prevent us from quoting more than one case, but it is sufficiently to the purpose. During the war in Upper Canada, two soldiers of the 49th Regiment were posted in front of a small bridge that crossed a ravine or rivulet, and were ordered, for what reason we know not, to defend it to the last. They were there surrounded by an entire division of the American army, and asked to surrender, but regardless of the inevitable consequence of resistance, and mindful only of their orders, these brave men rejected the offer, and fell nobly fighting on the post intrusted to their charge. Greece would have erected statues to their memory, and Leonidas has been justly immortalized for doing nothing more.

Without, at present, entering into any discussion as to the improvements that might be made in our mode of tactical training, we may simply ask whether the actions above cited would not furnish better hints for a British system of tactics, than the old German Regulations of Lascy and Saldern, remodelled in 1824, and so erroneously called new, though not containing a single new principle; that is, containing nothing that any one properly acquainted with Dundas's book might not easily have performed off-hand on any morning parade.

Many of the causes of that insufficiency, of which we have been speaking, lie beyond the sphere of our present inquiry; but the principal blame for having occasioned so much weakness and bloodshed, must be ascribed to that factious opposition which, aided by an ignorant and libellous press, strove from the very commencement of the war, to embarrass the Government, and to crush the rising spirit of the army by every measure of insult and oppression. One set of men were found sufficiently ignorant of the constitution of their country, to suppose that the liberty of England could be overthrown by English soldiers, who were consequently looked upon as enemies, and treated accordingly. Another set, in utter defiance of all history, ridiculed the idea of an English army being able to contend against the legions of France, laughed at our pretensions to military knowledge, prophesied only disaster, ruined the army in the estimation of the country, and forced upon the Government, never distinguished for the vigour of its foreign or military policy, a line of conduct towards the profession, that for a long time rendered the developement of all military talent, pride, and exertion, next to impossible. To husband our resources, in order probably to allow the enemy to gain strength, was the constant cry, but not a single voice was raised in favour of a bold and noble system of military policy becoming our former deeds in arms and national fame. One brave and generous spirit who, by mere appeals to history, and to the actions of our seamen, should have put down these mouthings of the pompous, and the sneers of the supercilious, would then have been worth a hundred thousand men; but none such appeared: and though the British army that landed in Egypt was proclaimed by that action alone the first army that Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman legions, still it could not shake the cowardly spirit that

* They have done so before, it may be said. No, they only overthrew a Parliament that had usurped all the power of the Government, and overthrown the liberties of the country.

years of falsehood and misrepresentation had cast over the country at large; and the empires of the Continent were one after the other allowed to fall under the blows of France, whilst the British Government was shamefully forced to keep the never-conquered soldiers of England idling at home out of harm's way. What was the end of a drama now about to be acted over again? After armies had been frittered away in distant enterprises, that, till the Spanish revolution, led to no efficient result, the tide of war, as if in awful mockery of the feebleness with which it had been conducted, rolled back again to the very spot that a quarter of a century before had witnessed its commencement; and where at last 25,000 British soldiers, aided by the very same allies at whose side they had fought at the outset of the contest, decided its fate in one single battle; leaving the torrents of gallant blood that had been shed, and the millions of treasure that had been expended from the day of Valmy to that of Waterloo, a reproach to the past, and a warning to the future. But the warning is not attended to; for though the army have by their gallantry fought themselves into favour with the nation at large, yet there is still a numerous party, who, with the facts just stated full in their recollection, are endeavouring to force the country into the same line of conduct that led to so much loss and suffering. Every measure that can directly or indirectly detract from the honour or character of the army, every piece of penny wisdom that can diminish its number or comforts, though sure to end in pound folly, is, year after year, and day after day, forced upon the Government. No circumstance, however trifling, that exaggeration can raise or stupidity construe into a charge against them is passed over; not an apple-stall can be accidentally overset by a passing relief in the streets of London, but the outcry of military oppression is raised and repeated even by grave magistrates on the bench. In a riot, a soldier cannot use the right undeniable to all God's creatures of defending himself, but the yell of military outrage is repeated from dunce to dunce; men who have served with honour and distinction in the profession of arms, the best school perhaps for most official situations, cannot be appointed to any civil department of the State, but the shout of a military government is set up by the whole enlightened crew of modern philosophers. According to them, honour, loyalty, gallantry and patriotism, are public nuisances,† and should be scouted out of society: we are a naval and commercial people, and require no such articles, for they are not exchangeable in the public market. But Tyre, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa, were commercial nations, and what are they? What would our naval and commercial friends the Dutch be, but for that very army it is so much the fashion of a certain set of writers and speakers to traduce? Disband the army, or, what is the same thing, destroy the spirit that alone renders it formidable, and the loss of the East and West Indies, Canada, the Cape, and our Mediterranean possessions are the instantaneous results; for no one who has ever seen a weather-cock veer about upon a London steeple, can well be so simple as to suppose that any

See London Police Reports for 1828.

+ Westminster Review. Mill's History of Chivalry.

spot on earth can now be defended by fleets alone. But if the army cannot be altogether reduced, its pride may be broken and a cheaper commodity may be obtained. Easily, no doubt; but "as ye sow so shall ye reap." Deprive the military profession of the halo that surrounds it; destroy all these energizing sentiments and feelings, (the result of illusion, perhaps,) that still attach themselves in the breast of the soldier, and of the better part of mankind, to the "pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war," and there is an end to the army. Take bright honour out of the scale, extinguish that aspiration after fame and distinction, that longing for danger and the boundless elasticity it confers, and before which obstacles vanish that would make mere calculation shrink back appalled, and the profession of arms becomes one of unrewarded suffering and danger, and the most ungrateful to which men can devote themselves.

What is to be expected from such degraded armies, destitute alike of courage, discipline, and patriotism, may be learned from the late revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and Naples. The records of mankind furnish but one continued proof of the melancholy fact, that armies and arms alone have been able to protect men, whether living in great or in small communities, from the rapacity of those who were strong enough to despoil them. Turn the blood-stained page of history which way you will; let sophistry misrepresent, and party spirit falsify, still is this the grand and leading truth that everywhere presents itself, and naturally calls aloud to arms. The last age witnessed the reign of Catherine the abhorred, and saw her constant aggressions on unoffending Turkey, and the dismemberment of Poland:-as we have, in our day, seen the wars "for power, for plunder, and extended rule," carried on by the different demagogues of France, from the imbecile men of blood, who governed by the guillotine, down to the mighty man of little mind, who reigned by the sword. The very same principles that thus deluged the East and West with blood, and ultimately brought the French to Moscow, and the Tartars from the frontiers of China to the banks of the Seine, are again opposed to each other on more distinct and avowed grounds of hostility. A war of extermination is about to be waged, and it behoves us to ask ourselves what we have to expect from the conquerors. If the autocrates prove victorious, as with ordinary conduct they probably must, will they not strive to extinguish in this country the last sparks of European freedom? If the French prevail, have they not the long and rankling list of defeats from Cressy to unforgiven Waterloo to avenge? Did our boundless aid in the day of danger and adversity make the Continental Sovereigns our friends? or did our generous forgiveness in the hour of victory soothe the wounded pride of vain-glorious France? To talk of the principle of non-intervention under such circumstances, is an idle waste of words, and to act up to it would be criminal. We are the last stay of European liberty and civilization, and must no longer allow ourselves to be guided by the Utopian doctrines of itinerant spouters, or by the idle theories of an ignorant and factious press. We must look to history and experience, "And learn to guide the future by the past."

J. M.

SONG OF A PEASANT GIRL AFTER THE BATTLE OF

LEIPSIC.

You sometimes indulge, Mr. Editor, in a stray song or sonnet. The enclosed is from the German; and if you think it worth a place in your Journal, it is infinitely at your service.

I do not plague you with the original, but will only observe, that the translation is almost literal, and that the only difficulty has been in approaching the former's plaintiveness and simplicity.

THE fight is won! the foe is flying-
Hurrah, my girl! my father cries;
Away vain fears and useless sighing-
For Freedom is the battle's prize.

Yours,

True to his home and country's altars,
Each German lifts the sword to save;
And think, ye maidens, what an honour!
My Henry fights among the brave.

Ah! who shall tell my parting sadness
When glory call'd him to the field;
But now my heart is fill'd with gladness,
Because his courage was our shield.

How often when the news was brought us
Of many a gallant action done,

I said, "Our bands must needs be noble,
For Henry, my beloved, is-one."

But yesterday my joy was doubled,
When down the printed tidings came;
My father read and cried delighted,
And call'd me loudly by my name.

My child-my Bertha-'tis decided!
Again our father-land is free;
And now the terms of peace are settled-
And Henry's surely there to see.

On Saxon ground the foe was routed,
And Leipsic saw the battle's shock;
I scarce can number all the trophies,
Or count the captive crowds we took.
How many waggons deeply laden

With powder and with ball were won;
How many cannon there were taken-
While Henry in the strife was-one.

In every eye is joy and gladness

The shout of Freedom fills the air;
Yet, there be maids who pine in sadness,
Because they had no Henry there.

But hold, my heart! what fearful numbers
I hear of slaughter'd in the fray ;—
How, if my Henry's name's among them-
Ah, no! he was not there that day!

AMICUS.

ON THE DISCIPLINE* OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

"White is the glassy deck without a stain,

Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant walks :
Look on that part which sacred doth remain
For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks,
Silent and fear'd by all-not oft he talks
With aught beneath him, if he would preserve
That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks
Conquest and Fame; but Britons rarely swerve

From Law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve.'

BYRON.

WE have just risen from the perusal of a work on this subject written by Capt. Christopher Biden, an old and meritorious officer of the East India Company's service; and who, from having progressively advanced to his present rank and held the command of two fine ships, may be presumed to understand well what he writes upon. The book is rather discursive in its arrangement, but it presents an aggregate of facts which fully merit the attention of our Government and the public at large. To the gallantry and general merits of our Indiamen, of which he adduces many instances, we willingly add our warm testimony; for certainly, no such efficient traders ever floated upon the waters: and their discomfiture of Admirals Suffrein, Sercey, and Linois, their ready co-operation in various expeditions, and their resolute encounters with formidable frigates, have stamped them with unfading credit. Nor can we forget the glow of gratification with which we observed the astonishment of some Spanish prisoners on board a frigate we then served in, at being told that a fleet which we met off Lintin, consisted of British merchantmen only; for they might easily have been palmed off as line-of-battle-ships. Capt. Biden after reciting several spirited actions, remarks:

“The high order and warlike appearance of the China ships frequently drew forth the highest encomiums from admirals and captains in the navy, and the distinguished approbation of Admirals Cornwallis, Rainier, Sir S. Hood, Lord Exmouth, Ferrier; Captains Pym, Austen, Sir Henry Heathcote, &c. I well remember the favourable notice bestowed on the China fleet by the late Capt. Bissell, who convoyed us an eastern passage to China, in the most able manner. His subsequent melancholy fate off the Isle of France, with the gallant Sir T. Troubridge, deprived the navy of a brave and most able officer.

"The Royal George, in which ship I served for seven successive voyages, was frequently taken for a frigate; and when we fell in with Sir E. Pellew's squadron, the sloop of war sent by the Admiral to speak us, delivered the following message:-Tell the Captain if he had not his main-top-mast staysail in the brails, I should have taken his ship for a frigate; this trifling incident was not lost upon me, and is worthy the notice of every young officer, who should keep his ship in that ship-shape order, and ever do his duty as if all eyes were upon him, particularly when falling in with a ship at sea: sailors are severe critics."

Nor has the gallantry of the mercantile seamen been confined to the floating castles of India; for innumerable encounters with privateers,

* Naval Discipline, &c. &c., by Christopher Biden, late Commander of the Hon. East India Company's ships Royal George, and Princess Charlotte of Wales.