s on the part of their troops, but from
utter incapacity when the hour of trial came. Those who succeeded
were men always noted for caring something more about the hearts than
the whiskers and buttons of their men. That the officer who delights
in harassing his regiment in times of peace will fail with it in
times of war and scenes of peril seems to me to be a rule almost as
well established as that he, who in the junior ranks of the army
delights most to kick against authority, is always found the most
disposed to abuse it when he gets to the higher. In long intervals of
peace, the only prominent military characters are commonly such
martinets; and hence the failures so generally experienced in the
beginning of a war after such an interval. Whitelocks are chosen for
command, till Wolfes and Wellingtons find Chathams and Wellesleys to
climb up by.

To govern those whose mental and physical energies we require for our
subsistence and support by the lash alone is so easy, so simple a
mode of bending them to our will, and making them act strictly and
instantly in conformity to it, that it is not at all surprising to
find so many of those who have been accustomed to it, and are not
themselves liable to have the lash inflicted upon them, advocating
its free use. In China the Emperor has his generals flogged, and
finds the lash so efficacious in bending them to his will that
nothing would persuade him that it could ever be safely dispensed
with. In some parts of Germany they had the officers flogged, and
princes and generals found this so very efficacious in making those
act in conformity to their will that they found it difficult to
believe that any army could be well managed without it. In other
Christian armies the officers are exempted from the lash, but they
use it freely upon all under them; and it would be exceedingly
difficult to convince the greater part of these officers that the
free use of the lash is not indispensably necessary, nay, that the
men do not themselves like to be flogged, as eels like to be skinned,
when they once get used to it. Ask the slave-holders of the southern
states of America whether any society can be well constituted unless
the greater part of those upon the sweat of whose brow the community
depends for their subsistence are made by law liable to be bought,
sold, and driven to their daily labour with the lash; they will one
and all say No; and yet there are doubtless many very excellent an