There is no want of officers, that I have ever understood, for the new
ships which we commission, or the new regiments which we raise. In the
nature of things it is not with their persons, that the higher classes
principally pay their contingent to the demands of war. There is
another, and not less important part, which rests with almost exclusive
weight upon them. They furnish the means,
"How war may best upheld
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,
In all her equipage."
Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal
service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute,
and in their full and fair proportion, according to the relative
proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute all the
mind that actuates the whole machine. The fortitude required of them is
very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier, or
common sailor, in the face of danger and death; it is not a passion,
it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady,
deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no
connection with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited,
invigorated, and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed,
moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public
ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the
heart and the head; carrying in itself its own commission, and proving
its title to every other command, by the first and most difficult
command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it is a fortitude,
which unites with the courage of the field the more exalted and refined
courage of the council; which knows as well to retreat, as to advance;
which can conquer as well by delay, as by the rapidity of a march, or
the impetuosity of an attack; which can be, with Fabius, the black
cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or with Scipio, the
thunderbolt of war; which, undismayed by false shame, can patiently
endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can undergo, in the
taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect,
and "mouth-honour" of those, from whom it should meet a cheerful
obedience; which, undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume that
most awful moral responsibility of deciding, when victory may be too
dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and when the safety and
glory of their country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands.
Different stations of command may call for different modifications
of this fortitude; but the character ought to be the same in all. And
never, in the most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it shine
with brighter lustre than in the present sanguinary and ferocious
hostilities, wherever the British arms have been carried.