I

Of National Defence and Conqueft.

Tis impoffible to ascertain how much of the policy of any ftate has a reference to war, or to national fafety. "Our legislator," fays the Cretan in Plato, thought "that nations were by nature in a state of hostility: he "took his measures accordingly; and obferving that all "the poffeffions of the vanquished pertain to the victor, "he held it ridiculous to propose any benefit to his country, before he had provided that it fhould not be " conquered."

CRETE, which is fuppofed to have been a model of military policy, is commonly confidered as the original from which the celebrated laws of Lycurgus were copied. Mankind, it seems, in every inftance, must have fome palpable object to direct their proceedings, and must have a view to fome point of external utility, even in the choice of their virtues. The difcipline of Sparta was military; and a sense of its ufe in the field, more than the force of unwritten and traditionary laws, or the fuppofed engagement of the public faith, obtained by the lawgiver, may have induced this people to persevere in the observance of many rules, which to other na

tions

tions do not appear neceffary, except in the prefence of

an enemy.

EVERY inftitution of this fingular people gave a leffon of obedience, of fortitude, and of zeal for the public: but it is remarkable that they chose to obtain, by their virtues alone, what other nations are fain to buy with their treasure; and it is well known, that, in the course of their hiftory, they came to regard their discipline merely on account of its moral effects. They had experienced the happiness of a mind courageous, difinterested, and devoted to its beft affections; and they ftudied to preferve this character in themselves, by refigning the interests of ambition, and the hopes of military glory, even by facrificing the numbers of their people.

IT was the fate of Spartans who escaped from the field, not of those who perished with Cleombrotus at Leuctra, that filled the cottages of Lacedemon with mourning and ferious reflection *: it was the fear of having their citizens corrupted abroad, by intercourfe with fervile and mercenary men, that made them quit the ftation of leaders in the Perfian war, and leave Athens, during fifty years, to purfue, unrivalled, that career of ambition and profit, by which fhe made fuch acquifitions of power and of wealth †.

* Xenophon.

†Thucydides, book 1.

F f

WE

We have had occafion to obferve, that in every rude ftate, the great business is war; and that in barbarous times, mankind, being generally divided into small parties, are engaged in almoft perpetual hoftilities. This circumstance gives the military leader a continued ascendant in his country, and inclines every people, during warlike ages, to monarchical government,

THE Conduct of an army can leaft of all fubjects be divided and we may be justly surprised to find, that the Romans, after many ages of military experience, and after having recently felt the arms of Hannibal, in many encounters, affociated two leaders at the head of the fame army, and left them to adjust their pretenfions, by taking the command, each a day in his turn. The fame people, however, on other occafions, thought it expedient to fufpend the exercise of every fubordinate magiftracy, and in the time of great alarms, to intruft all the authority of the ftate in the hands of one perfon.

REPUBLICS have generally found it neceffary, in the conduct of war, to place great confidence in the executive branch of their government. When a conful at Rome had proclaimed his levies, and administered the military oath, he became from that moment master of the public treasury, and of the lives of those who were under his command *. The axe and the rods were no longer a mere badge of magistracy, or an empty pageant, in the

* Polybius.

hands

hands of the lictor: they were, at the command of the father, stained with the blood of his own children; and fell, without appeal, on the mutinous and the disobedient of every condition.

IN

In every free state, there is a perpetual neceffity to dif tinguish the maxims of martial law from those of the civil; and he who has not learned to give an implicit obedience, where the ftate has given him a military leader, and to refign his personal freedom in the field, from the fame magnanimity with which he maintains it in the political deliberations of his country, has yet to learn the most important leffon of civil fociety, and is only fit to occupy a place in a rude, or in a corrupted state, where the principles of mutiny and of fervility being joined, the one or the other is frequently adopted in the wrong place.

FROM a regard to what is neceffary in war, nations inclined to popular or ariftocratical government, have had recourse to establishments that bordered on monarchy. Even where the highest office of the state was in common times administered by a plurality of perfons, the whole power and authority belonging to it was, on particular occafions, committed to one; and upon great alarms, when the political fabric was fhaken or endangered, a monarchical power has been applied, like a prop, to fecure the state against the rage of the tempeft. Thus were the dictators occafionally named at Rome, and the stadtholders in the United Provinces; and thus, in mixed governments,

Ff 2

governments, the royal prerogative is occafionally enlarged, by the temporary fufpenfion of laws, and the barriers. of liberty appear to be removed, in order to veft a dictatorial power in the hands of the King.

HAD mankind, therefore, no view but to warfare, it is probable that they would continue to prefer monarchical government to any other; or at least that every nation, in order to procure fecret and united councils, would intrust the executive power with unlimited authority. But, happily for civil fociety, men have objects of a different fort: and experience has taught, that although the conduct of armies requires an abfolute and undivided command; yet a national force is best formed, where numbers of men are inured to equality; and where the meaneft citizen may confider himself, upon occafion, as deftined to command as well as to obey. It is here that the dictator finds a fpirit and a force prepared to second his councils; it is here too that the dictator himself is formed, and that numbers of leaders are prefented to the public choice; it is here that the prosperity of a state is independent of fingle men, and that a wisdom which never dies, with a fyftem of military arrangements permanent and regular, can, even under the greatest misfortunes, prolong the national ftruggle. With this advantage, the Romans, finding a number of distinguished leaders arife in fucceflion, were at all times almoft equally prepared to contend with their enemics of Afia or Africa;

In Britain, by the fufpenfion of the Habeas corpus.

while