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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	think_v	time_n	write_v	3,105	5	5.0991	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75685	As you vvere, or the new French exercise of the infanterie ballanced with the old.		1674 (1674)	Wing A3917A; ESTC R223521	29,647	34

they were members and the nixt file to it This hath farre lesse trouble in it and thogh it can convenientlie enough be done when the Enemie is in front yet it is most proper when he is in your reare The third way is when the first rank having fired stands still the second advanceth sixe foot before the first and fires and so the rest successivelie This according to my weak judgement is the best and hath least embarras in it bot onlie can be used when your Enemie is in your front observe that by all these three ways wherof I have spoke you gaine ground This fourth way which our Author prescrivs seems to me to have two inconveniencies inseparablie joynd with it The first is you onlie keep the ground you have bot gaines none and in the keeping it five parts of sixe of your fire-men look like supplicants and not like Combattants The second inconvenience is that unless your Souldiers by long practise be habituated to this New Mode these who kneel may readilie be more affrayd of the bullets of their fellows who stand behind them then of these of the Enemy who are at a farre greater distance before them for the nearer danger is with the more ouglie and dreadfull aspect it looks This fear which is naturall to man may make Musketeers slow to rise from their kneeling posture and when they are up too slow to give fire Besides all this the Author gives us no rule how ranks shall fire if an enemie be behind them it seems he conceaves Victorie is so entaild to his Masters armies that they need not provide for a retreate for if an enemie chance to be in their reare I suppose none of their ranks must kneele unless it be to beg quarter FRENCH AUTHOR All the ranks before the skirmish renues must be closed up to sixe foot distance Animadversion THe French Original hath it deux pas two paces I doe not thinke the Author meant two paces each of them of five foot ten foot is too great a distance between ranks of Musketeers I suppose he intended two ordinarie steps and the Translator hath done well to make them sixe foot Bot why close up to sixe foot distance were they ever at a greater distance I believe not I will once more put the Author in mind of his own rule concerning distances given by him in the fourth section of the forming his Battaillon in which he orders the Major or Adjutant to observe that the due distance of files when they are not exercising is onlie half a pace distance bot says he when they come to handle their armes or doublings they must open to a whole pace The like certainlie he meant of ranks In marching sixe foot of distance between ranks of Pikemen is necessare because the length of a Pike from a mans shoulder to the but requires no lesse Musketeers in marching requires not so much bot to keep a Decorum they must keep alike distance with the Pikes Since then the Author hath not told us when rankes either were or sould be at a greater distance then sixe foot and since other Tacticks have requird no greater distance why sould ranks before the skirmish beginne says the Author renue says the Translator ulose up to sixe foot distance And till it be explaind to me it is unintelligible FRENCH AUTHOR When they file of on a Bridge before an Enemie after the loose men have passed The Battaillon must be filed of by rank by the Center They must make quarter Conversions and half Conversions Animadversion WHy these two commands are joynd so close together I suppose be onlie known to the Author and some few of his friends to whom he hath reveald the misterie Whether must they make these conversions before they passe the Bridge or upon the Bridge or after they have pasd the Bridge A very hard matter to doe it I thinke in any of the three places thogh no enemie were near and yet here it must be done before an enemie If it be answerd that this command for conversions is generall hath no relation to the passing a Bridge then I say The Author plac'd it ill here It s proper place had been where he spoke of conversions both in his generall and particular exercise What hath conversions to doe with passing a Bridge I have now given the reasons of my dissent from some things of this French way of exercising the Infanterie Notwithstanding whereof I think the Authors invention is to be commended and I sould have imagined that most of his novelties had been practisd onlie within the walls of Paris or among the traind Bands of France if there be any there if the title page of the Book had not told me they are practisd in the armies of his most Christian Majesty Yet for all that I am of the opinion that since the time the Author wrote this peece to this very day the French Kings armies have been so hotlie imployed that they have had bot litle leisure to make use of all his new motions The Author might if he had pleasd have made his Battaillon sixteen deepe as well as eight and therby not onlie have drilld it by quarter files as well if not better bot also have imitated the Macedonian Phalanx which was constantlie composd of sixteen ranks and so have represented to his soldiers the forme divisions and subdivisions of that Battaillon And because many of his motions are meerlie for show and since for such a trifle as is that exercise by quarter files he thinks the deepth of a battel may be changed he might have cast his Battaillon in a Wedge in a Rhombe or Diamant in a Globe or Ring or in a Saw And so have represented to his Spectators the Figures of Battells used by the Antients which to my apprehension wold have been more delightfull to behold then any of his new Evolutions And once more if the deepth of Battaillons may be alterd as the severall fancyes of Drill-masters lead them they may if the Regiment consist of a thousand or a thousand twentie four men as many of our moderne Regiments doe order their files to consist of two and thirtie men and so their Battaillon shall be square of men and with some other rules of the square root they may make Battaillons square of ground doubled Battaillons and Battaillons large of front the art wherof everie Drill-master knoweth not and yet the sight and opening up the use of these thogh now out of fashion wold be of more profit and advantage to an attentive Soldier who minds his business and of more pleasure and delight to the curieous Beholder then any new thing any of them can see in this exercise Bot it will perhaps be answerd me that all these things I have mentiond are old and this Exercise is new and Novelties without all peradventure please best FINIS P. 17. l. 11. for sens read S'ens P. 17. l. 15. for may read way P. 20. l. 29. for methood read method P. 23. l. 18. for files of these ranks read no more bot files P. 24. l. 11. for please read pleased P. 24. l. 13. for leaders of half files read leaders of files P. 24. l. 14. for bringers up of files read bringers up of half files P. 31. l. 17. for vlose read close

of the Authors doublings by Leaders of files Leaders of halfe files and Bringers up of whole files by whole rankes halfe rankes and quarter rankes to the front and the reare of these of the middle to the wings and of the wings to the middle which middle The Translator renders constantlie The Center I hope not a Geometricall one and both of them Inwards are in may be all of them prettie for show bot not the halfe of them for use As to the conveniencie of them let it be considerd that those of them that are most for use are most easie for the Drill-master to teach and the Souldiers to learne wheras these that are meerlie for show are more difficill both to teach and to learn As to the Exercise by quarter files I suppose these Officers who understand it or thinke they doe so will find worke enough to instruct their Souldiers in it and certainlie much time will be spent before they make them capable to obey readilie and perfectlie the severall commands that belong to it How little it serves for use may be known by this that you must alter the deepth of your battell before you can practise it and the Author himselfe tells you the Battaillon must be eight deepe the reason is cleare because the quarter of that file which is composd of sixe men is one and a halfe and Drill-masters must not be permitted to devide a man in two halfes To prove that this Exercise by quarter files can not be made use of before an Enemie thogh he be at a great distance will be needless labour for I suppose it will not be denyed by the Author himselfe or any of his Abettors yea I thinke he tacitlie grants it when he says nothing of it in his particular Exercise for the foot where he speaks of things necessare and ordinare in encounters And yet in former times it hath beene layd downe for a ground that practise before an Enemie is the ultimate end of all militarie Exercises The antient Romans a people that deserved imitation exercisd their soldierie everie day summer and winter yet everie point of their exercise was not onlie frequentlie bot punctuallie practisd before an enemie which made the Jewish Historian Josephus say that the militarie Exercises of the Romans were bloodless Battels and their Battels were bloodie Exercises This exercise by quarter files cannot be made use of bot in these Bodies the quarters of whose files terminats in an equall number of men therfor you can not exercise by quarter files when your file is ten deepe as all the Infanterie of Europe was fiftie years agoe because the fourth part of ten is two and a halfe nor can you doe it when your file is sixe deepe as most if not all Europaan foot now are because the fourth part of sixe is one and a halfe and yet both ten and sixe are equall numbers Let it be a rule to those who exercise by quarter files that That equall number whose quarter terminats in an equall number is a number proper for them and onlie proper for them such are 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40. Bot the nixt equall number to any of these will not serve their turne a 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 and 38 because the quarters of all these terminates in an unequall and od number or rather in a number and the halfe of an unite as the quarter of 14 is 3 ½ the quarter of 22 is 5 ½ the quarter of 26 is 6 ½ and so of all the rest These who intend to make use of this exercise for show for I hope it pretends to nothing of necessitie had need to keepe constantlie the same men in these same rankes and files wherin they were when they were first exercised that way for if any of them be changd from their former stations The Drill-master shall have a new worke to beginne againe with them As by example The first and second men in the file make one quarter of it The third and fourth make the second quarter The fifth and sixth make the third and the seventh eight make the fourth quarter of the file Now if the men who have stood it may be sixe or seven dayes in one and the same place of the file have cund somthing of this abstruse Doctrine that is lecturd to them doe not change them or their stations If you doe your former labour is lost you must beginne againe because you have neither the Leaders nor followers of quarter files that you had before It is not so in the old and ordinare commands of exercise the performance wherof is with much lesse difficultie And trulie in this quarter-file exercise as the Author descrives it Officers wold not onlie be of a quick apprehension to understand all the hard words of command used in it bot they wold likewise have very tenacious memories to retaine them and these who have not I sould advise to exercise by booke bot then what shall become of the Souldiers that cannot read And thogh they could yet have no lessons writ for them how to obey these difficill commands Indeed I wold have lookd upon it as a charitable act of the Author and yet no more as what he was bound to doe both to have set down rules how all his new orders sould be obeyed and figures representing them all to the eye This all Tacticks and Masters of exercise before him thought themselvs obligd to doe In this he had done himselfe much right for then he had not left the rarities of his Invention to be misunderstood by the weake apprehensions of vulgar capacities who cannot reach his meaning I professe ingenuouslie that after some studie I fancy I have the Ideas of these motions or notions call them which you will in my head bot nixt morning I am to seek them nor can I find them till I find my Booke and then I must studie them de novo Let other Officers Drill-masters and Souldiers have as much braine as they will sure I am they have got worke enough cut out for them And that Reader of a Countrey Church who durst not hazard to read the names of Shadrach Meschah and Abednego for feare he sould not pronounce them distinctlie bot gravelie calld them the three Gentlemen with the difficill names wold rather have quitted his office then adventured either to give or receave these hard words of command of this exercise Take two of them for example Quarter files in front and reare take care To the right and left Quarter files of the front and reare double your ranks in front and reare upon the quarter files of the Center on the wings March march And within a litle Quarter files in the Center take heed to your selvs To the right and left Quarter files in the Center double your ranks in front and reare on the quarter files of the front and reare inwards March march Certainlie these words are so long