men, and fewer villagers, among our volunteers, than we might and should have had, but for causes to be presently noticed. We have also more men of the middle and upper ranks of society, in proportion to the hardy poor, than would have been inrolled, if those accidental causes had not existed.

The most unfortunate defect of all, however, and which greatly, aggravates the effects of all the rest, is one which might most easily, have been prevented, and which still admits of a remedy. I mean the number of volunteers to be found in every corps, who have passed the meridian of life, or at least the age of juvenile activity and vigour; and yet are indiscriminately mixed in the ranks, with much younger and abler associates.

There is a season of life, when our ductile natures may be most. easily bent to new habits; and when the elasticity of our muscles and animal spirits, is proof against the severest pressure. The same is the season, when brisk and vigorous action is luxury, rather than fatigue; and what we are prone to, by the impulse of nature, even when duty points to repose. The imagination also, is then powerfully impressed by the charms of novelty, in every employment; and sympathies of all kind, but especially in bold and ardent pursuits, have an irresistible influence. If man at such a season of life, has peculiar animal qualifications for a.soldier, much more for a volunteer. If he be fit for gradual and permanent, much more for sudden and unaccustomed, service in war; and especially if that service be of a brisk, active, and laborious kind.

This season is early manhood. It may vary greatly as to age, in different constitutions; but its limits, I conceive, are in general those of the French conscription; namely, from eighteen to twenty-five. Some of these qualities, indeed, belong also to our boyhood, and some of them may be unimpaired at thirty; but I speak of a time, when the body has nearly, or fully acquired its maturity of strength, without any diminution of juvenile spirits.

And here, though it may lead me to digress a little, and upon a subject with which I have no professional acquaintance, I will not suppress an opinion, that France owes her military success, in great, measure, to the youth of her soldiers.

It is a common remark, among those who have had the misfortune to see much of the French armies, that they are almost entirely composed of striplings, or very young men. And indeed how can the case be otherwise? The slaughter of the sanguinary wars, that have raged since 1792, must have left few veterans now remaining, who had served under their lawful sovereign; and the requisitions,

now called conscriptions, by which such immense armies have since been annually raised, have not yet comprised a single man above the age of twenty-five. Reckoning, therefore, from 1792, when that system began, the oldest soldier produced by it, has not yet attained forty; while an equal number at least, even of the earliest requisition, must be seven years younger. But supposing equal numbers to have been raised by it in each year, and to have comprised an equal proportion of men of every age, from eighteen to twenty-five, it would follow, that a majority of the whole, if living, would now be under twenty-nine. The classes, however, who have served the greatest number of years, must, cæteris paribus, have been the most reduced by losses in action, and other casualties of war. Supposing, therefore, that in respect of natural causes of mortality, the chance of a youth of eighteen, to be found alive at the distance of fourteen years, only equals that of a man of twenty-five, it is plain that the surviving conscripts, of a later, must be far more numerous than those of an earlier requisition.

Soldiers thus raised, have a right to be discharged, as I apprehend, when they have passed their twenty-fifth year; but since it is probably a right not much respected in time of war, I will take credit for little or no diminution in the relative numbers of old and new conscripts on this account.

But there remains another consideration of great importance; for it is evident, that each successive conscription, if impartially made, must include a larger proportion than the preceding one, of `men in the earliest stage of the limited time of life. Supposing the last year's levy, for instance, to have been universal, there could be no conscripts of the present year, returned emigrants excepted, but such as have attained the age of eighteen, since the conscription of 1805; and consequently, whatever portion of the people may be actually conscribed, unless there be a partial exemption of the younger classes, which we have no reason whatever to suppose, each successive levy under this system, while it is annually used, must produce a much greater proportion of soldiers of eighteen, than of any other age. But eighteen is probably found an age too early, in many constitutions, for maturity of growth and strength; and therefore I presume it is, that in the last conscription of 80,000 men, for service in the present year, Napoleon has required that they shall all be of the age of twenty, and no more.

On the whole, it seems not too much to conclude, that while the French army comprises very few soldiers who have attained forty, a

great majority of the 600,000 men, of which it is said to consist, are under twenty-five..

Unless this extraordinary circumstance in the constitution of the armies of France, can be regarded as of a neutral or indifferent kind in war, it must be admitted to have favoured their success; for we have wonders enough to account for in their atchievements, without supposing that so striking a physical peculiarity, was a disadvantage to be overcome.

In this respect, the composition of every army which they have conquered, has been very different. The Austrian and Prussian battalions, which they have so strangely overwhelmed, the latter especially, contained a large proportion of old or middle aged soldiers. Perhaps, with equal numbers to the French, they could have counted twice as many years. The same, I apprehend, has been the case with such Russian armies, as have been chiefly engaged in these disastrous wars.

The British army, from its fatal employment in the West Indies, has, alas! not much longevity. A great part of it, has been formed during the last and present war, by very young recruits; and this circumstance also seems, when we regard the success of our arms, rather to support, than oppose, the conclusion to which I reason. I am far from ascribing indeed, to the youth of our soldiery alone, the failure of the enemy's fortune in the field, when opposed to British battalions. The gallantry of our officers and troops, and their hereditary sense of superiority to our insolent neighbours, might sufficiently account for it. But the army of Egypt, I apprehend, had but a small proportion of veterans in the ranks; and the brave corps which so well sustained the military fame of their country at Maida, were chiefly composed of very young men.

I am aware that it has the air of heresy in the science of war, to regard men who have but just emerged from boyhood, as an overmatch for veterans in the field. But if there be any truth in the preceding observations, this is not merely an opinion; it is a fact; and the business is, not to prove, but explain it. The young soldiery of France, have in fact, triumphed over the veteran troops of their continental enemies.

Innumerable attempts have been made at different times, and in reference to the various disasters of our allies, to account for this uniform success of the enemy, by the treason of generals, the disaffection of troops, and by accidents of various kinds; but the solutions are all either inadequate, or highly incredible; as well as inconsistent with each other. Let us try then whether this very disparity of

age between the soldiers of the contending armies, may not, in spite of old received notions, go far to explain the whole.

Buonaparte, and other French generals, have repeatedly spoken of the old tactics with contempt; and it is at length become fashionable, with those who have, as well as with those who have not, some little knowledge of the subject, to cry down the old art of war. We begin to look back on Marlborough and Turenne as drivellers, who did nothing great in comparison with what they might have effected; but spent half an age, in slowly attaining, what ought to have been the work of a month. If, however, Marlborough or Turenne had. commanded the youthful revolutionary armies of France, I cannot help thinking that they would have discovered the same new methods of warfare, which so many French generals have practised, and used them with equal success: for great commanders in all ages, seem to have been men of strong natural parts, who triumphed, not by a pedantic adherence to established rules, but by the application of plain common sense, to the circumstances in which they were placed. It was, I conceive, not difficult to discover that the cautious and dilatory system formerly in vogue, was not fit for those inexhaustible. multitudes of ardent young soldiers, whom France in the delirium of her enthusiasm for liberty, poured forth upon her enemies.

The situation of the republic, at the first, prescribed impetuous and decisive operations; and what was perhaps then but a daring and necessary effort, became afterwards from its signal success, an established new system of war. Without depreciating the value of the discovery, it may with probability be supposed to have been, like many others of great importance, the result of accident, rather than design. Buonaparte's genius may possibly be as great as his fortune; but the new tactics, were Moreau's before they were Buonaparte's, and Pichegru's before they were Moreau's.

All I wish to establish however is, that the success of this new system, has been promoted by the peculiar and advantageous circumstance in question, the youth of the French soldiers. A Frenchman, from the vivacity of his nature, has a juvenile impetuosity even in sober manhood. How much more when sent into the field between 18 and 25. With such a soldiery it might have been difficult to sit down to sieges and blockades; or cautiously to watch the movements of an enemy, as on a chess-board, through a tedious campaign: but it was easy to overwhelm him at once, by a rapid march, and an impetuous attack.

One of the greatest advantages of this grand physical distinction, is the capacity which young men have of sustaining for a long time,

with far less inconvenience than their seniors, an excess of violent exercise; and of this Buonaparte has availed himself beyond any of his predecessors. It is perhaps the chief source of his superiority to them in brilliant atchievements. His astonishing march over Mount Cenis into the plains of Italy; his still more rapid advance from Boulogne to Bavaria and Ulm; what were they, but wonders performed by youthful alacrity and vigour. His enemies were taken by surprise, and ruined, because they thought such marches impossible; and so they would really have been, to elderly or middle aged soldiers.

By the same means, he has been able to make the fruits of a victory decisive, and the rout of an enemy irretrievable, beyond all former example. Not to mention the celerity of his movements after the capitulation of Ulm, the late unprecedented fate of the Prussian army, subsequent to the battle of Auerstadt, affords too strong an instance of it.

I have already touched on that painful subject; and if more need be offered, to illustrate the physical disparity between the pursuers and the pursued, let General Blucher's narrative be read. He does not indeed remark, that his veteran soldiers were opposed to much younger men; but the remark is needless. We find, that though traversing a friendly country, his soldiers were fainting with fatigue and hunger, and dropping, by fifties at a time, on the road; so that at last he brought but a remnant of his original force in miserable plight to Lubeck; while his more vigorous pursuers, followed close at his heels, passed as enemies through the same country which he had previously exhausted, arrived in full force, almost at the same moment with him on the coast of the Baltic, and in such unimpaired spirits, as to storm his batteries before they halted. The contradictions publicly given to this narrative by the enemy, certainly deserve little confidence; otherwise they would greatly strengthen these remarks. But thus much cannot be denied that the French had marched as many miles as the Prussians-that they must have set off with as little food, or else have been more incumbered on their way; and that a friendly territory, in which General Blucher, by spreading his army over a circumference of thirty miles, could hardly obtain refreshment, could not a few hours after, have yielded greater relief to his enemies. At the same time the brave old General speaks, in the highest terms, of the resolution and patience of his troops. They did therefore all that they could.

Something, I admit, should be allowed in this case, for the dif férence between the elation of victory, and the dejection of defeat;