No reliance can be placed on the conduct of troops in action with the enemy, who have been accustomed to plunder, and those officers alone can expect to derive honour in the day of battle from the conduct of the troops under their command, who shall have forced them, by their attention and exertions, to behave as good soldiers ought in their cantonments, their quarters, and their camps.
March 5, 1814.
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English officers are very strictly instructed, and those who mean to serve their country well must obey their instructions, however fearless they may be of responsibility. Indeed, I attribute this fearlessness very much to the determination never to disobey, as long as the circumstances exist under which an order is given.
April 16, 1814.
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French Feelings about the Slave Trade.
You (Mr. Wilberforce) judge most correctly regarding the state of the public mind here upon this question. Not only is there no information, but, because England takes an interest in the question, it is impossible to convey any through the only channel which would be at all effectual, viz., the daily press. Nobody reads anything but the newspapers; but it is impossible to get anything inserted in any French newspaper in Paris in favour of the abolition, or even to show that the trade was abolished in England, from motives of humanity. The extracts made from English newspapers upon this, or any other subject, are selected with a view, either to turn our principles and conduct into ridicule, or to exasperate against us still more the people of this country; and therefore the evil cannot be remedied by good publications in the daily press in England, with a view to their being copied into the newspapers here.
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I must say that the daily press in England do us a good deal of harm in this as well as in other questions. We are sure of the king and his government, if he could rely upon the opinion of his people. But as long as our press teems with writings drawn with a view of irritating persons here, we shall never be able to exercise the influence which we ought to have upon this question, and which we really possess.