During this reign the pay of the foot soldier was reduced to 6d., that of the other grades remaining about the same; and so it continued, still 6d., in the establishment of William III. in 1699; when, however, the pay of the trooper was 1s. 6d., and that of the private dragoon 1s. 2d. At this period the corporal of horse received 2s. 6d., as much as the surgeon's mate, and within 6d. of the pay of the cornet. Chaplains were borne upon the regimental books during the reigns of Charles II. and William III., at the same rate of pay as in Cromwell's establishment; but in the Irish regiments pipers were added at 1s. a day in the former reign; perhaps to balance the account in favour of the more joyous sentiments of the Restoration.

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In the earlier periods to which these accounts refer, it is plain that there could have been no very great difference of condition between the private soldier and the officer. gradation of pay in Queen Elizabeth's bands of horse, from the 1s. 3d. of the trooper to the 2s. of the cornet and lieutenant; and in her companies of foot, from the 8d. of the soldier to the 1s. of the sergeant and surgeon, and on to the 1s. 6d. of the ensign, is so easy as to shew that, without doubt, there could be no very great obstacle in the way of transition from one of these ranks to the other. From 1655 down to the present century, the value of the labour of the common soldier was proportionately less than before-the population was increasing, but the relative money estimation of the positions of the commissioned and the non-commissioned officer indicated no marked difference of social rank between them. And this position is further strengthened by such facts as the pay lists disclose, in regard to the status of the civil officers of the army in those days. Thus the pay of the trooper of the king's guard of horse in the Irish establishment in 1672 was

£3 10s. (it was at that date reduced from £4 18s.) per month of twentyeight days, or £45 10s. a year, the pay of the advocate-general and chirurgeongeneral of the army being each only £112 a year. In William's army in 1699, the pay of these considerable officers was 6s. 8d. a day, that of the corporal of horse and private trooper being, as we have stated, respectively 2s. 6d. and 1s. 6d. The natural inference from these facts and figures would seem to us to be, that long after the diminished value of mere manual labour brought down the pay of the private soldier and introduced a lower class of men into the ranks, these continued to be freely supplied with persons of a better condition. For such recruits the higher pay in the horse and dragoon regiments was doubtless intended, and the facility of advancement through the grades (then relatively higher) of corporal and sergeant to those of ensign or cornet must have been to them a sufficient inducement to take service. We are not, however, left without more direct evidence that this was the case.

Whatever may be thought of the morality of contracts for mercenary military service, there can, we believe, be no difference of opinion with respect to the fact, that the most perfect professional soldiers of modern times were the English, Scotch, and Irish mercenaries who served upon all sides during the continental wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among those bands the custom was for the young soldier to begin in the lowest rank, from which promotion was free, though often very slow, through the grades of corporal, furer, and sergeant, to the highest posts; to the attainment of which "all brave cavaliers, of minde to follow the laudable profession of armes," were expected to look "not grudging, though their advancement and preferment came not at first, but with patience to await God's blessing." In the Thirty Years War, the regiments were commonly raised under contracts made by men of known military character with one or other of the belligerent sovereigns, the contractor stipulating for the commission of colonel, and having previously made arrangements with certan known officers, willing to accept the command of companies, and to

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take a part in the labour of recruiting. These, then, went to work to raise their respective contingents among their kinsmen, connexions, or dependents, as they best could; and the hopes of promotion they were able to kindle, by pointing to the personal history of themselves and their chiefs, were assuredly their most effective recruiting agents. Thus we find Munro recounting the story of his chiefe and cosen the Baron of Fowles, who, having redacted his estate to a weake point, went beyond sea a volunteer to Germany with MacKeye's regiment, well accompanied with a part of his nearest friends; and having the patience to attend his fortune, ultimately was colonel of horse and foot, under the invincible King of Sweden. The example, no doubt, produced its desired effect in animating other cavaliers, borne of lesse fortunes, "rather to live honourably abroade, and with credit, than to encroach (as many do) on their friends at home, as we say in Scotland, leaping at the half loafe, while as others through vertue live nobly abroad, served with silver plate and attendance." We have known, in our time, many a gentle Irish house where this exhortation would have been suitable; aye, and as effectual as it was among the cadets of Munro, M'Leod, and M'Kay, if only it could be delivered with any show of sincerity and truth. The prizes in the lottery in which those worthies took tickets in their day, were neither more numerous, nor perhaps more certain of attainment than are those in the game of military life at the present day; but to try one's chance was not then to plunge into hopeless degradation. The common soldier knew that he must expect to attend his fortune long, and that he might never arrive at it; but he need not forfeit his self-respect in the interval ; and even though he were to perish in the way of preferment, he might count upon dying with fame and more credit than if he were to arrive at the end in his peaceful home. It is in the spirit of the recruiting sergeant rather than of the philosopher, we would ask for a comparative consideration of the effects upon the condition and conduct of the private soldier, of Lord Raglan's nominal lists of killed, wounded, and missing, or the returns from the hospital at Scutari and of

It is

Munro's record of sundry worthy young gentlemen musketiers of the colonel's own companie, who, at the passe of Oldenburgh, did lie on the place in defence of it; or of "one rare spark, being a resolute fix souldier with a musket as ever he commanded, who dyed of the pest, called Andrew Munro, who, being but eighteen years of age, though little of stature, no toyle nor travel could overset him; and as he was stoute so he was merry and sociable without offence." plain, even from such incidental allusions as these, that the common soldier of those days was not necessarily an outcast, and that he was often a gentleman of the same social rank and of as good blood as his officer. The infusion of the element of gentility into the regimental ranks, it is also manifest, had the effect of raising the body of non-commissioned officers to the level of gentlemen. They did not scruple to redress certain injuries with their own swords; they were expected to maintain their honour in private combat against any one who might impugn it; and they sat upon courts martial, and joined in trying their comrades for the gravest offences. Thus, a sergeant of MacKeye's regiment is described by Munro as having, in his presence, taken summary vengeance upon an officer of another corps, for an injury offered to one of his comrades.

"A Dutch captaine (he says) having, out of mad humour, mutilated a souldier of my captaine's company of one finger, the souldier complaining to me, I made my lieutenant-colonel acquainted with the matter, who sent to the captaine to know his reason; the captaine not repenting of the wrong done, but rather bragging he would second the first with a greater, he comming through my quarters, I being exercising the company, the sergeant overtakes him, and almost kill'd him, who made no defence, neither pressed ever to be repaired of his wrongs."

Upon another occasion, Master William Forbesse, the chaplain, after recommending the successe to the Lord, which seems to have been always done as near as possible to the enemy, went on to remarke the men's carriage, and having found a sergeant neglecting his duty and his honour at such a

time, he chid him, and subsequently revealed him unto the colonel. The parties being confronted, the sergeant denied the accusation, and the preacher offered to fight in support of it; whereupon the sergeant was cashiered, and his place given to a worthier, called Mungo Gray, a gentleman of good worth and of much courage. The cashiered sergeant, touching whose name a discreet silence is observed, never called Master William to account, for which he was evill thought of; so that he retired home and quit the warres.

The manner of administering justice under articles of war, in those days, is described by Munro as by a president or judge, he amongst us present having the command, to whom his Majesty joynes as assessor to the judge an auditor for doing of justice; our assissers or jury we have not to seeke, viz., a competent number of thirteene of our own regiment -officers, captaines, lieutenants, antients, sergeants, and corporalls, till our number be full." This description may disgust strict disciplinarians of the present day; but it will scarcely fail to convince them that the non-commissioned officer of those times of earnest, genuine, military life was a gentleman-soldier. fresh interest is given to the record, by the fact that a modern military writer, thoroughly conversant with his subject, "ventures to submit, though with the almost certainty of giving offence," that the ancient practice should be revived.* It does not seem to have prevented the doing of rigid justice, which we find exemplified in the execution of Andrew Munro, doubtless of the blood and lineage of the narrator, for the slight offence of beating a burgher of Stettin.

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We have seen how some of the most distinguished services of the Irish Brigade were performed by reformed officers, as the phrase was; that is, officers reduced to serve in the ranks, in consequence of their excessive number; and we cannot suppose that those gentlemen forfeited either their self-respect or social position, while they discharged the duties of common soldiers, and subsisted upon five-pence

a-day. That a proportion of gentlemen should always serve in the ranks of the Irish regiments in the French service was, indeed, arranged in the first formation of the brigade; with a view, apparently, to the business of recruiting the corps from Ireland or among Irishmen. In Mountcashel's regiment one of the six exchanged by James II. for seven French battalions in 1689-there was an establishment of twenty cadets, at ten sous per day; and in Dillon's regiment, sixteen cadets were provided for in 1703. After 1744, sixteen cadets were given to each Irish regiment in the French service, with a daily pay of thirteen sous. In none of these cases did the course or mode of promotion offer any difficulty. In the regiments of the Irish Brigade, the reformed officers and cadets filled the higher places vacated by death or retirement; and in the earlier British mercenary regiments to which we have referred, the officers appear to have been invariably selected from the ranks. Colonel Munro incidentally tells that such was his own case, in adducing as an instance of the strict discipline of his early days, that he was made to stand sentry for nine hours at the Louvre gate, for sleeping a little too long in the morning; and his casual records of incidents in MacKeye's regiment show how the matter was managed there. Upon one occasion we find that "Patrick Dunbarre, a young gentleman of worth and merit, was advanced to be ensigne ;" upon another, that one of the captaines having died, Lieutenant David Innes was made captain, Ensign Burton lieutenant, Sergeant Andrew Rosse and Mungo Gray-the same, we presume, who owed his first advancement to the pugnacious propensities of Master William Forbesse-ensigns. Each regiment was then a training college, in which the professional and social qualities of the students were moulded and diligently inquired into, after a fashion which altogether pre cluded imposture. There was по making up-grinding, we believe, is the technical phrase for that exaraination. The course of education was conducted in the field, and the examiners were comrades and superiors,

whose comfort, safety, and reputation depended upon the distribution of the right men into the right places. The force with which public opinion was brought to bear under such a system, is shown to some extent in the anecdote we have recounted of the regimental chaplain. Left thus freely to operate, it must, in the face of an enemy, have been more than a match for any conceivable power of human corruption. A true gentleman-soldier was thus formed, bound by the strongest ties to his colours and his comrades, restrained within the path of professional duty by the strictest even though the narrowest rules, animated by an earnest if not a very exalted ambition.

The practical qualities of the soldiery of the commonwealth were proved at Naseby, Marston Moor, Dundee, and Worcester. The design upon which they were formed was expounded by Cromwell, in his well known account of his conversation upon the subject with Hampden, which, as it expresses very shortly our view of the theory that should guide the formation of an army, we shall venture to recall to the recollection of our readers :-" Your troops, said I (Cromwell), are most of them old decayed serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; and, said I, their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and persons of quality. Do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour, and courage, and resolution in them? Truly, I prescribed him in this manner conscientiously, and truly I did tell him, you must get men of a spirit, and take it not ill what I say (I know you will not), of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go, or else I am sure you will be beaten still. I told him so, I did, seeing he was a wise and worthy person; and he did think that I talked a good notion, but an impracticable one. Truly, I told him that I would do something in it. I did so, and truly I must needs say that to you (impute it to what you please), I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, and made some conscience of what they did; and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten ; and whenever they were engaged

against the enemy, they beat continually." Cromwell understood the true principle of the formation of armies, and his men were, as Whitelocke tells us, for the most part freeholders and freeholders' sons. They were gentlemen-soldiers, who recognised a point of honour, although they might not have called it by that name, and who squared their actions by a notion of right. They were not outcasts, seeking refuge from a gaol or destitution under their colours, and bound to them by fear of the lash.

The reasons assigned by Cromwell for substituting men of honour-or, as he phrased it, men of conscience—for the base and mean fellows that first followed the parliament drums, are sufficient evidence of the quality of the royal army at that time. The king's troops were gentlemen's sons and persons of quality; and it is known that Monk, the Restorer, himself served as a private soldier in the fleet, in 1626, when he found it convenient to leave England in order to escape an action brought against him for cudgelling the under-sheriff of Devon. The future Duke of Albemarle, at the time a man of quality, lost no caste, suffered no degradation, by that companionship; and sevenand-thirty years later we find Evelyn recording, on the 4th of July, 1663, that Monk, the former private soldier of the fleet, led, at a review, 4,000 of his Majesty's Horse and Foot Guards, consisting of gentlemen of quality and veteran souldiers. Among them, the "old Earl of Cleveland trail'd a pike, and led the right-hand file in a foote company, commanded by ye Lord Wentworth, his son; a worthy spectacle and example” which truly so it was.

An inquiry into the personal history of the soldiers of fortune employed in the various grades, high and low, during the wars of William III. and Anne, would lead to the exploration of a wide field of romance in real life which our present limits forbid us to enter upon. It is, nevertheless, well worthy of examination, as well for the purposes of the political philosopher as of the novelist or historian. Many a strange eventful tale might have been told by the watch fires of Caillemotte's and Ruvigni's Huguenot regiments in the Irish

campaign of 1690; and on the memorable 1st of July many a true gentleman-soldier's heart bounded in the breast of a private sentinel, to the sound of the stirring words, "Gentlemen, there are your persecutors!" A curious examination might trace the honourable origin of many worthy and even of some noble houses to men of gentle birth, sufferers for conscience sake, who on that eventful day forded the Boyne, musket in hand. Nor would a select biography of private soldiers in Marlborough's armies be much less interesting to a thoughtful student of the military art. We are told by Archdeacon Coxe, that many of them were "the refuse and the dregs of the nation;" but true as that description undoubtedly was, it is only necessary to read the truthful fictions of Defoe, to be convinced that such a degree of intimacy occasionally subsisted between officers and men in those days, as is sufficient to prove that there was among the latter a large infusion of the gentle element. There were probably no such persons as Christian Davies and Captain Carleton, but their adventures are as truthful as those of Nelson or Wellington, and they plainly show that when they were written no impassable social gulf separated the private soldier from the officer, or necessarily restrained the former within the bounds of a Pariah caste. It was, doubtless, to the influence of that element in the society of the camp, fully as much as to religious practices, that we must attribute the change, under the operation of which Marlborough's poor soldiers became at the close of one or two campaigns, civil, sensible, and clean, and possessed of an air and spirit above the vulgar." Dr. Jackson attributes the perfection of military discipline and promptitude in movement attained by Marlborough's army to the higher tone of the troops. "The nation was then warlike, and it possessed a republican spirit. The object of the service was a high object the protection of Europe from the fangs of an ambitious prince. This idea, proclaimed in the wars of Queen Anne, made the soldier in some degree a party in the case."

When those wars terminated, "the spirit of Marlborough and Peterbcrough being withdrawn from the army, the military cause, instead of advancing, appeared to retrograde. The allurements of gain from manufacture and trade supplanted the ideas of national glory from conquest; and as from that, or other cause, the ranks of the English army were chiefly filled by the outcasts of the English population, the English army was little distinguished in the field until the latter years of the war of 1756."*

We have abundant evidence in the writings of the novelists and humourists of the period, that during the interval alluded to by Jackson, the spirit of the army was broken by debasement of the upper as well as of the lower grades. A vile traffic in commissions was established, which reduced the tone of the subaltern officers nearly to a level with that of the outcasts in the ranks. A pair of colours was a common gift from a fashionable lady to her decayed footman, and was often a great lord's reward to his pimp. Such base and mean fellows of course worked towards promotion by the most contemptible arts. They were obliged to submit to be passed by, when a bishop pensioned off a gentleman of his household by endowing him with a company of foot. Somewhat of a revival of military spirit in the army was brought about by the national enthusiasm that followed upon the exploits and death of Wolfe; and the fierce wars that raged during the remainder of the eighteenth and first years of the present century prevented the mischievous "principle of the gentleman," condemned by the Duke of Wellington, from working the evil it has since accomplished. In the artillery and horse regiments, during the latter half of the last century, the ranks were filled with respectable young men, sons of farmers and tradesmen, and occasionally even of small gentry. It is within our own knowledge, that two gentlemen born, who died generals but a few years since, entered the Irish artillery as private gunners, and subsequently held important commands in the regiment when the English and Irish corps were