
 Some nations die of one disease, some of another. 
 We have seen in the fifth chapter of this work of 
 what disease Turkey is dying. That disease is not 
 parliamentary talent But in the third chapter, we 
 have seen that " parliamentary talent " was the dis- 
 ease of which Athens died. And if we compare the 
 condition in which Blake left England at his death, 
 at the head of all the nations of the earth in strength 
 and glory, and without a farthing of national debt, 
 with the condition in which we find her at this mo- 
 ment, we shall have some measure of what " parha- 
 mentary talent " has done for England. 
 
 It is evident that parliamentary talent has proved 
 * Detection of the Court and State of England, vol. ii. p. 30. 
 
284 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI, 
 
 a most expensive luxury to the English nation. And 
 if it is a luxury or an amusement which the people 
 of England cannot do without, it is time that they 
 should consider whether it might not find some other 
 channel for its employment than that in which it has 
 worked so much mischief. But to set the owners 
 of "parliamentary talent" to contend against great 
 generals, great admirals, and great statesmen, is a 
 farce of the most monstrous and objectionable de- 
 scription. "What Napoleon said of pohticaJ economy 
 may with truth be said of parliamentary talent : — 
 " If an empire were made of granite, parliamentary 
 talent would redxice it to dust." 
 
 It will not do to point to the achievements of Wel- 
 lington and Nelson, and say, " Look at these, and see 
 how absurd and unjust are the charges against par- 
 liamentary talent ;" " how silly," would have been 
 Pepys' phrase, for, as the "Naval Peer" observes, 
 " everybody is silly who is not official." 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have stated that the 
 successes of Wellington were not due to his go- 
 vernment, but to himself. Since that chapter was 
 written I have read carefully a work very recently 
 published. Our Naval Position and Policy, by a 
 Naval Peer; and it is a great satisfaction to me 
 to find that the conclusions I had come to are 
 fully borne out by the highest professional autho- 
 rities. The author of this valuable work, who 
 writes both with ability and modesty, says that 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE. 285 
 
 his "general plan is to give expression to opinions 
 upon the present state and organization of our naval 
 povrer, which he has ascertained to be shared by 
 some of our best officers, and which he would rather 
 have seen emanating from their pens than his own. 
 He would willingly be considered as a ' mere myth,' 
 giving to the public the sentiments of most think- 
 ing minds."* This writer says : "Our naval heroes 
 triumphed, like Wellington in later days, in spite 
 of inefficient departments at home, not through 
 their merits. This is not so generally known, per- 
 haps ; because, when victories are gained, people do 
 not trouble themselves about a rigid scrutiny into 
 causes and a strict apportionment of the merit.^ Our 
 fleets conquered and the Admiralty illuminated ; suc- 
 cess gilds all things; and those were the days of 
 ' strong majorities ' too."t And he thus sums up the 
 long account of British heroism set to contend at once 
 against official folly and armed enemies: — "Indeed, 
 our whole naval history seems a wondrous tale of 
 shortcomings at head-quarters, made up for by ex- 
 traordinary heroism and ability in our officers and 
 seamen."! 
 
 "It is an old remark," says this writer, "that 
 events move in cycles ; and we have again a glimpse 
 of the days when, as of yore, soldiers will fight at sea 
 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, by a Naval Peer, p. 35. 
 London: Longman and Co., 1859. 
 t Ibid. p. 171. Ibid. p. 181. 
 
286 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI, 
 
 as on land, and the sailors' part of those days will be 
 taken by the stokers of the present."* 
 
 Hence will be apparent a reason for having nar- 
 rated in this chapter, in some detail, the achievements 
 of Blake ; for those achievements were in great part 
 performed, not by seamen, but by soldiersy draughted 
 from some of the best regiments of the Parliament. 
 The regularly bred seamen navigated the ships, the 
 ParHamentary Ironsides worked the guns and did the 
 fighting and boarding: even as now the engineers 
 and stokers will navigate the ships, and the naval 
 artillerymen will work the guns, and other soldiers 
 will do other parts of the fighting business. 
 
 In a former chapter I have dwelt on the import- 
 ance of men acting together in war having a con- 
 fidence in each other — a confidence particularly 
 exemplified in some of Cromwell's regiments. This 
 most important subject is well treated and illustrated 
 in the work referred to, as considered in its bearings 
 upon naval war. 
 
 " It is discipline, not seamanship, that will decide 
 future battles by sea as well as land, and this 
 is a matter well worth considering. Nearly all 
 Englishmen are individually brave and pugnacious, 
 but a body of Englishmen, or men of any other 
 country, will be brave according to the degree of 
 their mutual confidence. It is the essence of dis- 
 cipline to give this confidence, by so organizing a 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, p. 48. 
 
CHAP. Xr.J THE NAVAIi POWERS OF EUROPE. 287 
 
 body that they become, as it were, one man, and 
 no individual can leave his post without betraying 
 himself to his own companions in arms, as well as to 
 his superiors. 
 
 "In a well-organized body, so strong are the 
 bands of discipline, that inevitable death cannot break 
 them, as some very beautiful instances have shown. 
 
 " But split that well-organized body into disjointed 
 fragments and discipline is lost, as has often hap- 
 pened in a routed force> as happened at the storming 
 of the Redan, where different regiments got mixed 
 together and became a mere mob."* 
 
 The author, in a note on the sentence that in a 
 weU-organized body so strong are the bands of dis- 
 cipline that inevitable death cannot break them, refers 
 to the well-known and often-quoted caSe of the Birken- 
 head. But, as in contrasting the almost unparal- 
 leled discipline observed in that case with the logs 
 of discipline at the storming of the Redan, his ap- 
 pearing to attribute the loss of discipline in the latter 
 case to the circumstance of different regiments get- 
 ting mixed might lead to the inference that the 
 case of the Birkenhead was a case of a single regi- 
 ment, it may be proper to mention that the troops 
 on board the Birkenhead consisted of draughts from 
 no less than ten different regiments, and that the 
 admirable discipline maintained on that sad and 
 memorable occasion — a discipline which death, 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, pp. 56, 57. 
 
288 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 coming in an unusual and horrible form, could 
 not destroy — was due to the authority and ex- 
 ample of the commanding officer on board the 
 Birkenhead, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Seton, of 
 the 74th Highlanders, who perished. Undoubtedly 
 the other officers commanding the various detach- 
 ments did their duty admirably also. But the fact 
 that the orders of the senior, and therefore com- 
 manding officer on board, were obeyed with the 
 same alacrity by all the men of the various other 
 regiments as by the men of his own regiment, the 
 74th, proves that, with firmness and intelligence 
 in the officer commanding, several bodies of men 
 taken from different regiments may possess all the 
 qualities of a single well-organized body. What 
 renders the case of the Birkenhead still more striking 
 is the fact that the troops on board the Birkenhead 
 were mostly composed of young soldiers and raw 
 recruits. Yet such was the force of discipline on 
 that occasion, that the utmost order was preserved 
 to the last. To borrow the words of some of the 
 survivors, " calm and self-possessed. Colonel Seton 
 gave all his orders as if on parade. He superin- 
 tended himself the embarkation of the women and 
 children into the boats, standing at the gangway and 
 directing as they were passed down. Then, side by 
 side, he and the captain of the ship stood at the helm, 
 providing for the safety of all that could be saved. 
 They never attempted to save themselves." Four 
 
CHAP, XI.J THE NAVAL POWERS OP EUROPE. 289 
 
 hundred and forty men, including nine military and 
 eight naval officers, two surgeons, three hundred 
 and sixty-one soldiers, and sixty seamen, perished; 
 but not one woman or child. 
 
 In the passage above quoted, the Naval Peer has 
 expressed his own, an Englishman's, opinion of the 
 general courage and pugnacity of Englishmen. It 
 might be expected that a Frenchman's opinion of 
 Enghshmen would differ somewhat from English- 
 men's opinion of themselves ; but with so many 
 opportunities of knowing the fighting quahties of 
 Englishmen, even making allowance for his know- 
 ledge that the English government has now for 
 200 years done all in its power to render English- 
 men unaccustomed to the use of arms, one would 
 hardly have looked for so strong an opinion as the 
 following in a parliamentary blue-book. It is in 
 the evidence of the French Enquete Parlemenlaire, 
 nominated in November, 1849, and is quoted by 
 the Naval Peer* among other extracts from the 
 evidence of eighty-nine witnesses, flag and other 
 officers, appended to the French report 
 
 EviDENCB OF Vice- Admiral Dupetit-Thouaes. 
 " While speaking of war, I have something to say, 
 which I think important and well founded, and which 
 I am the more convinced of, because the English 
 themselves, good judges of the dangers they are 
 
 » At page 326 of his work, Our Naval Position and Policy. 
 
 U 
 
290 STRENGTH OP NATIONS. [cHAP. 51. 
 
 exposed to, admit it. The brochure of Prince de 
 Joinville produced a great effect in the maritime 
 world, especially in England, and was the cause of 
 verj' energetic measiires being taken for the defence 
 of her coasts. In my opinion, though England may 
 have erected fortifications, a disembarkation is always 
 possible there, and for it we should not require line- 
 of-battle .ships. We should only require seventy 
 corvettes, and some avisos of auxiliary steam power 
 {mixtes). With these means, without the English 
 having power to resist, we could throw 70,000 men on 
 the coast of England, who could never have resisted an 
 invasion. All invasions of England have been crowned 
 with success. She is not prepared for a land war, as 
 we could raa,ke it. The English have not the warrior 
 spirit; and if we have war with them, we should have 
 but one thing to do, that is, a landing." 
 
 It is remarkable that a Spanish ambassador in 
 England, in the reign of James I., pronoimced an 
 opinion as disparaging to the manhood of English- 
 men as the opinion of this French vice-admiral ; so 
 low had the character of England fallen at that time, 
 through a government eminent only for sloth, im- 
 becility, and baseness. It was reserved for our days 
 to show that "parliamentary talent" could do as 
 much to dishonour and destroy a great nation as the 
 tyranny of the worst and basest of the Stuarts. 
 Like the old Highlander who was found on the 
 deserted field of battle, watching a dead body (that 
 
CHAP. XI.j THE NAVAL POWERS OP EUROPE. 291 
 
 of his lord), and being asked the name of the per- 
 son -whose body he waited upon with so much care, 
 replied, " He was a man yesterday:" so the English 
 of that time might have answered, " We were men 
 once." And they were to be men again. For such 
 was the inherent vigour and capacity of the great 
 people thus misgoverned and insulted, that within 
 twenty years of the time when this insolent Spaniard 
 declared that there were "no men in England," his 
 countrymen were fain to comfort themselves for the 
 terrible overthrows they received from Blake, with 
 the belief that they were devils and not men who 
 had destroyed them in such a manner. But it is 
 not safe to tempt Fortune or Providence too far ; 
 and it may now nearly concern the English people 
 to consider whether, as they saved themselves once 
 by sweeping away the government of the Stuarts, 
 the time has now fully come when they should rid 
 themselves for ever of the government of "parlia- 
 mentary talent," 
 
 Whatever we, as EngHshmen, may think of the 
 accuracy either of Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars' 
 assertions or opinions, the knowledge of them, as 
 thus placed on record by the republican government 
 of France of 1849-50, may give us the advantage, 
 whatever it be, of seeing ourselves as others — at least 
 as Frenchmen — see us. It is also to be remembered 
 that Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars' evidence was 
 given before the prestige of England was for the time 
 
 U 2 
 
292 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 destroyed, and the otherwise incredible incapacity 
 of oiir ''parliamentary talent" governments was 
 thoroughly proved by the Russian war of 1854. 
 The English nation is greatly indebted to the " Naval 
 Peer" for the labour he has undergone of reading 
 the French Report and Evidence, filling together 
 two large volumes of 1,422 pages, and publishing 
 some important extracts from those volumes. "To 
 show," he observes, "that the Commission was in 
 earnest, it is only necessary to state that they first 
 held 65 sittings in Paris, before proceeding to the 
 ports, and that the total number of sittings was 203, 
 of which 139 are published in the Report; the 
 others, possibly, it was prudent to conceal from 
 rival powers. No points affecting the organization, 
 efficiency, or economy of the French navy seem to 
 have been overlooked; but while the whole Report 
 is valuable to any one wishing to understand the 
 state of naval affairs in France, there are parts 
 peculiarly interesting to Englishmen: the education 
 and due selection of officers, with regard both to 
 natural abilities and professional acquirements ; the 
 organization of the whole personnel and matirkl of 
 the French navy ; the modification required by the 
 introduction of steam power; the opinions of the 
 best French officers as to the capability of France 
 to contend with England by sea."* The conclusion 
 to be drawn from the whole scope of the Report and 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, pp. 309, 310. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE. 293 
 
 Evidence is, that it is the fixed purpose of France to 
 establish such a system and disposal of the French 
 forces as should ensure the power of striking a decisive 
 blow at the breaking out of hostilities. And one part of 
 the French idee fixe is, like that of the Turks respect- 
 ing the Christians, that when once they, the French^ 
 have effected a landing, they can drive the English 
 before them, or slaughter them, like sheep. 
 
 The European naval powers that concern us at 
 present are those of France and Russia. In regard 
 to France, it is sufficient for the present purpose to 
 state that the great activity with regard to paval 
 affairs, indicated by the EnquSte Parlementaire of 
 1849, has been more than continued down to the pre- 
 sent moment. Those who wish to find the most 
 minute details of the present condition of the French 
 and Russian navies, may consult Mr. Busk's elaborate 
 work, recently published, on the present state and 
 future capabilities of the navies of the world.* In 
 regard to the details of the present condition of the 
 Enghsh navy, the most ample information will be 
 found in Mr. Busk's book, and in that of the " Naval 
 Peer," already referred to and cited. 
 
 The opinion of professional men, as embodied in 
 the valuable work of the " Naval Peer," appears to be 
 that the question of the naval supremacy will in 
 
 * The Navies of the World; their present State and future Ca- 
 pabilities. By Hans Busk, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge 
 author of The Rifle, and how to Use it, &c. &c. London, Rout 
 ledge & Co., 1859. 
 
294 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 future depend upon other causes than mere sea- 
 manship ; that among these causes discipline will be 
 foremost, and next, training at the guns — ^good artil- 
 lery practice. 
 
 " In the first requisite, so far as having thousands 
 of men ready to embark, imbued with the strictest 
 and sternest spirit of military discipline, Russia would, 
 strange to say, take the lead. Theirs is a singular 
 system, and probably only suited to the docile Mus- 
 covite . . a cavalry soldier to-day, a sailor to- 
 morrow."* I don't know much about the docility of 
 the Muscovite, but I know that some of Cromwell's 
 best cavalry soldiers became as good sailors as they 
 had been soldiers, and that, too, when they were 
 citizens of the English Commonwealth, not subjects 
 of the despot Cromwell. 
 
 " Next to, Russia, France stands first in the power 
 of embarking a large force of disciplined seamen, 
 since all her merchant sailors, or nearly so, have 
 passed through the military navy, and have there 
 attained to a considerable degree of discipline. Under 
 their judicious system all these are available. 
 
 " England has, of course, a large and highly- 
 disciplined force of seamen scattered over various 
 foreign stations ; but as beyond those now serving, 
 and the coast-guard (some 5,000 men), she has few 
 man-of-war's men, she is not on a par with either 
 -France or Russia in respect of available force." f 
 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, p. 59. f Ibid, pp. 59, 60. 
 
CHAJ?. XI.J THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE. 295 
 
 In the third chapter of this work, it has been shown 
 that when "parliamentary talent" had attained its 
 greatest splendour at Athens, words had taken the 
 place of deeds, and the deeds, when they did come, 
 came too late. As, according to Nature's general laws, 
 the same effects may be expected to flow from the 
 same causes, we need not be in the least surprised to 
 find "parliamentary talent" producing in England, 
 at the present time, results similar to those it pro- 
 duced at Athens more than two thousand years ago. 
 
 The English government, having by its conduct of 
 the Russian war of 1854 weakened and discredited 
 England in the eyes of all Europe, had, by the time 
 the war was over, got a fleet of some twenty sail of 
 the line ready to celebrate the peace. 
 
 "But Russia had then twenty-seven sail of the 
 line in the Baltic, which she exercises every summer. 
 It is true they were sailing vessels ; but Russia has 
 now the advantage of our experience in converting 
 sailing ships into screws, and she will very shortly 
 have a noble fleet of screw line-of-battle ships equal 
 to any in the world. France, we know, has already 
 nearly as many as ourselves, and we cannot put these 
 two facts together without seeing their significance."* 
 
 In 1844 the honour of England — I mean by 
 
 honour, merely that place among the nations which 
 
 ensures that no nation shall insult her with impunity 
 
 — required that her officer — contumeliously expelled 
 
 * Our Naval Position and Policy, p. 54. 
 
296 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 from Tahiti by a French officer, who had no business 
 there — should be carried back to his post in an Eng- 
 lish ship. The English government of that day had 
 resolved upon this course, but was told by the French 
 ambassador that France would not permit it. The 
 choice, therefore, lay between war and submission. 
 The English government submitted. Let us see the 
 logic of those persons who said the island of Tahiti 
 was too insignificant a subject to fight about. This 
 proceeds upon the assumption that the case is similar 
 to that of prosecuting a thief for stealing your pocket- 
 handkerchief. But there is no insult in the loss of 
 your handkerchief, and you know that a sufficient 
 machinery is at work on the thief who took it to 
 guard you against the loss of your handkerchief 
 being followed by that of all your property. But 
 the case is totally different between nations. " Be 
 sure and put up with no affronts," was the maxim 
 of Cromwell ; and when an English merchant — a 
 Quaker — proved to him that a ship of his had been 
 unjustly confiscated by the, French, Cromwell, having 
 first given the Quaker a letter to Cardinal Mazarin, 
 demanding redress within three days, but without 
 effect, then seized and sold the two first French ships 
 within his reach, indemnified the Quaker out of the 
 proceeds, and paid over the surplus to the French 
 ambassador. " If Bonaparte," said Nelson, placing 
 the poker in a certain position on the hearth, " should 
 insist on that poker lying in that position, I would 
 
CHAP. XI. J THE NAVAL POWEES OF EUROPE. 297 
 
 insist on its lying in this" — altering its position. 
 Anaong civilized men, no man has a right to bully 
 another; and among cirilized nations who have, or 
 make pretensions to an equal footing, no nation has a 
 right to bully or insult another, even to the shadow of 
 a shade. To submit to such insult is not economy, 
 but folly, for the end will be the loss of all that is 
 worth living for. 
 
 In the case of the English blockade of the Piraeus 
 in 1850, in consequence of the refusal by the Greek 
 government of redress of certain grievances, or 
 alleged grievances, France urged her "good offi- 
 ces "—that is, her interference, upon England. In 
 ihe course of the business, France, choosing to con- 
 sider herself af&onted, suddenly recalled her ambas- 
 sador from England, and made some preparatory 
 demonstrations with the hearty approval of thei 
 "Chamber," the announcement of the departure of 
 the French ambassador from London being received 
 with " three rounds of cheers." France had then 
 about 500,000 soldiers, a strong squadron of line- 
 of-battle ships at Cherbourg, a population not then 
 averse to war, and a government which was sup- 
 posed to desire it as a diversion from domestic 
 affairs. 
 
 In both these cases, England had to yield to 
 France, from the obvious reason that, being totally 
 xmprepared for war, while France was armed to the. 
 teeth, she would, by adopting the alternative of war, 
 
 X 
 
298 STRENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 have been suddenly exposed to the greatest danger— 
 perhaps, to a hmniliating catastrophe. 
 
 The Greek business of 1850, above referred to, 
 taken in conjunction with the recent affair of the 
 Charles et Georges, throws, as the " Naval Peer " ob- 
 serves, " a light upon the rules which Napoleon III. 
 lays down for his own poUcy and for that of other 
 countries." * 
 
 It is not necessary, for arriving to a clear conclusion 
 on this subject, to enter upon the inquiry whether 
 England was in the right, or in the wrong, in the 
 Greek business of 1850, or whether France was in the 
 right, or in the wrong, in the affair of the Charles 
 et Georges, The owners of "parliamentary talent " 
 might talk for a year about the facts, or alleged facts, 
 of each of these cases, and the application or non- 
 application of the law of nations to those facts, or 
 alleged facts. But there is a view of the matter 
 which may be stated in a very few words. Is it true, 
 or is it not true, that, as between herself and Por- 
 tugal, France declared herself the sole judge of what 
 affected her own honour? And is it true, or is 
 it not true, that when the honour of England was 
 concerned in the Greek business, then France in- 
 sisted on England* accepting her interference — in 
 other words, recognizing her as the proper judge ? 
 I greatly fear that both these questions must be 
 answered in the affirmative. 
 
 * Out Naval Position and Policy, p. 358. 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE. 299 
 
 In the parliamentary discussion there would be, of 
 course, the usual proportion of " very stout words " 
 in the long speeches by which "parliamentary talent" 
 has rendered England so strong and glorious. "It 
 is curious," observes the Naval Peer, "that in all 
 the long speeches made on the subject, no member 
 of either House who urged the duty of sending a 
 squadron to the Tagus, seems to have inquired 
 whether England could have sent one strong enough 
 to be of use. 
 
 " In each of these three instances a casus belli arose, 
 and in each of the three ' diplomacy ' solved it by 
 the very simple expedient of yielding to France all 
 she asked. But there is another class of cases — a 
 large one too — ^where this not very ingenious solution 
 may be inapplicable : cases where the strongest or 
 best prepared party has an interest in war, or in the 
 attainment of some object, to the concession of which 
 war itself would be preferable. For such cases there 
 is no diplomacy but that of the sword — ^the sharp and 
 ready sword : for there can be no such imbecile foUy 
 as that of believing that a power really meaning war, 
 would let some time elapse between the resolution 
 and the declaration." * 
 
 Any Englishman who attentively reads and con- 
 siders these things, and then learns that insults offered 
 to the honour of England were met only by long 
 speeches, and what Lord Brougham has happily de- 
 ♦ Our Naval Position and Policy, p. 364. 
 
300 STEENGTH OF NATIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 signated "an effeminate licence of tongue," may 
 remember with a mingled feelrag of pride and shame 
 how Cromwell would have met them. With such 
 a present, the fixture may well indeed be said to be 
 " looming gloomily." * Let us all pray that [the 
 Almighty wUl deliver us from "parliamentary talent" 
 before it has quite completed its work. In the mean- 
 time I will conclude in the words of one of the truest 
 men that ever died for religion and liberty : " I hope 
 that it shall not be said of us, as of the Romans once, 
 homines ad servitutem parati ! " 
 
 * The title of one of the chapters in Our Naval Position and 
 Policy. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 and holy. His style is, aa usual, clear, bold, racy. 
 Mr. Buskin is one of the first wiitera of the 
 day .'*— jBcomowiMi. 
 
 "The present volume, viewed as a literary 
 
 Modern Painters. - Vols. 
 
 /., Sth Edition, 
 Price 10s. 
 
 "A generous and Impassioned review of the 
 works of living painters. A hearty and earnest 
 woTk, full of deep thought, and developing great 
 and striking truths in Bxt."— British Qua/rterlv 
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 " A very extraordinary and delightftil book, full 
 of truth and goodness, of power and beauty."— 
 North. British Mevieio. 
 
 Imperial 8vo, Vol, 
 
 achievement, is the highest and most striking 
 evidence of the author^s abilities that has yet 
 been published:"— /deader, 
 
 "All, it is to be hoped, will read the book for 
 themselves. They will find it well worth a careful 
 perusal."— jSaiiwrfay Review, 
 
 "This work is eminently suggestive, full of new 
 thoughts, of brilliant descriptions of scenery, 
 and eloquent moral application of them,"— JTew 
 Quarteri]/ Review. 
 
 "Mr. Buskin has deservedly won for himself a 
 place in tJie first raaik of modern writers upon 
 the theory of the fine arts,"— ^c^ecfic Review, 
 
 I. and II. 
 
 IBs. cloth. Vol II., 4th Edition, 
 
 6d. cloth. 
 
 " Mr. Buskin's work will send the painter more 
 than ever to the study of nature; will train men 
 who have always been delighted spectators of 
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 will learn to admire, and mere admirers will learn 
 how to criticise : thusapublic will be educated."- 
 Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
SMIITH, ELDER ^^ISTX) CO. 
 
 WORKS OF MR. RTJSKm— continued. 
 
 The Stones of Venice. 
 
 Complete in Three Volumes, Imperial Svo, with Fifty-three Plates and 
 numerous Woodcuts, drawn by the Author, Price 5l. 15s. 6 J., clotk 
 
 BAOH TOLUMB MAY BE HAD SBPAEATBLY, 
 
 Vol. I. THE FOUNDATIONS, with 21 Plates, price 2/. 2*. 2nd Edition, 
 Vol.n. THE SEA STORIES, with 20 Plates, price 2/. 25. 
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 The Stones of Venice ' is the production of an 
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 The author of this essay on architecture has con- 
 densed it into a poetic appreh'^nsion, the fruit of 
 awe of God. and delight m nature ; a knowledge, 
 love, and just estimate of art; a holding fast to 
 fact and repudiation of hearsay; an historic 
 breadth, and a fearless challenge of existing social 
 proDlems, whose union we Imow not where to And 
 paralleled."— j^eeiaioy. 
 
 " This hook is one which, perhaps, no other man 
 could have written, and one for which the world 
 ought to be and will be thankful. It is in the 
 highest degree elociuent, acute, stimulating to 
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 are convinced, elevate taste and intellect, raise 
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 Qod."— Times.. 
 
 The Seven Lamps of Architecture. 
 
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 "By 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture.' we 
 understand Mr, Ruskin to mean the Seven tunda- 
 mental and cardinal laws, the observance of and 
 obedience to wbieh are indispensable to the archi- 
 tect, who would deserve the name. The politician, 
 the moralist, the divine, will find in it ample store 
 of instructive matter, as well as the artist. The 
 author of this work belongs to a class of thinkers 
 of whom we have too few amongst us,"— 
 Bxaminer, 
 
 " Mr. Buskin's book bears so unmistakeably the 
 marks of keen and accurate observation, of a true 
 and subtle judgment and rellned sense of beauty, 
 joined with so much earnestness, so noble a sense 
 u£ the purposes and business or art, and such a 
 command of rich and glowing language, that it 
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 deeper insight into its artistic principles."— 
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 The Political JEconomy of Art. Price 2s. 6d. doth. 
 
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 to domuoh practical good, and weeordially recom- 
 mend it to our resLdera."— Witness. 
 
 "Mr. Eiuskin's chief purpose is to treat the 
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 best evolved, produced, accumulated, and dis- 
 tributed."—^ theTicBtim. 
 
 "We never quit Mr. Euskin without being the 
 better for what he has told us, and therefore we 
 recommend this little voiume, like all his other 
 works, to the perusal of our readGTs."— Economist. 
 
 "This book, daring, as it is, glances keenly at 
 principles, of which some are among the articles 
 of ancient codes, while others are evolving slowly 
 to the light."— Leader. 
 
 The Elements of Drawing. 
 
 Sixth Thousand, Crown Svo. With Illustrations drawn by the Author, 
 Price Is. 6c?., cloth. 
 
 reading for any one who wishes to refine his per- 
 ceptions of natural scenery, and of its worthiest 
 artistic representations."— ^conomis*. „ ., , , 
 
 " Original as this treatise is, it cannot rail to be 
 at once instructive and suggestive. —Litera/ry 
 Gazette, ^, , ,. , ..t. 
 
 "The moat useful and practical book on the 
 subject which has ever come under our notice, — 
 Press. 
 
 " The rules are clearly and fully laid down; and 
 the earlier exercises always conducive to the end 
 by simple and unembarrassing means. The whole 
 volume is full of Mvelme^sJ'—SiBectator. 
 
 " We close this book with a feeling that, though 
 nothing supersedes a master, yet that no student 
 of art should launch forth without this work as a 
 cora.va>sB."—Athen£Btmi. , , ^, 
 
 " B will be found not only an invaluable acqui- 
 sition to the student, but agreeable andinstructive 
 
 A Portrait of John Buskin, Esq., Engraved ly 
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■V^OKI^S DPTJJBX.ISIIEI> BTT 
 
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 Personal Adventures during the Indian Rebel- 
 
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 Indian Scenes and Characters, Sketched 
 
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 8 
 
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 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST— 
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 Narrative of the. Mission from the Governor- 
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 the Bui-mese, . . . His description or these 
 
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 and the splendotu- of the empire, centui-iesngo."— 
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 hitherto little known region or the globe, the 
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 The Chaplains Narrative of the Siege of 
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 Post 8uo, with a Plan of the City and Siege Works, price 10s. 6rf. cloth. 
 
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 events home to the understanding."— XfAe«ie«m. 
 
 "'The Chaplain's Narrative' is remarkable for 
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 when suddenly stricken down by the enemy or 
 disease."- SsHCciaCor, ^ * i. 4. 
 
 "A plain unvarnished record of what came 
 under a Field Chaplain's daily observation. Our 
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 to *he friends and relations of the many Christian 
 
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 liours it alludes."— ieatZer. 
 
 " A book which has value as a careful narrative 
 by an eye witness of one of the most stirring 
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 under observation."— iiierary Gazette. 
 
 "The speciality of Mr. Eotton's narrative con- 
 sists in his testimony, not to the reckless valour 
 of our men when actually under fire: of tAoiwe 
 hardly require to be reminded; but in his com- 
 memoration of their steady constancy and en- 
 durance under privation, and the spirit of reli- 
 gious earnestness which alike inspired effort in tt e 
 field, and resignation on the deathbed."— Preaa. 
 
 The Crisis in the Punjab. By Feebekick H. Coopee, 
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 Foit Svo, with Map, price 7s. 6d. cloth. 
 
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 Globe. 
 
 Eight Months' Campaign against the Bengal 
 
 Sepoys, during the Mutiny, 1857. By Colonel Geoege 
 BouKCHiEK, C.B., Bengal Horse Artillery, 
 
 With Plans. Post Svo, price 7s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "Col. Bourchier has given a right manly, fair. 
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 ?ri]l derive much pleasure and instruction from 
 
 "?'ST Bou/cStoserihes the various opcra- 
 tirais with a modest forgetfulness of self, as 
 nfflng aid as rare as the clear ma ly style m 
 which tliiy are narrated."-i.aerar2/ Oazette. 
 
 " Col Bou?chier relates his adventures in a free 
 and graceml manner, never giving an undue pro- 
 
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 superflcially acquainted with the rise and pro- 
 gress of tho rehellion may consider their studies 
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 Leader. 
 
AVOEICS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST— 
 
 Continued. 
 
 The Autohiography of Lutfultah, a Mohame- 
 
 dan Gentleman^ with an Account of his Visit to England. 
 Edited hj E. B. Eastwick, Escl- 
 
 Third Edition, Small Post 8vo. Price 5s. cloth. 
 
 "Thank you, MuusM Lutfullah Khan I We 
 have read your hook with wonder and delight. 
 Your adventures are more curlouB than you are 
 aware. . . . But your book is chiefly striking 
 for its genuineness. . , . Thj story will aid, in 
 its degree, to some sort of understanding of the 
 Indian insurrection. Professor Eastwickhas done 
 a grateful service in making known this valuable 
 volume."— j1 thenceiim. 
 
 "fiead fifty volumes of travel, and a thouaand 
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 get the flavour of Eastern life and thought, or the 
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 "This is a remarkable book. "We have auto- 
 biographies in abundance of Englishmen, Preueh- 
 men, and Germans ; but of Asiatics and Mahome- 
 tans, few or none. ... As the autobiography 
 of a jUahometan mulla, it is in itself singularly 
 interesting. As the ohservationa of an eye- 
 
 witness of our Indian possessions and our policy 
 and proceedings in the peninsula, it possesses a 
 ralueof its own, (luite distinct &om any European 
 memorials on the same subjects."— :StaKd(iro. 
 
 "This is the ft^sliest and most oiiginal work 
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 are all fresh to the English reader; it opens up a 
 new vein, and many will be astonished to find 
 how rich a vein it is. Lutfollah is by no means an 
 ordinary specimen of his r&ce."— Economist, 
 
 "This veritable autobiography, reads like a mix- 
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 Life and Correspondence of Lord Metcalfe. 
 
 By John William: Kate, 
 
 New and Cheap Edition, in 2 Vols., Small Post SvOj with Portrait, price 1 2s. cloth. 
 
 ■'Some additions which have been made to the 
 present volumes, place in a strong light the saga- 
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 great men or modern times.'^— Observer. 
 
 " A new and revised edition of the life of one 
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 present day. This revised edition has several 
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 fi:om among Lord Metcalfe's papers, in which his 
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 size and price the new edition is a great improve- 
 ment on the original work.."— Economist. 
 
 "This edition is revised with cureand judgment. 
 Mr. Kayehas judiciously condensed that portion 
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 The Life and Correspondence of Sir John 
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 their History, Religion, Manners, 
 
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 The Parsees : 
 and Customs, 
 
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 British Mule in India. By Haemet Martineau. 
 
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 National Review, 
 
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 ' A succinct and comprehensive volume,"— 
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 A reliable class-book for examination iu the histoi-y ol British India. 
 
s:^rITI3:, eldexj ^^^isrD co. 
 
 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST— 
 
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 Sn'ffif swn^ JL?.?Jin*™™?J?^^^P *^l® writer, these 1 understanding, neither obscured nor enfeebled by 
 
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 Sixth Thousand. With Plan of the Residency, Small post Suo., price 2s. 6rf. 
 
 those operations which were the chief human 
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 Papers of the late Lord Metcalfe. Selected and 
 
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'wo:aj:<L& iPXTBLisHiEr) b^y* 
 
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 THE ENGLISH IN WESTERN INDIA: 
 
 BEING THE EarLT HisTOET OF THE 
 
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 imvorta,nc6."~Athe7UBiim, 
 
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 LIFE IN ANCIENT INDIA. By Mrs. 
 
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 THE CAUVERY, KISTNAH, AND 
 GODAVERY: being a Beport 
 
 ON THE WOKKS OONSTKnOTED ON 
 THOSE ElTIlES, EOK THE IkKIGATION 
 
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 13 
 
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 14 
 
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 15 
 
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 rational Englishman than to stroll leisui-ely 
 through this marvellous town, arm in arm with 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt. The charm of Mr. Hunt's book 
 13, that ne gives us the outpourings of a mind 
 enriched with the most agreeable knowledge: 
 there is not one page which does not glow with 
 interest. It is a series of pictures fi-om the life, 
 representing scenes in which every inhabitant of 
 the metropolis has an interest."— rimes. 
 
 "'The Town' is a book for all places and all 
 
 {lersons : for the study, when one is tired of 
 abour ; for the drawing-room, parlour, carriage* 
 or steam-boat."— S^jectaior. 
 
 "This is one of the very pleasantest works of 
 Leigh Hunt. We are never out of sight of sove- 
 reigns or subjects, notable buildings and the 
 builders thereof, booksellers and bookmakers, 
 
 Elays and players, men about town, and the 
 aunts where they drank their wine and tapped 
 one another's yf\%,"—Athen<Eum. 
 
 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF 
 ART. By John Kuskin, M.A. 
 Price 2*. 6c?. cloth. 
 
 "A most able, eloquent, and well-timed work. 
 We hail it with satisfaction, thinking it calculated 
 to do much practical good, and we cordially recom- 
 mend it to our readers." — Witness. 
 
 " Mr. Buskin's chief purpose is to treat the^ 
 artist's power, and the art itself, as items of the 
 world's wealth, and to show how these may be 
 best evolved, produced, accumulated, and diis- 
 tributed."— ^fAcnfCMWi. 
 
 "We never auit Mr. Euskin without being the 
 better for what he has told ua, and therefore we 
 recommend this little volume, like all his other 
 works to the perusal of oui* readers."— ^conomu*. 
 
 "This book, daring as it is, glances keenly at 
 principles, of which some are among the articles 
 of ancient codes, while others are evolving slowly 
 to the light."— Xeader. 
 
 THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS OF 
 GENERAL BONAPARTE- With 
 a map. Price, Half-a-Crown, cloth. 
 
 " The story of Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy 
 is told at once firmly, lightly, and pleasantly. 
 The latest and best authorities, the Bonaparte 
 correspondence in particular, appear to have 
 been carefully and intelligently consulted. The 
 result is a very readable and useful volume."— 
 
 It is the least merit of Mr. Hooper's ' Italian 
 Campaigns * that it appears at a moment when a 
 good book on the subject must be generally wel- 
 come; and, speaking not unadvisedly, we declare 
 it to be our belief, the best popular account of its 
 subject which has yet appeared in any language." 
 —Spectator, 
 
 17 
 
"WOEICS rTJBLISHEX) B"Sr 
 
 CHEAP SEEIES OF POPULAR FICTIONS. 
 
 "Well printed, in large Type, on good Paper, and strongly bound in cloth. 
 
 JANE EYRE. By Cuekek Bell. 
 Price 2s. Gd. cloth. 
 
 " • Jane Eyre ' is a remarltaWe production. 
 Fresliness and originality, truth and passion, 
 singular felicity in the description of natural 
 scenery and in the analyzation or human thought, 
 enahle this tale to stand holdly outfrom the mass, 
 and to assume its own place in the bright neld of 
 romantic literature."— J^ime*. 
 
 " ' Jane Eyre ' is a hook of decided power. The 
 thoughts are true, sound, and original: and the 
 style Is resolute, straightforwajrd, and to the 
 purpose. The ohject and moral of the work are 
 QxceHent." —Examiner. 
 
 " A very pathetic tale; yestj singular, and so 
 like truth fliat it is difficult to avoid helieving 
 that much of the characters and incidents are 
 taken from life. It is an episode in this woi-k-a- 
 day world, moat interestina, and touched at once 
 with a daring and delicate hand. It is a book for 
 the enjoyment of a feeling heart and vigorous 
 understanding."— £ZacA:r«oot2*a Magazim.e. 
 
 " For many years there has been no work of 
 such power, piquancy, and originality. Its very 
 faults are on the side of vigour, and its beauties 
 are all original. It is a book of singular fascina- 
 tion."— ^aimftiwfl'A Bemew. 
 
 " Almost all that we require in a novelist the 
 writer has; perception or character and power 
 of delineating it; picture squeness, passion, and 
 knowledge or life. Reality — deep, significant 
 reality— la the characteristic of tnis Dook."— 
 Fraser'a Magazine. 
 
 SHIRLEY. By Cukrer Bell. Price 
 
 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "The peculiar power which waa bo greatly 
 admired in 'Jane Eyre' is not absent from this 
 book. It possesses deep interest, and an irre- 
 sistible grasp of reality. There is a vividness and 
 distinctness of conception in it quite marvellous. 
 The power of eraphic delineation and expression 
 is intense. There are scenes which, for strength 
 and delicacy of emotion, are not transcended in 
 the range of English Action."— Exammer. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is an admirable book ; totally free 
 from cant, affectation, or conventional tinsel of 
 any kind; genuine English in the independence 
 and uprightness of the tone of thought, in the 
 purity of heart and feeling which pervade it; 
 genuine Englisli in the masculine vigour or rough 
 OT^nality of its conception of charaoter; and 
 genuine English in style and diction."— Jfomififf 
 Chronicle. 
 
 "The same piercing and loving eye, and the 
 same bold and poetic imagery, are exnibited here 
 as in 'Jane Eyre.* Similar pow-er is manifested In 
 the delineation of ctiaracter. With a few brief 
 vigorous touches, the picture starts into distinct- 
 ness."— JBdwiS^Wf^A Review. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is very clever. It could not he other- 
 wise. The faculty of graphic description, strong 
 imagination, fervid and masculine diction, ana- 
 lytic skill, all are visible. . . . Gems of rare 
 thought and glorious passion shine here and 
 there."— Times. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is a book demanding close perusal 
 and careful consideration."— ^(AemtPTMn. 
 
 "'Shirley • is a novel of remarkable power and 
 brilliancy; it is calculated to rouse attention, 
 excite the imagination, and keep the fnculties in 
 eager and impatient aus^etiBe."— Morning Post. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is the anatomy of the female lieart. 
 It is a book which indicates exquisite feeling, and 
 very great powpir of mind in the writer. The 
 women are all divine."— Dai/v Newe. 
 18 
 
 VILLETTE- By CuEKER Bell. Price 
 2s. Qd. cloth. 
 
 " ' Tillette* is a most remarkable work—a pro- 
 duction altogether «ui generis, Eulness and 
 vigour of thought mark almost every sentence, 
 and there is a soi-t of easy power pervading the 
 whole narrative such as we have rarely met.' — 
 Edinbtvrgh Review. 
 
 " This novel amply sustains the fame of the 
 authorof ' Jane Eyre ' and ' Shirley ' as an original 
 and powerftU writer. ' Villette ' is a most admi- 
 rably written novel, everywhere original, every^ 
 where shrewd."— Sa;tMni«c?*. 
 
 "There is throughout a charm of ft-eshness 
 which is infinitely delightful : freshness in obser- 
 vation, freshness in feeling, ft'eshuess in expres- 
 sion."— Xiierary Gazette. 
 
 " The tale is one of the afFeotions, and remark- 
 able as a picture of manners. A burning heart 
 glows throughout it, and one brilliantly distinct 
 character keeps it aiive."~Athe7i(BiMn. 
 
 *' ' Villette ' is crowded with beauties, with good 
 things, for which we look to the clear sight, deep 
 feeling, and singular though not extensive expe- 
 rience of life, which we associate with the name 
 of Currer Bell-'— JJaiZy News. 
 
 " ' Villette ' is entitled to take a very high place 
 in the literature of Action. The reader will find 
 character nicely conceived and powerfully de- 
 
 })lcted: he wlU discover much quiet humour, a 
 ively wit, brilliant dialogue, vivid descriptions, 
 reQections both new and true, sentiment fr^e 
 from cant and conventionality, and bursts of elo- 
 
 ^uence and poetry, flashing here and there."— 
 Critic. 
 
 " The fascination of genius dwells in this book, 
 which is, in our judgment, superior to any or 
 Ourrer Bell's previous efforts. For originality of 
 conception, grasp of character, elaboration and 
 consistency of detail, and picturesque force of 
 expression, few works in the English lajMixage 
 can stand the test of comparison with it."— JBom- 
 ing Post, 
 
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS AND 
 ACNES GREY. By Ellis and 
 Acton Bell. With Memoir by 
 Currer Bell. Price 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 " There are passages in this book of ' Wuthering 
 Heights ' of which any novelist, past or present, 
 might be proud. It has been said of Shakespeare 
 that he diew oases which the physician might 
 study J EUls Bell has done no leBa."—Palladima. 
 
 " There is, at all evi nts, keeping in the book: 
 the groups of flgurea and the scenery are in har- 
 mony with each other. There is a touch of Sal- 
 vator Rosa in aW."— Atlas. 
 
 " ' Wuthering Heights' hears the stamp of a 
 profoundly individual, strong, and passionate 
 mind. The memoir is one of the most touching 
 chapters in literary biography."— iVoweoj^/brmwc. 
 
 A LOST LOVE. ByAsHFORD Owen. 
 Price 2s. cloth. 
 
 •"A Lost Love* is a story fuU of grace and 
 genius. No outline of the story wouHf give any 
 Idea of its beauty."— .4 tAewowm. 
 
 "A tale at once moving and winning, natural 
 and romantic, and certain to raise all the finer 
 sympathies of the reader's nature."— Press. 
 
 "A real picture of woman's lite."— Westmi/nstei* 
 Remew. 
 
 "A VBTy beautiful and touching story. It is 
 true to nature, and appeals to all vi ho have not 
 forgotten love and yoK\th."—Giobe. 
 
 '*jV novel of great genius ; beautiftil and true as 
 life itself." — Aeio Quarterly Review. 
 
 "A striking and original stoi-y; a work of 
 genius and sensibility."- iSadwdawBewieio. 
 
 "This volume displays unquestionable genius 
 and that of a high order,"- iodj/'s Newspa^eTf 
 
SillTII, ELDEE J^>JNT) CO. 
 
 CHEAP SERIES OF POPULAR FICTIONS— 
 
 Continued. 
 
 DEERBROOK. By Harriet 
 Martineau. Price 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "This popular flotion presents a true and. ani- 
 mated picture of country life among the upper 
 middle classes of English residents, and is re- 
 markable for its interest, arising from the 
 influence of various characters upon each other, 
 and the effect of ordinaiy circumstances upon 
 them. The descriptions of rural scenery, and the 
 daily pursuits in village hours, are among the 
 most onarming of the author's writings ; hut the 
 way in which exciting incidents graaually arise 
 out of the most ordinary phases of life, and the 
 skin with which natural and every-day characters 
 are broiwfht out in dramatic situations, attest the 
 power or the author's genius." — 
 
 "A pure and beautiful moral feeling pervades 
 the work, and recommends it to famnies where 
 novels are not generally admitted."— 
 
 TALES OF THE COLONIES. 
 
 By Charles Kowcropt. Price 
 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 '"Tales of the Colonies * is an able and interest- 
 ing book. The author has the first great requisite 
 in fiction— a knowledge of the life he undertakes 
 to describe; and his matter is solid and real."— 
 Spectator. 
 
 "It combines the fidelity of truth with the 
 spirit of a .romance, and has altogether much of 
 ve Foe in its omuracter and composition." — 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
 "Sincethetime of Robinson Crusoe, literature 
 has produced nothinp^ like these ' Tales of the 
 Colonies.*" — MetropoUtan Magazine. 
 
 " This is a singular work. No mere romance, 
 no mere fiction, nowever skilfully managed or 
 powerfully executed, can surpass it. The work 
 to which it bears the nearest similitude is 
 Robinson Crusoe, and it is scai'cely, if at all, 
 inferior to that extraordinary history."— ^oAn 
 Bull. 
 
 ROMANTIC TALES (including 
 "Avillion'*). By the Author of 
 "John Halifax, Gentleman." A 
 new edition. Price 2*. &d. cloth. 
 
 " In a nice knowledge of the refinements of the 
 female heart, and in a happy power of depicting 
 emotion, the authoress is excelled by very few 
 story tellers of the day."— fftofie. 
 
 ** As pleasant and fanciful a miscellany as has 
 been given to the public in these latter days."— 
 AtheTicBvnn. 
 
 " ' Avillion ' is a beautiful and fanciful story, 
 and the rest make very agreeable reading. There 
 is not one of them unquickened by true feeling, 
 exquisite taste, and a pure and vivid ima,^iua~ 
 tion."~Sxarmner. 
 
 PAUL FERROLL. Fourth edition, 
 price 2s. cloth. 
 
 *' We have seldom read so wonderful a romance. 
 We can find no fault in it as a work of art. It 
 leaves us in admiration, almost in awe, of the 
 powers of its author."— ifew Quarterly. 
 
 "The art displayed in presenting Paul Perroll 
 throughout the story is beyond all praise."— 
 JBxarmner. 
 
 "The incidents of the book are extremely well 
 managed."— 4ifte«(EK7n. 
 
 " ' Paul Ferroll ' is a book that will be very much 
 read, talked about, and marvelled a,t."—Qlobe. 
 
 " The fruit of much thoughtful investigation is 
 represented to us in the character of Paul 
 
 Ferroll We do not need to he told how 
 
 he felt and why he acted thus and thus; it will . 
 be obvious to most minds from the very opening 
 pages. But the power of the story is not weak- 
 ened by this early knowledge : rather is it 
 heightened, sioce the artistic Corce of contrast is 
 grand and fearful in the two figures who cling so 
 closely together in their fond human love,"— 
 Mommff Chronicle. 
 
 " ' Paul Ferroll ' is a most strikingly original 
 production. It may he regarded as apuenomenon 
 m literatui'e— a hook that must be read, and 
 cannot be forgotten."— Morniits Pout. 
 
 "To all the elements of powerful effect, the 
 story adds the merit of being .ably and forcibly 
 written."— JoA» Bull. 
 
 " ' Paul Ferroll ' is an original conception 
 wrought out with marvellous skill and mastery 
 of language. Lt is by far the most extraordinary 
 work of modern timea."— Illustrated News of the 
 World. 
 
 '"Paul Ferroll' is one of the novels of this 
 generation that vrill be read by the n&s.t,"— Globe, 
 
 SCHOOL FOR FATHERS. 
 
 By Talbot Gwtnne. Price 2s. cl. 
 
 " *The Schoolfor Fathers ' is one of the cleverest, 
 most brilliant, genial, and instructive stories that 
 we have read since the publication of * Jane 
 Byre.' "—Eclectic Review.. 
 
 " The pleasantest tale we have read for many a 
 day. It is a story of the Tatler and Spectator 
 days, and is vei-y fitly associated with that time 
 of good English literature by its manly feeling, 
 direct, unarrected manner of writing, and nicely- 
 managed, weU-turned narrative. The descriptions 
 are excellent; some of the country painting is as 
 ft-esh as a landscape by Alfred Constable, or an 
 idyl by Ten-nj son."— Bxammer, 
 
 "A capital picture of town and country a 
 century ago; and is emphatically the fi'eshest^ 
 raciest, and most artistic piece of Action that hafi 
 lately come in our wtiy."—Noneonformist. 
 
 " 'The School for Fathers ' is at once highly - 
 amusing and deeply interesting — full of that 
 genuine numonr which is half pathos— and wntteu 
 with a freshness of feeling and raciness of style 
 which entitle it to be called a tale of the ' Vicar of 
 Wakefield ' school."— Britannia. 
 
 "A hale, hearty, unalfected, honest, downright 
 English tale. A vigorous painting of English 
 men and manners, by an artist who is thoroughly 
 national in his genius, taste, education, and 
 pr^udices."— (?2o6e. . . 
 
 "A capital story, illustrating our town and 
 country life a hundred years aso."—Br^t^ea> 
 Quiwrterly. 
 
 Now ready, price 2s. 6d., cloth, 
 
 AFTER DARK. By Wilkie Collins. 
 
 PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. 
 
 DOMESTIC STORIES, By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman," &c. 
 KATHIE BRANDE : the Fireside History op a Quiet Life. By Holme 
 
 Lee, Author of "Sylvan Holt's Daughter." 
 BELOW THE SURFACE. By Sir Arthur Hallam Elton, Bart., M.P. 
 
AvoEKis i>tjblish:e3d by 
 
 NEW NOVELS. 
 
 (to be had at all LIB3IAKIES.) 
 
 THE DENNES OF DAUNDELYONN. 
 
 By Mrs. Charles J.Probt. 3 vols. 
 (iVbw ready.^ 
 
 COUSIN STELLA; or, CoisrLTOT. 
 By the Author of " Violet Bank." 
 3 vols. 
 
 "An excellent novel, written with great care; 
 the interest is well sustained to the end, and the 
 charactei-s are all life-like. It is an extremely 
 ■well- written and well-conceived story, with quiet 
 power and precision of touch, with freshness of 
 interest ana great Ts\&r\t."—Athenmv/m, 
 
 " ' Cousin Stella' has the merit, now hecOmmg 
 rarer and rarer, of a comparative novelty in irs 
 sulxject ; the interest of which will secure for this 
 novel a fair share of popiilarity." — Sa^Twdaa/ 
 Eevieto. ,, . 
 
 "The character of Cousin Stella, gentle, impul- 
 sive, almost childlike, is most ably and heautuully 
 drttwn ; and from heginninp; to end there is an 
 ahundance of life and animation, truthful con- 
 versation, ever-varying scenes, and bright pic- 
 tures,"— XeacZer, 
 
 CONFIDENCES. By the Author of 
 " Rita." 
 
 "Decidedly both good and interesting. The 
 book has a fresh and pleasant air about it : it is 
 written in an excellent tone, and there are touches 
 of pathos here and there which we must rank 
 with a higher style of composition than that 
 usually attained in works of this class."— JWew 
 Quarterti/ Review. 
 
 "This new novel, by the author of 'Bita/ dis- 
 plays the same combination of ease and power in 
 the delineation of character, the same life-like 
 dialogue, and the same faculty of constructing au 
 interesting story."— Spectator. 
 
 " A work to be recommended not less fi-om the 
 moral than the literary noint of view."— Press. 
 
 "'Oonfldences' is written in the most pleasing 
 manner of any novel we have read for years 
 past."— Xeadfij*. 
 
 "A clever book, and not too long,"— Sxaminer. 
 
 TRUST FOR TRUST. By 
 
 A. J. Bakkowclifpe, Author of 
 " Amberhill." 3 vols. 
 
 " The story is admirably developed. Theinterest 
 never flags, the Incidents are natural without 
 heing commonplace, and the men and woman talk 
 and act like human beings."— Press. 
 
 " It Is seldom we And, even in this great age of 
 novel writing, so much that is pleasant and so 
 little to object to as in ' Trust for Trust.' It con- 
 tains much original thought and fi'esh hxunour," 
 —Leader. 
 
 " 'Trust for Trust' maybe safely recommended ; 
 the reader will not willingly lay down the book 
 until he has reached the end of the third volume. 
 There is a certain spirit and dramatic power in 
 many of the scenes that is worthy of praise, and 
 there is sufficient consistency in the chai-aoters 
 and unity in the plot to give artistic completeness 
 to the tale."— Economist. 
 
 " The story evinces vigour of description and 
 power of writing."- Xifer«ry Chmchman. 
 
 OLD AND YOUNG. 1 vol. 
 
 ^ " The writer's powers of description are cer- 
 tainly above the average. The writing through- 
 out is tliat of a well-educated nnd polished scliolar. 
 . . . The tone is manly and healthlLil,"—j/ormjii7 
 Serald, 
 
 20 
 
 ELLEN RAYMOND; or, Ups and 
 Downs. By Mrs. Vidal, Author 
 of "Tales for the Bush," &c. 
 3 vols, 
 
 " The plot is wrought out wi^.h wonderful inge- 
 nuity, and the different characters are sustained 
 in perfect keeping to the enA."— Illustrated mws 
 of the World. 
 
 " The characters are good, the style pure, cor- 
 rect, brisk, and easy."— Press. 
 
 "mrs. Vidal displays resource, imagination^ 
 and power in no common degree. • * • There is 
 more p')wer and strength put forth in * Ellen 
 Raymond' than perhaps in any lady's book of 
 thiB_generatiOTi."—Saturdaff Jtemeio. 
 
 "There is infinite vigour and variety in * Ellen 
 Raymond,' and an interest that increases vritli 
 every page. The delineation of the sevei-al 
 dramatis personce is extremely forcible and nsf 
 tural." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "This novel will find a gi'eat many admirers." 
 —Leader, 
 
 LOST AND WON. By Geoegiana 
 M. Craik, Author of " Biverston." 
 1 vol. 2nd Edition. 
 
 " Nothing superior to this novel has appeared 
 during the present season."- icadcr. 
 
 " Miss Craik's new story is a good one and in 
 point of ability above the average of ladies' novels." 
 '—Hailv News. 
 
 " The language ia good, the narrative spirited, 
 the characters are fairly delineated, and the 
 dialogue has considerable dramatic force,"— 
 Sattvrday Review. 
 
 " This 18 an improvement on Miss Craik's first 
 work. The story is more compact and more 
 interesting."—^ tlienteiMii. 
 
 "There is a freshness and cleverness in this 
 tale which renders it charming."— G?o6e. 
 
 AN OLD DEBT. By Florence 
 Da-wson. 2 vols. 
 
 "A powerfully vreitten novel; one of the best 
 which has recently proceeded fi'om a female 
 hand. . . . The dialogue Is vigorous and 
 spirited."— JlformiKtf Post. 
 
 "There is an energy and vitality ahout this 
 work which distinguish it from the common 
 head of novels. Its terse vigour som etimes recals 
 Miss Bront^, but in some respects Miss l<'lorence 
 Dawson is decidedly superior to the author of 
 ' Jane Eyre.' "Satu^dai/ Review. 
 
 " This novel is written vfilh great care and 
 painstaking : it evinces considerable powers of 
 reflection. The style is good, and the author 
 possesses the power of aepicting emotion."— 
 Athenmum, 
 
 " The stoiy displays considerable talent."— 
 Eclectic Bemew. 
 
 "A very good seasonable noreV— Leader, 
 
 THE MOORS AND THE FENS. 
 
 By F. G. Teaeeoed, 3 vols. 
 
 "This novel stands out much in the same way 
 that 'Jane Eyre 'did. .« . . The characters ai-e 
 drawn by a mind which can realize fictitious 
 characters with minute intensity.'*— Satrwday 
 Bevtev). 
 
 "It is seldom that a first fiction is entitled to 
 such applause as is *The Moors and the Fens,' 
 and we snail look anxiously for the writer's next 
 essoY "—Critic. 
 
 " The author has the gift of telling a story, and 
 
 The Moors and tlie Pens' will be read." — 
 AtAencEum, 
 
SMITH, EX^DER J^l^T) CO. 
 
 NEW NOVELS— conimwed 
 
 SYLVAN HOLTS DAUGHTER. 
 
 By HotLME Lee, Author of " Kathie 
 Braude/' &c. 2nd edition. 3 vols. 
 
 "The well-estalillslied reputation of Holme 
 Lee, aa a novel writer, will receive an additional 
 glory from the puhlioation of 'Sylvan Holt's 
 Daughter.* It ia a charming tale of country life 
 and character."— Grfo6e. 
 
 "There ia much that ia attractive in 'Sylvan 
 Holt's Daughter,' much that ia graceful and re- 
 fined, mucE that is fresh, healthy, and natural." 
 —Press. 
 
 "The conception of the story has a good deal of 
 originality, and the characters avoid common- 
 place types, without heing unnatural or improba- 
 ble. The heroine herself is charming. It is a 
 novel in which there is ranch to interest and 
 please."— iVew Quarterly/ Bevieto. 
 
 "A novel that is well worth reading, and which 
 possesses the cardinal virtue of being extremely 
 interesting."— AiAeTKBWTtt. 
 
 "A really sound, good boofc, higlily flnished, 
 true to nature, vigorous, passionate, honest, and 
 sincere,"— i)M&wft Universiti/ Magazine, 
 
 MY LADY ! A Tale of Modern 
 Life. 2 vols. 
 
 "'My Lady' is a fine specimen of an English 
 matron, exhibiting that union of strength and 
 gentleness, of common senae and romance, of 
 energy and grace, which nearly approaches our 
 ideal of womanhood." — Press. 
 
 " ' My Lady' evinces charming feeling and deli- 
 cacy or touch. It ia a novel that will be read with 
 i aterest."— ^iAe«flS2tm. 
 
 " The story ia told throughout with great 
 strength of feeling, ia well written, and haa a 
 plot which is by no means common-place."- 
 JESxaminer. 
 
 "There is some force and a good deal of fresh- 
 ness in ' My Lady.' The characters are distinctly 
 drawn, and often wear an appearance of iudi- 
 viduaJity, or almost personality. The execution 
 is fresh and powerful."— iSjieecaf or. 
 
 "A tale of some ^ovrdr."— National Beview. 
 
 "It is not in every novel we can lighD upon a 
 style so vigorously graceful— upon an intelligence 
 60 refined without littleness, so tenderly truthful, 
 which has sensibility rather than poetry; but 
 which is also most subtly and searchingly power- 
 ful." — X>ublin Universiti/ Magazine. 
 
 " Care has been bestowed on the writing, which 
 ia pleasant and fiowing. The descriptions or nature 
 are truchftil and delicately di-awn,"— JSconomia^f. 
 
 GASTON BLIGH. ByL.S.LATENn, 
 
 Author of " Erlesmere." 2 vols. 
 
 " ' Gaston Bligh * is a good atory_, admirably 
 told, full of stirring incident, sustaining to the 
 close the interest of a very ingenious plot, and 
 abounding in clever aketcnes of character. It 
 sparkles with wit, and will reward perusal."- 
 
 "The story is told with great power; the whole 
 book sparkles with esprit: and the characters 
 talk lihe gentlemen and ladies. It la very enjoy- 
 able reading."— Pre**. 
 
 THE THREE CHANCES. 
 
 By the Author of "The Pair 
 
 Carew." 3 vols. 
 "This novel is of a more solid texture than 
 most of its contemporaries. It is full of good 
 sense, good thought, and good writing."— A'taie*- 
 
 " Some of the characters and romantic situa- 
 
 Hions are strongly mnrketl and peculiarly original. 
 
 . It is the gre-it merit of tlie authoress that 
 
 the personages of her tale are human and real."- 
 
 Leader. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR. By Cuhker 
 Bell. 2 vols. 
 
 "We think the author's fi-iends have shown 
 sound judgment in publishing the ' Professor/ 
 now that she is jgone. ... It shows the first 
 germa of conception, which afterwards expanded 
 and ripened into the great creations of her imagi- 
 nation. At the same time her advisers were 
 eauallv right when they counselled her not to 
 publish it in her lifetime. . . . But It abounds 
 lu mei'ita."'-Saturday Review. 
 
 " The idea is original, and we every liere and 
 there detect germs of that power which took the 
 world by storm in 'Jane Byre.' The rejection of 
 the 'Professor' was, in oar opinion, no less ad- 
 vantageous to theyoungauthoress than creditable 
 to the discernment of the booksellers."- Presg. 
 
 " Anything which throws light upon the growth 
 and composition of such a mind cannot be other- 
 wise than interesting. In the ' Professor ' we may 
 discover the germs of many trains of thinking, 
 which afterwards came to be enlarged ana 
 illustrated in subsequent and more perfect 
 works."— CWiic. 
 
 "There la much new insight in it, mwch ex- 
 tremely characteristic genius, and one character, 
 moreover, of fresher, lighter, and more airy 
 SraceJ"~JSconomi8t. 
 
 "We have read it with the deepest interest; 
 and confidently predict that this legacy of Char- 
 lotte Brontfi's genius will renew and confirm the 
 general admiration of her extraordinary powers." 
 —Eclectic, 
 
 BELOW THE SURFACE. 3 toIs. 
 
 "The book is unquestionably clever and enter- 
 taining. The writer develops from flrst to last 
 his double view of human life, as coloured by the 
 manners of our age. ... It is a tale superior 
 to ordinary novels, in its practical application to 
 the phases of actual lite."~Athen(Bum. 
 
 " There ia a great deal of cleverness in this story ; 
 a much greater knowledge of country life and 
 character in its various aspects and conditions 
 than is possessed by nine-tenths of the novehsts 
 who undertake to describe it."— Spectator. 
 
 " The novel is one that keeps the attention fixed, 
 and it is written in a genial, often playful tone. 
 The temper is throughout excellent."— ^BaJOTnamer. 
 
 "This is a book which possesses the rare merit 
 of being exactly what it claims to be, a s;tory of 
 English counti'y life; and, moreover, a very well 
 told atovy. "—JDailj/ News. 
 
 •"Below the Surface * merits high praise. It is 
 full of good things; good taste— good feeling- 
 good writing- good notions, and high morality." 
 —Qlohe. 
 
 " Temperate, aensible, kindly, and pleasant."— 
 Satvn'day Rewew. 
 
 "A more pleaaant story we have not read for 
 many a d&y?'— British Qua/rterly, 
 
 EVA DESMOND ; or, Mutation. 
 3 vols. 
 
 "A more beautiful creation than Eva it would 
 be difficult to imagine. The novel is undoubtedly 
 full of interest,"- Afomimf? Post. 
 
 " There is power, pathos, and originality in con- 
 ception and catastrophe."- Xeader. 
 
 THE CRUELEST WRONG OF ALL. 
 
 By the Author of " Margaret ; or, 
 Prejadice at Home," 1 vol. 
 " The author has a pathetic vein, and there is a 
 tender sweetness in the tone of her narration."^ 
 Leader. 
 
 "It has the first requisite of a work meautto 
 amuse: it is amusins.'^- Gfio&e. 
 
 21 
 
"WORKS i>xrBLiSH:ED B^sr 
 
 NEW liiOYELS— continued. 
 
 THE ROUA PASS. By Ebick 
 Mackenzie. 3 vols. 
 
 " It ia seldom that we have to notice so good a 
 novel as the ' Eoua Pass.* The story is well con- 
 trived and well told ; the Incidents are natural and 
 varied; several of the characters are skilfully 
 drawn, and that of the heroine ia fresh, pofwerful, 
 and original. The Highland scenery, in which 
 th6 plot IS laid, is described with truth and feehng 
 —with a commancl of languaeie which leaves a 
 vivid imTpreBsion."—Saturda2/ Bevieio. 
 
 "The peculiar charm of the novel is its sMlful 
 painting of the Highlands, and of life among the 
 Highlanders. Quiclt observation and a true sense 
 of the poetry in nature and human life, the 
 author 'aa.B."—jExamine*'. 
 
 " The attractions of the stoir are so numerous 
 and varied, that it would he dimcult to single out 
 anj^ one point of it for attention. It is a brilliant 
 social picture of sterling scenes and striking 
 adventures."— Smw, 
 
 THE NOBLE TRAYTOUR. 
 A Chkonicle. 3 vols. 
 
 " An Elizabethan masquerade. Shakespeare, 
 the Queen. Essex:, E^aleigh, and a hundred nobles, 
 ladies, and knights of the land, appear on the 
 stage. The author has imbued himself with the 
 spirit of thetimes."— ieo-der, 
 
 " The story is told with a graphic and graceful 
 pen, and the chronicler has produced a romance 
 not only of great value in a historical point of 
 view, but possessing manv claims upon the atten- 
 tion of the scholar, the antiquai'y. and the general 
 reader."— Po«t. 
 
 PERVERSION ; ok, The Causes and 
 Consequences of Inpidelitt. By 
 the late Rev. W. J, Contbeahe. 
 3 vols. 
 
 "This story has a touching interest, which 
 lingers with the reader after he has closed the 
 'book."— Atlientmim. 
 
 " The tone is good and healthy ; the religious 
 feeling sound and true, and well eustained."— 
 Quarman. 
 
 " It is long, very long, since we have read a 
 narrative or more power than this."— British 
 ^uwrtefrly Revieiv. 
 
 'This is a good and a noble book,"—N'ew 
 Quarterl'i/. 
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE BY THE SEA 
 
 A LoyE Stoet. By M. Betham- 
 Edwaeds. 2 vols. 
 
 "A tale of English domestic life. The writing is 
 
 " The nari-ative and scenes exhibit feminine 
 spirit and quiet truth of delineation."— ^ijcctaifor. 
 
 MAUD SKiLLICORNE'S PENANCE. 
 By Maet C. Jackson, Author of 
 "The Story of My "Wardship." 
 2 vols. 
 
 "The styleis natural, and displays considerable 
 dramatic power."— Cri^'e. 
 
 " It is a well concocted tale, and will he very 
 palatable to novel readers."— Jborwimf/Poai. 
 
 KATHIE BRANDE ; a Fireside His- 
 tory OE A Quiet Life. By 
 Holme Lee. 2 vols. 
 
 "* Kathie Brande • is not merely a very interest- 
 ing novel— it is a very wholesome one, for it 
 leaches virtue hy example."— Oriiie, 
 
 "Throughout 'Kathie Brande* there is much 
 
 sweetness, and cousiderahlepower of description." 
 — Satwday Review, 
 
 " 'Kathie Brande ' is intended to illt^trate the 
 paramount excellence of duty as a moving prin- 
 ciple. It is full of beauties."- Doiij' News. 
 
 " Certainly one of the best novels that we have 
 lately read."— CMortJian. 
 
 Gborgiana M. 
 
 RIVERSTON- By 
 
 Ckaik. 3 vols. 
 
 "A decidedly good novel. The hook is a veiy 
 clever one, containing much good writing, well 
 discriminated sketches of character, and a story 
 told BO as to bind the reader pretty closely to the 
 text." — Examiner. 
 
 "Miss Craikis a verylively writer: she has wit, 
 and she has sense, and she ha^ made in the 
 beautiful young governess, with her strong vrill, 
 saucy independenr'.e, and promptness of repartee, 
 an interesung picture."— JPres*. 
 
 "Miss Craik writes well; she can paint cha- 
 racter, passions, manners, with considerable 
 effect : her dl^ogue flows easily and expressively." 
 Sa/ilp News, 
 
 "The author-shows great command of language, 
 a force and clearness of expression not often met 
 with. . . . We offer a welcome to Miss Craik, 
 and we' sliall look with interest for her next 
 vfOT)L."—Athenmiim. 
 
 FARINA. By George Meredith. 
 1 vol. 
 
 "A masque of ravishera in steel, of robber 
 knights ; of Tra-ter-women, more ravisbing than 
 lovely. It has also a brave and tender d^verer, 
 and a heroine proper for a romance of Cologne. 
 Those who love a real, lively, audacious piece of 
 extravagance, by way of a change, win enjoy 
 Panna.' "— jltAemteiMre. 
 
 FRIENDS OF BOHEMIA: 
 
 OR, Phases op London Life. By 
 E. M. "Whittt, Author of " The 
 Governing Classes." 2 vols. 
 
 *' Mr. "Whitty is a genuine satirist, employing 
 satire for a genuine purpose. You laugh with him 
 very tnuchjTjut the laughter is ft-uity and ripe in 
 thought. His style is serious, and his cast of 
 mind severe. The author has a mei-riment akin 
 to that of Jaques and that of T\mon."—Athen(Bvm. 
 
 THE 'EVE OF ST. MARK. A 
 
 Romance OP Venice. By Thomas 
 
 DOUBEEDAT. 2 vols. 
 
 •" The Eve of St. Mark ■ is not only -well written. 
 Jut adroitly oonsti-uoteij, and interesting. Its 
 tone Is perhaps too gorgeous ; its movement is too 
 much that of a masquerade; hut a mystery is 
 preated, and a vei-y loveable heroine is pour- 
 trayed."— .4EAe«(Bttm. 
 
 NOVELS FORTHCOMING. 
 
 THE TWO HOMES. By the Author 
 
 of " The Heir of Vallis." 3 toIs. 
 A NEW NOVEL. By the Author of 
 
 " Sylvan Holt's Daughter." 3 vols. 
 
 And other Works of Fiction by Popular Authors. 
 22 "^ 
 
 EXTREMES. By Miss E. W. Atkin- 
 son, Author of " Memoirs of the 
 Queens of Prussia." 2 vols. 
 
NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS. 
 
 THE PARENTS' CABINET of Amusement and Instruction for Young 
 Persons. Ne-w edit., carefully revised, in 12 Monthly Shilling Volumes, 
 each complete in itself, and each containing a full page Illustration in oil 
 colours, with wood engravings, and handsomely hound in ornamented 
 hoards. 
 
 contents. 
 
 AMUSING STORIES, all tending to the development of good quaJitiea. and the avoidance of faults. 
 BIOGBAPniCAL ACCOUNTS OF REMARKABLE OHARACTERS, interesting to Young Poople. 
 SIMPLE NARliATIVES OF HISTORICAL EVENTS, suited to the canacity of children. 
 ELUCIDATIONS OF NATURAL HISTORY, adapted to encoura!?e habits of observation. 
 FAMILIAR EXPLANATIONS OF NOTABLE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND MECHANICAL 
 
 INVENTIONS. 
 LIVELY ACCOUNTS OF THE GEOGRAPHY. INHABITANTS, AND PRODUCTIONS OF 
 
 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 
 
 Miss Edgewobth's Opinion of the Pabbwis' Oabhtet:— 
 
 "I almost feel aft^id of praising it as much as I think It deserves. . . . There is so much 
 variety in the hook tlM,t it cannot tire. It alternately excites and relieves attention, and does not lead 
 tothehad habit of ft-itteviug away the mind hyrequiring noexertion from the reader. . . . Whoever 
 your soientitlc associate is. He understands his business and children's capabilities right well. . . . 
 without lecturing, or prosing, you keep the right and the wrong clearly marked, and hence all 
 the sympathy of the young people is always enlisted on the right side." 
 
 %* Vols. I. to X. are now ready. 
 
 By the Author of " Round the Fire," &c. 
 
 I. 
 UNICA : A Stort for a Sunday 
 Afternoon. With Four Illus- 
 trations. Price 3s, cloth. 
 " The character of Unica is charmingly con- 
 ceived, and the story pleasantly told."— Spectator. 
 " An ixcellent and exceedingly pretty story for 
 children." —Statesman, 
 
 "This tale, like its author's former ones, will 
 find favour in the nur aery. "—Athenceum. 
 
 II. 
 OLD GINGERBREAD AND THE 
 SCHOOL- BOYS. With Four 
 Coloured Plates. Price 3s. cloth. 
 
 "'Old Gingerbread and the School-hoys* is 
 delightful, ana the drawing and colouring of the 
 pictorial part done with a spirit and correctness." 
 
 "This tale is very good, the descriptions heing 
 natural, with a feeling of country freshness."— 
 Spectator. , , ^ 
 
 " The book is wellgotup, and the coloured plates 
 are very pretty."— G7o6e. 
 
 " An excelJent boys' hook ; exceUentin its moral, 
 chaste and simple in its language, and luxuriously 
 myxstr&X&d,"— Illustrated News of the World. 
 
 "A very lively and excellent tale, illustrated 
 with very delicately coloured pictures." — 
 EeoTiomist. . , ^. 
 
 " A delightflil story for little hoys, inculcating 
 benevolent feelings to the poor. "—£fc(ec(JCjBertcw. 
 
 WILLIE'S BiRTHDAY; showing how 
 A Little Box did what he Liked, 
 AND how he Enjoyed it. With 
 Four Elustrations, Price 25. 6rf. cl. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WILLIE'S REST : a Sunday Story. 
 
 Wi th Four Illustratious. Price 
 
 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "Graceful little tales, containing some pretty 
 
 parables, and a good deal of simple feeling."— 
 
 Economist. 
 
 "Extremely well written story books, amusing 
 and moral, and got up in a very Landaome style, ' 
 -^^ominff Herald- 
 
 UNCLE JACK, THE FAULT KILLER. 
 
 With Four Illustrations. Price 35. el. 
 
 " An excellent little hook of moral improvement 
 made pleasant to children : it Is far beyond the 
 common-placemoraltale in design and execution." 
 —Globe. 
 
 ROUND THE FIRE: Six Stories 
 for Young Readers. Square 
 16mo, with Four Illustrations. 
 Price Bs. cloth. 
 
 " Charmingly written tales for the young,"— 
 Leader. 
 
 " Six delightful little stories."— O^a^dian. 
 
 "Simple and very interesting."— iV^afiowaZ 
 Revieio. 
 
 " True children's stories.' 
 
 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER; 
 
 OE, The Black Brothers. By 
 
 John Euskin, M.A. Third edition, 
 
 with 22 Dlustrations by Eichabd 
 
 DoTLB. Price 2«. 6(f. 
 
 " This little fancy taleis hy a maBter-hand. The 
 story has a olxarming Taorai."— Examiner. 
 
 STORIES FROM THE PARLOUR 
 PRINTING PRESS. By the 
 
 Authors of the "Parents' Cabinet." 
 Fcap. 8to, price 2s. cloth. 
 
 RHYMES FOR LITTLE ONES. 
 
 With 16 Illustrations. ls.6rf.cloth. 
 
 LITTLE DERWENT'S BREAKFAST. 
 
 2«. cloth. 
 
 JUVENILE MISCELLANY. Six En- 
 gravings. Price 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 INVESTIGATION; or, Travels in 
 THE BoHDOiK. By Miss Halsted. 
 reap, clotli, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 23 
 
•V7-OKICS I>XJ]BI.ISIIl!:X) BY S^MITH, ELDEK Sc CO. 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 SKETCHES FROM DOVER 
 
 CASTLE, AND OTHER PoEMS, By 
 
 Lieut.-Col. William Read. Crown 
 8vo. Price 7^. 6rf. cloth. 
 
 POEMS. By Pked. W. Wyon. 
 Pcap. 8vo. Price 55. cloth. 
 
 " In Ms minor poems Mr. Wyon shows a Rreat 
 deal of the true sentiment of poetry."— DaiZy 
 TeleorapTt, 
 
 10N1CA. Fcap. 8vo, 4s. cloth. 
 
 "The themes, mostly classical, are Ri'appled 
 witliholdness, and toned Tvithalively imagination. 
 The style is rich and firm, and cannot be said to 
 be an imitation of any known author. We cor- 
 dially recommend it to our readers as a hook of 
 realpoetry." — Critic. 
 
 " The author is in his mood, tiuizzical, satirical, 
 Immoroua, and didactic by turns, and in each 
 mood he displays extraordinary poMver."— Illus- 
 trated News of the World. 
 
 THE SIX LEGENDS Of KINC 
 GOLDENSTAR. By the late Anna 
 Bkadstreet. Fcap. SvOj price 5s. 
 
 " The author evinces more than ordinary power, 
 ■a vivid imagination, guided by a mind of lofty 
 
 " The poetry is tasteful, and abovethe average." 
 — National Review. 
 
 *' This i8 a posthumous poem by an unknown 
 authoress, of higher scope and more finish than 
 the crowd of poems which come before us. The 
 fancy throughout the poem ia quick andlight, and 
 musical."— ilr/ie«(BWMi. 
 
 POEMS. By Ada Tkevanion. 55. cl. 
 
 " There really is a value in such poems as those 
 of Ada Trevamon. They give an image of what 
 many women are on their best side. Perhaps no- 
 where can we point to a more satisfactory fruit 
 of Christian civilization than in a volume like 
 t\ns."Saturdaj/ Review. 
 
 "There are many passages in Miss Trevanion's 
 poems full of ci-ace and tenderness, and as sweet 
 as music on the water,"— Pj-eaa, 
 
 POEMS. By Henry Cecil. 55. cloth. 
 
 " He shows power in his sonnets, while in his 
 lighter and less restrictive measures the lyric 
 eleraentis dominant. . . . If Mr. Cecil does not 
 make hisnarae famous, it is not that he does not 
 deserve to do so." — Critic. 
 
 "There is an unmistakeable stamp of genuine 
 poetry in most of these pages."— ^eonomiat, 
 
 "Mr. Cecil's poems display qualities which 
 si amp them the productions or a fine imagination 
 and a cultivated ta3te."~JIfoi-mM£r Herald. 
 
 ENGLAND IN TIME OF WAR. 
 
 By Stbnet Doekll, Author of 
 
 "Balder," "The Roman," &c. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 5s. cloth. 
 
 "That Mr. Dobell is a poet, ' Euglaucl in time of 
 \^ ar' bears witiie.Ba."—At?ienaBuin. 
 
 THE CPUEL SISTER, and other 
 Poems. Fcap. 8to, 45. cloth. 
 
 "There are traces of power, and the versification 
 displays fi-eedom and skilV—Guardian. 
 
 POEMS OF PAST YEARS. 
 
 By Sir Arthur Hallam Elton, 
 Bart., M.P. Fcap. Svo, 3s. cloth. 
 
 " A veflned, scholarly, ancl !;eiitlcraaiil.v mind is 
 apparent all through this volume."— Leader. 
 
 POEMS. By Mrs. Frank P. Fellows. 
 Fcap. Svo, 3s. cloth. 
 "There ia easy simplicity in the diction, and 
 elegant naturalness in the thovLght."— /Spectator, 
 
 POETRY FROM LIFE. ByC.M.K. 
 
 Ecap. Svo, cloth gilt, 55. 
 
 "Elegant verses. The author has a pleasing 
 fancy and a refined m.in6.."— Economist, 
 
 POEMS. By Walter R. Cassels. 
 
 Fcap. Svo. 35. 6rf., cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Cassels has deep poeticalfeeling, and gives 
 promise of real excellence. His poems are ivntten 
 sometimes with a strength of expression by uo 
 means common."— Cfaamiara, 
 
 GARLANDS OF VERSE. By Thomas 
 Leigh. 5s. cloth. 
 
 " One of the hest things in the ' Garlands of 
 Verse' is an Ode to Toil. There, as elsewhere, 
 there is excellent feeling."— Examiner. 
 
 BALDER. By Sydney Dobell, 
 Crown Svo, 7s. ed., cloth. 
 
 "The vPTiter has fine qualities; liis level of 
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 POEMS. By William Bell Scott. 
 Pcap. Svo, 5s., cloth. 
 
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 POEMS. By Mart Mai-nard. 
 Fcap. Svo, 4s., cloth. 
 
 "We have rarely met with a volume of poems 
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 expression."- CAwrcA of England Quarterly. 
 
 POEMS. ' By CuRRER, Ellis, and 
 Acton Bell. 4s., cloth. 
 
 SELECT ODES OF HORACE. In 
 
 English Lyrics. By J. T. Black. 
 Fcap. Svo, price 4s., cloth. 
 
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 RHYMES AND RECOLLECTIONS 
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 KING RENE'S DAUGHTER. Fcap. 
 8yo, price 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 MAID OF ORLEANS, and othek 
 Poems. Translated from Schiller. 
 reap. 8yo, price 2s. 6rf. 
 
 London : Printed iy Smith, Eldeb and Co., Little Green Aitour Court, E.G. 
 24