382

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

of his troops than to their organization and discipline.He had boasted of having so many thousand men, and he(in my opinion) injudiciously allowed of a relaxed state ofdiscipline, in order to encourage the enlistment of volun-teers, the inscriptions to the National Guards, and thecontentment of the conscripts in their new mode of existence.He, above most other men, ought to have known theadvantages of a small well disciplined army over one farmore numerous, deficient in that unity of feeling and ofaction that constitutes military pow r er. He had cause torepent his error, on which it is not necessary to dwell anyfurther.

Injustice to Joseph Buonaparte, it must he allowed thatJoachim, in some instances of improvement, did but giveeffect or completion to those that by King Joseph had beenprojected.

On a beautiful fertile plain, yielding quintuple crops eachyear, on the Capua road just out of Naples, at the top of ahill called Capo di Chino, Joachim fairly purchased out ofhis own private funds, a piece of ground exactly one milesquare. This was cleared of trees and levelled, and coveredwith turf, and under the name of “Campo Marte,” devotedto the exercise and reviews of troops. Near Naples, thereare no wastes, or “ commons,” or “ greens,” where even asingle battalion of soldiers could be exercised. Every inchof ground is cultivated like a beautiful garden. Such aplace became indispensable to a warlike sovereign, whocould not think of trampling under foot-the grass and cornof his industrious people. At the time his enemies, and I wellremember most of the English at Naples, cast all sorts ofblame on him, for his construction of the tc Campo Marte,”whereas his legitimate Bourbon predecessors were neverblamed for reviewing their troops on the valuable growingcrops of their “ subjects.” Such is human nature ! Pre-

*