the Army. We can trace those failures to no other source, as we know that the means placed at the disposal of the commanders were fully equal to the objects intended to be accomplished. But if we can only account for the failures mentioned by tracing them back to our system of promotion, we can easily account for the success achieved, without sharing with that system a single fragment of laurel. Our success was due to the gallantry of the troops, to the courage and devotedness of the officers, to the intelligence which pervaded all ranks, and which, in the mass, atoned for the loss so often sustained, even in the midst of victory, on particular points, by the mistakes and misconduct of individuals. All this zeal and courage ultimately threw so bright a lustre over the last events of the war, as to cast completely into the shade the recollection of the toil and suffering by which victory had been gained, as well as of the torrents of gallant blood which had so often been wasted, in order to redeem the errors of the rash, the foolish, and the feeble. The sun never shone on a nobler host than the British Army which took the field at the commencement of the Peninsular war. Under fair circumstances, such an army could hardly fail of success; but the splendour of that success must not blind us to the price at which it was purchased, still less should it blind us to the weak points of our system of organistics and training, which rendered that price so fearfully heavy. The drowning honour of the country was brought up by the locks, indeed, but of blood was the sea into which the gallant bands had to plunge before the rescue was achieved. Military men enter the army at an age when they are more likely to take up the opinions already in vogue than to form opinions of their own. They grow to manhood, as I formerly stated, in carrying into effect measures founded on the existing opinions; they become by degrees identified with those views, so that, as years advance and as rank is gained, the ideas become too firmly fixed to be easily shaken by argument or demonstration. This is doubly the case with individuals who have been successful in the profession, and accounts for that tenacious adherence to existing practices for which military men of the highest talents and genius are so often distinguished. But let the unprejudiced officers who served in the Peninsula, and who are capable of forming an opinion of their own, tell us how much more might have been done by individuals of very subordinate rank had they then possessed the knowledge which they derived from subsequent experience and still later reflection. I speak particularly of captains and subalterns, as I belonged to the class, and feel confident that few saw the importance of the troublesome detail duty which so often fell to their share. There was always a readiness to meet danger certainly; every battalion could no doubt have furnished, at any time, a dozen of leaders for forlorn hopes; but with all this alacrity to meet the enemy, there was too often as great a tardiness to perform less brilliant though very essential services. The endless train of orderly and fatiguing duties, so important in the field, were mostly looked upon as unworthy the notice of future generals and marshals, as unworthy the attention of gentlemen who had purchased their rank, and who only waited for opportunities to purchase still higher rank. Can any one look back on the events of that war, and, hand on heart, fairly and openly deny that toil, labour, and suffering were constantly occasioned by the negligent manner in which detail duty was so often slurred ? All this arose from ignorance-an ignorance to which those who come after us will be as liable as were their predecessors, and for the same reason. Professional knowledge and reflection on military subjects is neither called forth nor rewarded. The American war of independence surely gave some insight into the nature of bush-fighting and rifle-practice. But the actors in that contest have long passed away; and if the Army were to take the field in America to-morrow, they would be as ignorant of that species of warfare as they were in 1776. And why should this be so? Simply in order that promotion may be the reward of wealth instead of being the reward of merit. There was no tendency in the Army to collect the scattered facts and causes that led to disaster on one side, or to success on the other; there was no following up of those causes to their dark and hidden springs, so often far removed from the mere surface of events. There was no reasoning, no philosophising on the subject; no attempt to avert by knowledge a recurrence of evils, and to render success as independent as possible of the caprices of fortune. No-the less that was said about failure the better; and if the gallantry of the troops made us victorious on one occasion, why, it would probably do so again. Appeals to authority-the usual resource of the feeble, who cannot appeal to arguments-will prove nothing in a case of this sort. We must appeal to principle; and on what principle, human or divine, can reasoning men defend the system of selling military rank-selling for money the right of exercising over men the power and controul that officers must necessarily exercise over their soldiers in time of peace, and the still more awful power of leading those soldiers into battle in times of war? Is it credible that such things are, and that they are actually defended? The Army has known officers who had attained to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, the highest rank that can be purchased, and who were ultimately forced to leave the service for incapacity or misconduct of some sort or other. But do we know how much unjust suffering, or needless loss, such men occasioned before they were finally dismissed? As there are gradations of demerit as well as of merit, there must occasionally have been men in the service who by good fortune escaped dismissal, and got quietly into higher rank, or out of the Army altogether, leaving subordinates to suffer for their misdeeds and inability. Men in power look too often for implicit obedience alone, and forget that no man can possess a grain of military knowledge without being fully convinced that obedience is the first duty of a soldier. Let us suppose an officer, having purchased his rank, to be arraigned for misconduct in the field, and for having thereby caused the loss of valuable lives; or merely, let us suppose, for having made an entire regiment unhappy by his folly and misconduct-for having driven deserving officers out of the corps, and for having punished deserving soldiers. Might not such a man, on being accused, turn round on the country and say, "I purchased from you the right of commanding these men; you asked me only for money in return for the rank and power which you sold; you required of me neither knowledge, valour, nor wisdom; no, you required only gold, and you got it; and the fruit which you reap is of the seed which you have sown?" Power would, no doubt, bear down such objections, but justice would still be on the side of the defender. It The feeble and partial arguments brought forward to support the present system of promotion may be comprised in a few sentences. is said that purchase hastens promotion, that it tends to check mere patronage, which acts so injuriously in the Navy, and that it enables officers to obtain rank while yet in the active years of life: an advantage not to be had without purchase, as the slow promotion in the Artillery is brought forward to prove. All this is easily answered. Purchase only hastens preferment to the wealthy at the expense of the unwealthy; and when nearly all the commissions that fall vacant are filled up by purchase, there can be little promotion without it. But let the commission be purchased up by the country (as commutation allowances are now given to officers of subordinate rank), and let them be cancelled or filled up according to circumstances, and promotion will soon flow in its natural and regular channel, That purchase checks patronage is altogether an idle assertion. Is there no such thing as giving promotion by purchase from one regiment into another? Is there no such thing as promoting one officer into a West India regiment, and another into a regiment pleasantly situated in England or in the Mediterranean? Who ever heard of a scion of nobility being promoted by purchase to a regiment stationed at Honduras? Perhaps there is no such thing as promoting by purchase a junior officer from one corps over the heads of all the purchasing officers of another? Or do we never see half-pay officers placed on to full-pay in one Gazette, in order that they may sell out, in the next, at the fullpay price, leaving the half-pay officer who was anxious to serve the choice of selling at the half-pay price, or continuing his half-pay and half-dinner existence together? A pretty protection against patronage this indeed! The slow promotion in the Artillery cannot be taken as a criterion of what promotion, without purchase, would be in the Line; because the Artillery is a very limited service, which admits of neither change nor transfer, and into which officers enter after a long course of professional study, and with the general intention of making it their profession for life. Whereas officers are constantly retiring from the Line after a few years' service. Many young men enter the Army only for the purpose of agreeably passing away a few years; and in some circles the service is now looked upon as nothing more than a good finishing school of manners. But if there is long study and no purchase in the Artillery, it must still be recollected that, in military estimation, this non-purchasing branch of the service acted more perfectly up to its duties during the war than either of the other branches of the service. The Cavalry, in which purchase prevails to a greater extent than in the Infantry, were, on the other hand, supposed to have been the least efficient of the three arms. I do not exactly lay this, even if true, to the charge of the Cavalry; for the very qualities most required in their service-dash, daring, and confidence-were the very qualities that our military system and the efforts of modern patriots tended most to repress. The partiality with which promotion is granted in the Navy is no reason why purchase should be allowed in the Army. The Navy is always under the immediate controul of a member of the Government, and is therefore more likely to be made a direct medium for obtaining parliamentary support than the Army has ever been made in our time. But unfairly as naval promotion is said to be distributed, we must still bear in mind that the Navy had swe s, before a British Army ventured to show itself in the field. The Navy, like their comrades, experienced occasional disaster during the war, but it was only in fair and manly fight against bold and superior adversaries; they never, like the British Army at Sacket's Harbour, Platsburg, and Walcheren, fled from phantom hosts and imaginary foes. The Navy often sustained heavy losses; but they never handed brave men, defencelessly, over to useless slaughter, as British soldiers were handed over to slaughter at Buenos Ayres and Rosetta. The Navy may probably have their weak points as well as their neighbours, but they have neither cuirassiers nor one hundred lancers;-they have neither bear-skin caps to make men hideous, nor bayonets to make them ridiculous. Men of high merit, we shall be told, have purchased the rank which they hold in the Army. Most certainly so, and every officer can name many individuals who, by their noble bearing, have shed a lustre over the rank so acquired. Wealth is no bar to merit, and should form no bar to preferment. The mischief is that many men of no merit also purchase rank; and by doing so they may, and often must, exclude meritorious but unwealthy officers from promotion. In the military profession, a profession on which so much depends, there cannot be too great a supply of merit; and by conferring promotion on the wealthier classes only you strike off about one half of the mass of merit which the country could otherwise command,―a diminution of merit for which it must ultimately pay in blood, tears, and shame. How, it will be asked, is the relative merit of individuals to be discovered in the midst of blindness, partialities, and in a time-serving age, if promotion is to be given according to merit alone? All I can say at present is, that if there is a will there is a way. Let merit be looked for and it will be found. Make the reward of merit the foundation of the system, and though many errors may at times be committed, yet must the imperfect working of a good system produce far better results than the most perfect working of a bad one. Providence, for inscrutable purposes no doubt, seems every where to have made man the enemy of man; and the evil passions implanted in the human breast have forced all the nations of the earth to dedicate numbers of their citizens to the profession of arms, in order to protect from violence and aggression the lives and properties of the peaceful and the industrious. But in rightly calling on a portion of their citizens to enter on the toilsome and dangerous trade of war, the nations are, on their part, bound by every sentiment of honour, justice, and humanity to alleviate as far as possible the sufferings of their defenders, and to diminish, by every effort, the dangers to which they are exposed: for what is the plumed helm of the warrior but the garland denoting the victim always ready to be offered up, in melancholy sacrifice, to the blood-stained deity of wrath and war? And the first and best mode of affording this protection is to place the troops under the most efficient leaders that by an honest and zealous search can possibly be discovered. In such a search men must be as little influenced by the rank and station as by the wealth of the candidates; the highest attainable merit alone must be looked for, and that with a total disregard of favour and affection. We want in the Army neither the pedantry of the schools, nor the more useless pedantry of the Martinets. We want high conduct, high feeling, and high character. We want men who by their manners shall gain the affection of the soldiers, and who by their know ledge and bearing shall command the esteem and confidence of these rough and illiterate, but never blind, children of war. In the hour of battle the soldier must feel that in following the command of his officer he is following the surest road to victory. Amid the turmoils of home dissension he must feel that in following the same command he is following the just road of honour, loyalty, and duty. At the voice of his officer the soldier must be deaf to the arts and instigations of professional demagogues and incendiaries. Should he see brothers, friends, and relations, misled by evil counsel, arrayed in opinion against him, he must still feel confident that in obeying the dictates of his superior he is obeying the best dictates of the country. But neither wealth nor rank will ever of themselves inspire men with this sort of confidence. We live in times when the efficiency of armies must not be risked to please either patriotic economists or interested theorists. Our empire extends to every quarter of the globe; and from Lahore to Washington, from Paris to Petersburgh, mighty nations, instigated by envy and ambition, are fully prepared to strike at any weak point that ill-judged economy may have left unguarded. The want or inefficiency of a single battalion, at a proper time or place, may ultimately render necessary the employment of entire armies. And absolute imbecility can alone, in the nineteenth century, talk of returning to the most formidable establishment ever known in earlier times. Not only have our own possessions vastly increased, but independent nations have sprung up in quarters where, a few years ago, feeble colonies alone existed; and states that half a century back exercised little or no influence in Europe have now become empires of threatening and gigantic strength. The events also of the late wars have taught nations to collect, concentrate, and wield their forces in a manner of which no conception could have been formed by our immediate predecessors. In such times the best economy commands us to be always armed, and at every point. At home, the melancholy march of what is called improvement has raised up a numerous population to an inheritance of heart-rending toil and precarious subsistence. Every change of trade, or fashion, brings thousands of able and deserving individuals to the very verge of want; practised agitators, aided by an active and revolutionary press, are always, like exulting demons hovering over their prey, ready to inflame the angry passions, and to instigate the unhappy sufferers to mischief and ruin. And where is the shield to protect us from such ever-threatening storms? Patriotism can hardly be expected from men who know no country but their smoky workshops and the unhappy lanes of manufacturing towns. The reverence once entertained for the old established institutions of the land has been swept away by what is termed Reform, as well as by the means employed to bring about more dangerous innovations. The Church is insulted, long-established authority openly denounced, and the laws are obeyed only because there is an armed force in the background ready to give them effect. The result of our boasted improvements has been to make the security of property and the tranquillity of the country rest entirely on the loyalty and fidelity of the Army. Is this a time for making the wealth of its officers the criterion of professional merit? I pause for an answer, And am, Mr. Editor, your most obedient servant, |