TO

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

FIELD MARSHAL

THE DUKE OF YORK,

COMMANDER IN CHIEF , See.

Je n’ai point, le sot amour-propre de voir mieux qu’un autre ; si chacun avoitIn memo franchise, il vous tiendroit le mrnie langagc. :

Precis de la Vie Publique du Due D’Otrante.— p. 65.

SIR,

I continue to inscribe this Work to your Royal Highness,because, under your auspices, the British army has arrived at a state ofdiscipline and regulation, by which success abroad has been obtained,and tranquillity at home secured.

The Army stands indebted to you for the confirmation and im-provement of that system which Frederick the Great of Prussia firstreduced to practice, and which has been ably carried into executionby the united efforts of those officers who have acted under yourinfluence.

Victories gained in the field may reflect the greatest honour uponmen that have gallantly fought the battles of their Country; butvictories, after all, are little more than the fruits and consummationof those well digested principles by which the arduous science ofwar is managed, and without which no army can be well conducted,or finally triumphant. Even hc, # who but lately astonished everyquarter of the civilized globe by his military exploits and politicaldaring, might still have stood at the head of a great nation, had hebeen governed by something less intoxicating than mere success.

That soldiers are necessary in every state, the wildest theorist mustacknowledge; and the good or bad direction of their energies alonemakes them a curse or a blessing to community.

Five and twenty years hard experience in a neighbouring countrymust have convinced mankind, that mere abstract reasoning is notsufficient to cope with the vices and frailties of human nature. Thedissolution of one frame of government may be effected by arms, butunless arms be resorted to for the support of another, anarchy must

* Bonaparte.

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