tleman who spoke last, must be acknowledged to have discovered a very
specious method of reasoning, and to have carried his inquiry as far as
speculation without experience can hope to proceed, but has, in my
opinion, admitted a false principle, by which all his argument has been
perplexed.

He supposes, that the advantages must be always in proportion to the
money expended in procuring them, and that, therefore, if five thousand
men, raised at any given cost, will be equal to five thousand, they
ought, if they are regulated according to an establishment of double the
charge, to be able to encounter ten thousand.

But in this supposition, sir, he forgets that the possibility of loss is
to be thrown into the balance against the advantage of the expense
saved, and that though the strength of the troops be not increased in
proportion to the increase of the cost, yet the additional security
against a great loss may justly entitle the most expensive regulation to
the preference.

Suppose five thousand men to be brought into the field against six
thousand; if they can, by multiplying their officers at a double
expense, be enabled to engage successfully a body superiour in number by
only a sixth part, the nation may be justly said to gain all that would
have been lost by suffering a defeat.

That we ought not to choose a worse method when we can discover a
better, is indisputably true, but which method is worse or better, can
be discovered only by experience. The last war has taught us, that our
troops in their present establishment are superiour to the forces of
France, but how much they might suffer by any alteration it is not
possible to foresee.

Success is gained by courage, and courage is produced by an opinion of
superiority; and it may easily be imagined, that our soldiers, who judge
of their own strength only by experience, imagine their own
establishment and discipline advanced to the highest perfection; nor
would they expect any other consequences from an alteration of it, but
weakness and defeats. It is, therefore, dangerous to change the model of
our forces, because it is dangerous to depress the spirit of our
soldiers.

Though it is confessed, sir, that the French, whose officers are still
more numerous, have been conquered by our troops, it must be likewise
alleged, that they had yielded us far easier victories had their
officers been wanting; for to them are they indebted for their conquests
wherever th