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 authoritatively 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.

Under 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

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 applicacation to the conduct of military affairs of the common rules of prudence and good sense, which every successful man of business in England employs unceasingly in the management of his daily

transactions.

Why the soldiers of Cromwell and the seamen of Blake were the best the world ever saw, will 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 countrymen, the Ironsides of Cromwell. The Duke of Wellington thus writes on the 18th of July, 1813, soon after the battle of Vittoria :-"It is an unrivalled 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.'

* Gurwood's Selections from the Duke of Wellington's Despatches, p. 713, No. 799.

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: Gurwood's Selections, p. 929.

† Memorandum on plan for altering the discipline of the army, Gurwood's Selections, p. 920. See, in the same work (p. 626), General Order as to the officers commanding companies inspecting 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 engaged for five minutes, ammunition is wanting, and the stores are necessarily exhausted, at a great distance from all means of supplying them." One may judge, by comparing what the Duke of

This indicates some of the points that marked Oliver Cromwell and his Ironside officers as different from our modern idea of officers; and, no doubt, from the royalist as well as the early parliamentary officers of his time. Oliver Cromwell's Ironside officers, though, in the estimation of Lord Hollis, 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 parliamentary 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 cartridgebox.

257

CHAPTER XI.

THE NAVAL POWERS OF EUROPE.

THOUGH 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 sovereignty of the seas may be 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 government 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 fleet of the Parliament 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