is likewise to be remembered, my lords, that a French officer is
supported with pay not much larger than that of a private soldier among
us, and that, therefore, the argument which arises from the necessity of
frugality is not of the same force in both nations.

There is yet another reason why the French are under the necessity of
employing more officers than any other nation: the strength of their
armies consists in their gentlemen, who cannot be expected to serve
without some command: the common soldiers of the French army are a mean,
spiritless, despicable herd, fit only to drudge as pioneers, to raise
intrenchments, and to dig mines, but without courage to face an enemy,
or to proceed with vigour in the face of danger.

Their gentlemen, my lords, are of a very different character; jealous of
their honour, and conscious of their birth, eager of distinction, and
ambitious of preferment. They have, commonly, their education in the
army, and have no expectations of acquiring fortunes equal to their
desires by any other profession, and are, therefore, intent upon the
improvement of every opportunity which is offered them of increasing
their knowledge and exalting their reputation.

To the spirit of these men, my lords, are the French armies indebted for
all their victories, and to them is to be attributed the present
perfection of the art of war. They have the vigilance and perseverance
of Romans joined with the natural vivacity and expedition of their own
nation.

We are, therefore, not to wonder, my lords, that there is in the French
armies an establishment for more gentlemen than in other countries,
where the disparity between the military virtues of the higher and lower
classes of men is less conspicuous. In the troops of that nation nothing
is expected but from the officers, but in ours the common soldier meets
danger with equal intrepidity, and scorns to see himself excelled by his
officer in courage or in zeal.

We are, therefore, my lords, under no necessity of burdening our country
with the expense of new commissions, which, in the army, will be
superfluous, and, in the state, dangerous, as they will fill our senate
with new dependents, and our corporations with new adherents to the
minister, whose steady perseverance in his favourite scheme of
senatorial subordination, will be, perhaps, the only occasion of these
new levies, or, at least, has hindered the right application of our
standing troops. For what