efore, it is surely improper to employ troops
newly collected from shops and villages, and yet more irrational to
trust them to the direction of boys called on this occasion from the
frolicks of a school, or forced from the bosoms of their mothers, and
the softness of the nursery. It is not without compassion, compassion
very far extended, that I consider the unhappy striplings doomed to a
camp, from whom the sun has hitherto been screened, and the wind
excluded, who have been taught, by many tender lectures, the
unwholesomeness of the evening mists and the morning dews, who have been
wrapt in furs in winter, and cooled with fans in summer, who have lived
without any fatigue but that of dress, or any care but that of their
complexion.

Who can forbear, sir, some degree of sympathy, when he sees animals like
these taking their last farewell of the maid that has fed them with
sweetmeats, and defended them from insects; when he sees them drest up
in the habiliments of soldiers, loaded with a sword, and invested with a
command, not to mount the guard at the palace, nor to display their lace
at a review; not to protect ladies at the door of an assembly room, nor
to show their intrepidity at a country fair, but to enter into a kind of
fellowship with the rugged sailor, to hear the tumult of a storm, to
sustain the change of climates, and to be set on shore in an enemy's
dominions?

Surely, he that can see such spectacles without sorrow, must have
hardened his heart beyond the common degrees of cruelty, and it may
reasonably be expected, that he who can propose any method by which such
hardships may be escaped, will be thought entitled to gratitude and
praise.

For my part, I should imagine, sir, that an easy method might be
discovered of obviating such misery, without lessening that number of
officers, which, perhaps, in opposition to reason and experience, some
gentlemen will continue to think necessary, and hope that this may be no
improper time to declare my opinion.

I have observed, that for some time no private centinel has ever risen
to any rank above that of a serjeant, and that commissions have been
reserved as rewards for other services than those of the camp. This
procedure I cannot but think at once impolitick and unjust.

It is impolitick, sir, as it has a natural tendency to extinguish in the
soldiery all emulation and all industry. Soldiers have an equal genius
with other men, and undoubtedly there might