speaking of the same Affair says That the foresaid States could not be induced to maintain Mercenary Forces being sensible of the Difficulties into which the Commonalty of France had brought themselves by the like Concession that Princes might increase their Forces at pleasure and sometimes even when they had obtained Money pay them ill to the vexation and destruction of the poor People and likewise that Kings and Princes not contented with their antient Patrimony were always ready under this pretext to break in upon the Properties of all Men and to raise what Money they pleased That nevertheless they gave him a hundred and twenty thousand Crowns yearly which he soon increased to five hundred thousand But that Burgundy which was the antient Dominion of that Family retained its antient Liberty and could by no means be obliged to pay any part of this new Tax 'T is true Philip de Commines subjoins to the forecited passage that be believes standing Forces may be well employed under a wise King or Prince but that if he be not so or leaves his Children young the use that he or their Governours make of them is not always profitable either for the King or his Subjects If this Addition be his own and not rather an Insertion added by the President of the Parliament of Paris who published and as the foresaid Francis de Beaucaire says he was credibly informed corrupted his Memoirs yet Experience shews him to be mistaken For the Example of his Master Lewis the 11th whom upon many occasions he calls a Wise Prince and those of most Princes under whom standing Forces were first allow'd demonstrates that they are more dangerous under a wise Prince than any other And Reason tells us that if they are the only proper Instruments to introduce Arbitrary Power as shall be made plain a cunning and able Prince who by the World is called a Wise one is more capable of using them to that end than a weak Prince or Governors during a Minority and that a wise Prince having once procured them to be established they will maintain themselves under any I am not ignorant that before this Change Subsidies were often given by Diets States and Parliaments and some raised by the Edicts of Princes for maintaining Wars but these were small and no way sufficient to subsist such numerous Armies as those of the Barons Militia There were likewise Mercenary Troops sometimes entertained by Princes who aimed at Arbitrary Power and by some Common-wealths in time of War for their own defence but these were only Strangers or in very small numbers and held no proportion with those vast Armies of Mercenaries which this change has fix'd upon Europe to her affliction and ruin What I have said hitherto has been always with regard to one or other and often to most Countries in Europe What follows will have a more particular regard to Britain where tho the Power of the Barons be ceased yet no mercenary Troops are yet established The Reason of which is that England had before this great Alteration lost all her Conquests in France the Town of Calais only excepted and that also was taken by the French before the Change was thorowly made So that the Kings of England had no Pretence to keep up Standing Forces either to defend Conquests abroad or to garison a Frontier towards France since the Sea was now become the only Frontier between those two Countries Neither could the Frontier towards Scotland afford any colour to those Princes for raising such Forces since the Kings of Scotland had none and that Scotland was not able to give Money for the subsisting any considerable number 'T is true the Example of France with which Country Scotland had constant correspondence and some French Counsellors about Mary of Guise Queen Dowager and Regent of Scotland induced her to propose a Tax for the subsisting of Mercenary Soldiers to be employed for the defence of the Frontier of Scotland and to ease as was pretended the Barons of that trouble But in that honourable and wise Remonstrance which was made by 300 of the lesser Barons as much dissatisfied with the Lords who by their silence betrayed the publick Liberty as with the Regent her self she was told That their Forefathers had defended themselves and their Fortunes against the English when that Nation was much more powerful than they were at that time and had made frequent incursions into their Country That they themselves had not so far degenerated from their Ancestors to refuse when occasion requir'd to hazard their Lives and Fortunes in the Service of their Country That as to the hiring of Mercenary Soldiers it was a thing of great danger to put the Liberty of Scotland into the hands of Men who are of no Fortunes nor have any hopes but in the publick Calamity who for Money would attempt any thing whose excessive Avarice opportunity would inflame to a desire of all manner of Innovations and whose Faith would follow the Wheel of Fortune That tho these Men should be more mindful of the Duty they owe to their Country than of their own particular Interest was it to be supposed that Mercenaries would sight more bravely for the defence of other Mens Fortunes than the Possessors would do for themselves or their own or that a little Money should excite their ignoble Minds to a higher pitch of Honour than that with which the Barons are inspired when they fight for the preservation of their Fortunes Wives and Children Religion and Liberty That most Men did suspect and apprehend that this new way of making War might be not only useless but dangerous to the Nation since the English if they should imitate the Example might without any great trouble to their People raise far greater Sums for the maintenance of Mercenary Soldiers than Scotland could and by this means not only spoil and lay open the Frontier but penetrate into the Bowels of the Kingdom And that it was in the Militia of the Barons their Ancestors had plac'd their chief Trust for the defence of themselves against a greater Power By these powerful Reasons being made sensible of her Error the Queen desisted from her Demands Her Daughter Queen Mary who as the great Historian says look'd upon the moderate Government of a limited Kingdom to be disgraceful to Monarchs and upon the slavery of the People as the freedom of Kings resolved to have Guards about her Person but could not fall upon a way to compass them for she could find no Pretext unless it were the empty show of Magnificence which belongs to a Court and the Example of Foreign Princes for the former Kings had always trusted themselves to the Faith of the Barons At length upon a false and ridiculous pretence of an Intention in a certain Nobleman to seize her Person she assumed them but they were soon abolished Nor had her Son King James any other Guards whilst he was King of Scotland only than forty
same Trusts Besides that the employing such men would not be sutable to the Design of breeding the Men of Quality and Estate to command as well as the others to obey To obviate these Difficulties and because the want of a good Model of Militia and a right Method for training people in time of Peace so as they need not apprehend any War tho never so sudden is at this day the bane of the Liberty of Europe I shall propose one accommodated to the invincible Difficulty of bringing Men of Quality and Estate or men of any Rank who have passed the time of Youth to the use of Arms and new because tho we have many excellent Models of Militia delivered to us by antient Authors with respect to the use of them in time of War yet they give us but little information concerning the Methods by which they trained their whole People for War in time of Peace so that if the Model which I shall propose have not the Authority of the Antients to recommend it yet perhaps by a severe Discipline and a right method of disposing the minds of men as well as forming their bodies for military and vertuous Actions it may have some resemblance of their excellent Institutions What I would offer is that four Camps be formed one in Scotland and three in England into which all the young men of the respective Countries should enter on the first day of the two and twentieth Year of their Age and remain there the space of two Years if they be of Fortunes sufficient to maintain themselves but if they are not then to remain a Year only at the Expence of the Publick In this Camp they should be taught the use of all sorts of Arms with the necessary Evolutions as also Wrestling Leaping Swimming and the like Exercises He whose condition would permit him to buy and maintain a Horse should be obliged so to do and be taught to vault to ride and to manage his own Horse This Camp should seldom remain above eight days in one place but remove from Heath to Heath not only upon the account of cleanliness and health but to teach the Youth to fortify a Camp to march and to accustom them respect being always had to those of a weak Constitution to carry as much in their march as ever any Roman Souldier did that is to say Their Tents Provision Arms Armour their Vtensils and the Palizadoes of their Camp They should be taught to Forage and be obliged to use the Countrymen with all justice in their Bargains for that and all other things they stand in need of from them The Food of every man within the Camp should be the same for Bread they should have only Wheat which they are to be obliged to grind with Hand-mills they should have some Salt and a certain number of Beeves allowed them at certain times of the Year Their Drink should be Water sometimes tempered with a proportion of Brandy and at other times with Vinegar Their Clothes should be plain coarse and of a fashion sitted in every thing for the Fatigue of a Camp For all these things those who could should pay and those who could not should be defray'd by the Publick as has been said The Camp should be sometimes divided into two parts which should remove from each other many miles and should break up again at the same time in order to meet upon some mountainous marishy woody or in a word cross ground that not only their diligence patience and suffering in marches but their skill in seizing of Grounds posting bodies of Horse and Foot and advancing towards each other their chusing a Camp and drawing out of it in order to a Battel might be seen as well as what Orders of Battel they would form upon the variety of different Grounds The Persons of Quality or Estate should likewise be instructed in Fortification Gunnery and all things belonging to the Duty of an Ingenier And Forts should be sometimes built by the whole Camp where all the Arts of attacking and defending Places should be practised The Youth having been taught to read at Schools should be obliged to read at spare hours some excellent Histories but chiefly those in which Military Actions are best described with the Books that have been best written concerning the Military Art Speeches exhorting to military and vertuous Actions should be often composed and pronounced publickly by such of the Youth as were by Education and natural Talents qualified for it There being none but Military Men allowed within the Camp and no Churchmen being of that number such of the Youth as may be fit to exhort the rest to all Christian and Moral Duties chiefly to Humility Modesty Charity and the pardoning of private Injuries should be chosen to do it every Sunday and the rest of that day spent in reading Books and in conversation directed to the same end And all this under so severe and rigorous Orders attended with so exact an execution by Reward and Punishment that no Officer within the Camp should have the power of pardoning the one or withholding the other The Rewards should be all honorary and contrived to sute the Nature of the different good Qualities and Degrees in which any of the Youth had shown either his Modesty Obedience Patience in suffering Temperance Diligence Address Invention Judgment Temper or Valour The Punishments should be much more rigorous than those inflicted for the same Crimes by the Law of the Land And there should be Punishments for some things not liable to any by the common Law immodest and insolent Words or Actions Gaming and the like No Woman should be suffered to come within the Camp and the Crimes of abusing their own Bodies any manner of way punished with death All these things to be judged by their own Councils of War and those Councils to have for rule certain Articles drawn up and approved by the respective Parliaments The Officers and Masters for instructing and teaching the Youth in all the exercises above-mentioned should upon the first establishment of such a Camp be the most expert men in those Disciplines and brought by incouragements from all places of Europe due care being taken that they should not infect the youth with foreign Manners But afterwards they ought to consist of such Men of quality or fortune as should be chosen for that end out of those who had formerly past two years in the Camp and since that time had improved themselves in the Wars who upon their return should be obliged to serve two years in that Station As for the numbers of those Officers or Masters their several duties that of the Camp-Master-General and of the Commissaries the times and manner of Exercise with divers other particulars of less consideration and yet necessary to be determined in order to put such a design in execution for brevity's sake I omit them as easy to be resolved But certainly it were no hard matter
for men that had passed through such a Discipline as that of the Camp I have described to retain it after they should return to their several homes if the people of every Town and Village together with those of the adjacent Habitations were obliged to meet 50 times in the Year on such days as should be found most convenient and exercise four hours every time for all men being instructed in what they are to do and the men of quality and estate most knowing and expert of all others the Exercise might be performed in great perfection There might also be yearly in the Summer time a Camp of some thousands of the nearest Neighbours brought and kept together for a week to do those Exercises which cannot be performed in any other place every Man of a certain Estate being obliged to keep a Horse fit for the War By this means it would be easy upon any occasion tho never so small as for example the keeping of the Peace and putting the Laws in execution where force is necessary or never so great and sudden as upon account of Invasions and Conspiracies to bring together such numbers of Officers and Souldiers as the exigence required according to the practice of antient Rome which in this particular might be imitated by us without difficulty And if such a Method were once established there would be no necessity of keeping up a Militia form'd into Regiments of Foot and Horse in time of Peace Now if this Militia should stand in need of any farther improvment because no Militia's seem comparable to those exercised in actual War as that of the Barons by their constant Feuds and that of Rome and some other antient Commonwealths by their perpetual Wars a certain small number of Forces might be employed in any foreign Country where there should be action a fourth part of which might be changed every year that all those who had in this manner acquired experience might be dispersed among the several Regiments of any Army that the defence of these Countries should at any time call for which would serve to confirm and give assurance to the rest Such a Militia would be of no great expence to these Nations for the mean clothing and provisions for those who could not maintain themselves being given only for one year would amount to little and no other expence would be needful except for their Arms a small train of Artillery for each Camp and what is to be given for the encouragement of the first Officers and Masters A Militia upon such a foot would have none of the infinite and insuperable Difficulties there are to bring a few Men who live at a great distance from one another frequently together to exercise at which consequently they must be from home every time several days of finding such a number of Masters as are necessary to train so many thousands of People ignorant of all exercise in so many different places and for the most part at the same time It would have none of those innumerable Incumbrances and unnecessary Expences with which a Militia formed into Regiments of Foot and Horse in time of Peace is attended In such a Camp the youth would not only be taught the exercise of a Musket with a few Evolutions which is all that men in ordinary Militia's pretend to and is the least part of the duty of a Souldier but besides a great many Exercises to strengthen and dispose the Body for fight they would learn to fence to ride and manage a Horse for the War to forage and live in a Camp to fortify attack and defend any place and what is no less necessary to undergo the greatest Toils and to give obedience to the severest Orders Such a Militia by sending beyond Seas certain Proportions of it and relieving them from time to time would enable us to assist our Allies more powerfully than by Standing Armies we could ever do Such a Camp would take away the great difficulty of bringing men of all Conditions who have passed the time of their youth to apply themselves to the use and exercise of Arms and beginning with them early when like wax they may be moulded into any shape would dispose them to place their greatest Honour in the performance of those Exercises and inspire them with the Fires of Military Glory to which that Age is so enclined which Impression being made upon their youth would last as long as life Such a Camp would be as great a School of Vertue as of military Discipline In which the Youth would learn to stand in need of few things to be content with that small allowance which nature requires to suffer as well as to act to be modest as well as brave to be as much ashamed of doing any thing insolent or injurious as of turning their back upon an Enemy they would learn to forgive Injuries done to themselves but to embrace with joy the occasions of dying to revenge those done to their Country And Vertue imbib'd in younger years would cast a Flavour to the utmost periods of life In a word they would learn greater and better things than the Military Art and more necessary too if any thing can be more necessary than the defence of our Country Such a Militia might not only defend a People living in an Island but even such as are placed in the midst of the most warlike Nations of the World Now till such a Militia may be brought to some perfection our present Militia is not only sufficient to defend us but considering the Circumstances of the French Affairs especially with relation to Spain Britain cannot justly apprehend an Invasion if the Fleet of England to which Scotland furnish'd during the late War seven or eight thousand Seamen were in such order as it ought to be And it can never be the Interest of these Nations to take any other share in preserving the Balance of Europe than what may be performed by our Fleet. By which means our Money will be spent amongst our selves our Trade preserved to support the Charge of the Navy our Enemies totally driven out of the Sea and great numbers of their Forces diverted from opposing the Armies of our Allies abroad to the defence of their own Coasts If this Method had been taken in the late War I presume it would have proved not only more advantagious to us but also more serviceable to our Allies than that which was followed And 't is in vain to say that at this rate we shall have no Allies at all For the weaker Party on the Continent must be contented to accept our Assistance in the manner we think fit to give it or inevitably perish But if we send any Forces beyond the Seas to join those of our Allies they ought to be part of our Militia as has been said and not Standing Forces otherwise at the end of every War the present struggle will recur and at one time or other these Nations will be betrayed and a Standing Army established So that nothing can save us from following the Fate of all the other Kingdoms in Europe but putting our Trust altogether in our Fleet and Militia's and having no other Forces than these The Sea is the only Empire which can naturally belong to us Conquest is not our Interest much less to consume our People and Treasure in conquering for others To conclude If we seriously consider the happy Condition of these Nations who have lived so long under the Blessings of Liberty we cannot but be affected with the most tender Compassion to think that the Scots who have for so many Ages with such Resolution defended their Liberty against the Picts Britans Romans Saxons Danes Irish Normans and English as well as against the Violence and Tyranny of so many of their own Princes That the English who whatever Revolutions their Country has been subject to have still maintained their Rights and Liberties against all Attempts who possess a Country every where cultivated and improved by the Industry of rich Husbandmen her Rivers and Harbours filled with Ships her Cities Towns and Villages enrich'd with Manufactures where Men of vast Estates live in secure possession of them and whose Merchants live in as great splendor as the Nobility of other Nations that Scotland which has a Gentry born to excel in Arts and Arms that England which has a Commonalty not only surpassing all those of that degree which the World can now boast of but also those of all former Ages in Courage Honesty good Sense Industry and Generosity of Temper in whose very Looks there are such visible Marks of a free and liberal Education which Advantages cannot be imputed to the Climate or to any other Cause but the Freedom of the Government under which they live I say it cannot but make the Hearts of all honest Men bleed to think that in their Days the Felicity and Liberties of such Countries must come to a Period if the Parliaments do not prevent it and his Majesty be not prevailed upon to lay aside the Thoughts of Mercenary Armies which if once established will inevitably produce those fatal Consequences that have always attended such Forces in the other Kingdoms of Europe Violation of Property Decay of Trade Oppression of the Country by heavy Taxes and Quarters the utmost Misery and Slavery of the poorer sort the Ruin of the Nobility by their Expences in Court and Army Deceit and Treachery in all Ranks of Men occasioned by Want and Necessity Then shall we see the Gentry of Scotland ignorant through want of Education and cowardly by being oppressed then shall we see the once happy Commonalty of England become base and abject by being continually exposed to the brutal Insolence of the Souldiers the Women debauch'd by their Lust ugly and nasty through Poverty and the want of things necessary to preserve their natural Beauty Then shall we see that great City the Pride and Glory not only of our Island but of the World subjected to the excessive Impositions Paris now lies under and reduced to a Pedling Trade serving only to foment the Luxury of a Court. Then will Britain know what Obligations she has to those who are for Mercenary Armies FINIS