20.  Just precisely what the French soldiers were after the revolution had purged France of all ’the perilous stuff that weighed upon the heart’ of its people.  Gibbon, in considering the chance of the civilized nations of Europe ever being again overrun by the barbarians from the North, as in the time of the Romans, says:  ’If a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasantry of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid free men of Britain.’  Never was a more just, yet more unintended satire upon the state of a country.  Russia was to depend upon her ‘robust peasantry’; Germany upon her ‘numerous armies’; England upon her ‘intrepid free men’; and poor France upon her ‘gallant nobles’ alone; because, unhappily, no other part of her vast population was then ever thought of.  When the hour of trial came, those pampered nobles who had no feeling in common with the people were shaken off’ like dew-drops from the lion’s mane’; and the hitherto spurned peasantry of France, under the guidance and auspices of men who understood and appreciated them, astonished the world with their powers. [W.  H. S.]

21.  The allusion is to the now half-forgotten war with the United States in the years 1812-14, during the course of which the English captured the city of Washington, and the Americans gained some unexpected naval victories.

22.  The author has already denounced the practice of impressment, ante, chapter 26, note 27.

23. ‘to’ in the original edition.

24.  See McCulloch, Pol.  Econ., p. 235, 1st ed., Edinburgh, 1825. [W.  H. S.]

25.  Many German princes adopted the discipline of Frederick in their little petty states, without exactly knowing why or wherefore.  The Prince of Darmstadt conceived a great passion for the military art; and when the weather would not permit him to worry his little army of five thousand men in the open air, he had them worried for his amusement under sheds.  But he was soon obliged to build a wall round the town in which he drilled his soldiers for the sole purpose of preventing their running away—­round this wall he had a regular chain of sentries to fire at the deserters.  Mr. Moore thought that the discontent in this little band was greater than in the Prussian army, inasmuch as the soldiers saw no object but the prince’s amusement.  A fight, or the prospect of a fight, would have been a feast to them. [W.  H. S.] It is hardly necessary to observe that the modern system of drill is widely different.

26.  Speaking of the question whether recruits drawn from the country or the towns are best, Vegetius says:  ’De qua parte numquam credo potuisse dubitari, aptiorem armis rusticam plebem, quae sub divo et in labore nutritur; solis patiens; umbrae negligens; balnearum nescia; delictarurum ignara; simplicis animi; parvo contenta; duratis ad omnem laborem membris; cui gestara ferrum, fossam ducere, onus ferre, consuetudo de rare est.’ (De Re Militari, Lib. i, cap. 3.) [W.  H. S.] The passage quoted is disfigured by many misprints in the original edition.