it would by many be thought irrefragable. It has been urged, that charity, like other virtues, may be improperly and unfeafonably exerted; that while we are relieving Frenchmen, there remain many Englishmen unrelieved; that while we lavish pity on our enemies, we forget the mifery of our friends.

Grant this argument all it can prove, and what is the conclufion?-That to relieve the French is a good action, but that a better may be conceived. This is all the refult, and this all is very little. To do the best can feldom be the lot of man; it is fufficient if, when opportunities are prefented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue could be practifed, if beneficence were to wait always for the most proper objects, and the nobleft occafions; occafions that may never happen, and objects that may never be found.

It is far from certain, that a fingle Englishman will fuffer by the charity to the French. New fcenes of mifery make new impreffions; and much of the charity which produced thefe donations, may be fuppofed to have been generated by a fpecies of calamity never known among us before. Some imagine that the laws have provided all neceffary relief in common cafes, and remit the poor to the care of the publick; fome have been deceived by fictitious mifery, and are afraid of encouraging impofture; many have obferved want to be the effect of vice, and confider cafual almfgivers as patrons of idleness. But all thefe difficulties vanish in the prefent cafe: we know that for the Prisoners of War there is no legal provision; we fee their diftrefs, and are certain of its caufe; we know

that

that they are poor and naked, and poor and naked without a crime.

But it is not neceffary to make any conceffions. The opponents of this charity muft allow it to be good, and will not eafily prove it not to be the beft. That charity is beft, of which the confequences are moft extenfive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection; to foften the acrimony of adverfe nations, and difpofe them to peace and amity in the mean time, it alleviates captivity, and takes away fomething from the miferies of war. The rage of war,

however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and horror: let it not then be unneceffarily extended; let animofity and hoftility ceafe together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than while his fword is drawn against us.

The effects of thefe contributions may, perhaps, reach still further. Truth is beft fupported by virtue: we may hope from thofe who feel or who fee our charity, that they fhall no longer deteft as herefy that religion, which makes its profeffors the followers of Him, who has commanded us to "do "good to them that hate us."

ON THE

BRAVERY

OF THE

ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS.

B

Y those who have compared the military genius

of the English with that of the French nation, it is remarked, that the French officers will always lead, if the foldiers will follow; and that the English foldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead.

In all pointed fentences, fome degree of accuracy must be facrificed to conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers feem to lose what our foldiers gain. I know not any reafon for fuppofing that the English officers are lefs willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think, univerfally allowed, that the English foldiers are more willing to follow. Our nation may boaft, beyond any other people in the world, of a kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We can fhew a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whofe courage may vie with that of their general.

There may be fome pleasure in tracing the caufes of this plebeian magnanimity. The qualities which commonly make an army formidable, are long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and

great

great confidence in the commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a kind of mechanical obedience to fignals and commands, like that which the perverse Cartefians impute to animals; difcipline may impress fuch an awe upon the mind, that any danger fhall be lefs dreaded than the danger of pu. nishment; and confidence in the wisdom or fortune of the general, may induce the foldiers to follow him blindly to the most dangerous enterprize.

What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops of the Ruffian emprefs and Pruffian monarch. We find that they may be broken without confufion, and repulfed without flight.

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

The manner in which they are difperfed in quarters over the country during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of difcipline: they are very little in fight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged in the flight duty of the guard, are fuffered to live every man his own way.

The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the freedom of our tenures, and the profperity of our trade, difpofe us very little to

2

reverence

reverence of superiors. It is not to any great esteem of the officers that the English foldier is indebted for his fpirit in the hour of battle; for perhaps it does not often happen that he thinks much better of his leader than of himself. The French count, who has lately published the Art of War, remarks how much foldiers are animated, when they fee all their dangers fhared by thofe who were born to be their masters, and whom they confider as beings of a different rank. The Englishman defpifes fuch motives of courage: he was born without a master; and looks not on any man, however dignified by lace or titles, as deriving from nature any claims to his refpect, or inheriting any qualities fuperior to

his own.

There are fome, perhaps, who would imagine that every Englishman fights better than the fubjects of abfolute governments, because he has more to defend. But what has the English more than the French foldier? Property they are both commonly without. Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or ftarving; and this choice is, I fuppofe, equally allowed in every country. The English foldier seldom has his head very full of the conftitution; nor has there been, for more than a century, any war that put the property or liberty of a fingle Englishman in danger.

Whence then is the courage of the English vulgar? It proceeds, in my opinion, from that diffolution of dependance which obliges every man to regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he has no need of any fervile arts: he

may