“He did know a great deal, for he had mingled among sailors as well as soldiers, so that he could talk freely of actions, attacks, and attempts, battles, blockades, and bombardments, descents and defeats, engagements and expeditions, invasions, reductions, sea-fights and storms, sieges, surprises, skirmishes, repulses, and explosions.”
“We do not wonder at your having entered the army, but a battle must be a terrible thing.”
“That is true, sure enough. It is one thing to hear or to read of a battle, and another to fight in the ranks. War is no child’s play, as every one knows who has seen service. There are different opinions about war: one man sees in it nothing but what is honourable and glorious; another maintains that it is in no case to be justified. It is not for me to decide between the two, seeing that I agree with neither, for while on the one hand I hold it wrong to plunge into war on light grounds when it can be avoided, or when it inflicts a greater evil than it undertakes to remove; on the other, I cannot see how war can be always evaded. If to oppress others be wrong, to allow ourselves to be oppressed can hardly be right; and though conquest and national glory will not justify those who draw the sword, yet, as a nation, we must be other than we are before we could give up what is dearer than life without an effort to defend it. However, my object is not to turn your heads with false notions of honour and glory, that you may long to become Wellingtons and Nelsons, but simply to give, according to your desire, what information I can about soldiers and sailors, and to explain to you the way in which they carry on war.”
“Ay, those are the very things! We want to know everything about them. We saw a sailor yesterday; and the road seemed hardly broad enough for him, he reeled about so much from one side to the other.”
“Jack-tars too often fall into this error; they are too often half-seas-over before they are out of port, and they are usually the most steady when being tossed about on the ocean.”
“That sounds comical, however.”
“Perhaps it does, but I wish to be pointed in my remarks, that there may be some likelihood of your remembering what I say. The army, from the commander-in-chief to the men in the ranks, should aim at respectability. A general should never be without a good private character, and a private should be generally acknowledged as a man of courage and sobriety. As a standing rule, a soldier under arms should not be above doing his duty: though he wears a red coat he must be a true blue, and peacefully preserve, in every situation, the articles of war.”
CHAPTER II.
A general rule for the conduct of a good Soldier.—The beginning of Sailors.—The origin of the British Army.—The oldest regiment in the service.—Description of the Life Guards.—British Soldiers and Sailors the best in the world.—The Flemish brig and the Deal galley.—The French sloop and the British fisherman.—The Black Trumpeter and the bold Soldier.—A Soldier should attend to his own duty.