Those that hear of it at a distance, or read
of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds,
consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an
army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most
successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their
lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory,
smile in death."
The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War
has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.
Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests
with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an
enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and
putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and
groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of
hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelmed in pits, or heaved into the
ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and
enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies
sluggishly melted away.
Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little
effect.
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