martial laws of england.—limited service advised.—hints for military reform.
the execution of governor wall is considered as a great triumph of justice. nobody seems to recollect that he has been hanged, not for having flogged three men to death, but for an informality in the mode of doing it.—yet this is the true state of the case. had he called a drum-head court-martial, the same sentence might have been inflicted, and the same consequences have ensued, with perfect impunity to himself.
the martial laws of england are the most barbarous which at this day exist in europe. the offender is sometimes sentenced 110to receive a thousand lashes;—a surgeon stands by to feel his pulse during the execution, and determine how long the flogging can be continued without killing him. when human nature can sustain no more, he is remanded to prison; his wound, for from the shoulders to the loins it leaves him one wound, is dressed, and as soon as it is sufficiently healed to be laid open again in the same manner, he is brought out to undergo the remainder of his sentence. and this is repeatedly and openly practised in a country where they read in their churches, and in their houses, that bible, in their own language, which saith, “forty stripes may the judge inflict upon the offender, and not exceed.”
all savages are cruel, and nations become humane only as they become civilized. half a century ago, the most atrocious punishments were used in every part of christendom;—such were the executions under pombal in portugal, the tortures inflicted upon damiens in france; 111and the practice of opening men alive in england. our own history is full of shocking examples, but our manners[8] softened sooner than those of our neighbours. these barbarities originated in barbarous ages, and are easily accounted for; but how so cruel a system of martial law, which certainly cannot be traced back to any distant age of antiquity, could ever have been established is unaccountable; for when barbarians established barbarous laws, the soldiers were the only people who were free; in fact, they were the legislators, and of course would never make laws to enslave themselves.
8. more truly it might be said, that the spaniards had no traitors to punish. in the foreign instances here stated, the judges made their court to the crown by cruelty;—in our own case, the cruelty was of the law, not of the individuals. don manuel also forgets the inquisition.—tr.
another grievous evil in their military system is, that there is no limited time of 112service. hence arises the difficulty which the english find in recruiting their armies. the bounty money offered for a recruit during the war amounted sometimes to as much as twenty pieces of eight, a sum, burthensome indeed to the nation when paid to whole regiments, but little enough if it be considered as the price for which a man sells his liberty for life. there would be no lack of soldiers were they enlisted for seven years. half the peasantry in the country would like to wear a fine coat from the age of eighteen till five-and-twenty, and to see the world at the king’s expense. at present, mechanics who have been thrown out of employ by the war, and run-away apprentices, enlist in their senses, but the far greater number of recruits enter under the influence of liquor.
it has been inferred, that old homer lived in an age when morality was little understood, because he so often observes, that it is not right to do wrong. whether 113or not the same judgement is to be passed upon the present age of england, posterity will decide; certain it is that her legislators seem not unfrequently to have forgotten the commonest truisms both of morals and politics. the love of a military life is so general, that it may almost be considered as one of the animal passions; yet such are the martial laws, and such the military system of england, that this passion seems almost annihilated in the country. it is true, that during the late war volunteer companies were raised in every part of the kingdom; but, in raising these, the whole influence of the landed and moneyed proprietors was exerted; it was considered as a test of loyalty; and the greater part of these volunteers consisted of men who had property at stake, and believed it to be in danger, and of their dependants; and the very ease with which these companies were raised, evinces how easy it would be to raise soldiers, if they 114who became soldiers were still to be considered as men, and as freemen.
the difficulty would be lessened if men were enlisted for a limited term of years instead of for life. yet that this alteration alone is not sufficient, is proved by the state of their provincial troops, or militia as they are called. here the men are bound to a seven-years service, and are not to be sent out of the kingdom; yet, unexceptionable as this may appear, the militia is not easily raised, nor without some degree of oppression. the men are chosen by ballot, and permitted to serve by substitute, or exempted upon paying a fine. on those who can afford either, it operates, therefore, as a tax by lottery; the poor man has no alternative, he must serve, and, in consequence, the poor man upon whom the lot falls considers himself as ruined: and ruined he is; for, upon the happiest termination of his term of service, if he return to his former place of abode, 115still willing, and still able, to resume his former occupation, he finds his place in society filled up. but seven years of military idleness usually incapacitate him for any other trade, and he who has once been a soldier is commonly for ever after unfit for every thing else.
the evil consequences of the idle hours which hang upon the soldiers’ hands are sufficiently understood, and their dress seems to have been made as liable to dirt as possible, that as much time as possible may be employed in cleaning it. this is one cause of the contempt which the sailors feel for them, who say that soldiers have nothing to do but to whiten their breeches with pipe-clay, and to make strumpets for the use of the navy. would it not be well to follow the example of the romans, and employ them in public works? this was done in scotland, where they have cut roads through the wildest part of the country; and it is said that the soldiery in ireland are now to be employed in the same 116manner. in england, where no such labour is necessary, they might be occupied in digging canals, or more permanently in bringing the waste[9] lands into cultivation, which might the more conveniently be effected, as it is becoming the system to lodge the troops in barracks apart from the people, instead of quartering them in the towns. military villages might be built in place of these huge and ugly buildings, and at far less expense; the adjoining lands cultivated by the men, who should, in consequence, receive higher pay, and the produce be appropriated to the military chest. each hut should have its garden, which the tenant should cultivate for his own private amusement or profit. under such a system the soldier might rear a family in time of peace, the wives of the soldiery would be neither less domestic 117nor less estimable than other women in their own rank of life, and the infants, who now die in a proportion which it is shocking to think of, would have the common chance for life.
9. in this and what follows, the author seems to be suggesting improvements for his own country, and to mean spain when he speaks of england.—tr.
but the sure and certain way to secure any nation for ever from alarm, as well as from danger, is to train every school-boy to the use of arms: boys would desire no better amusement, and thus, in the course of the next generation, every man would be a soldier. england might then defy, not france alone, but the whole continent leagued with france, even if the impassable gulph between this happy island and its enemy were filled up. this will be done sooner or later, for england must become an armed nation. how long it will be before her legislators will discover this, and how long when they have discovered it, before they will dare to act upon it, that is, before they will consent to part with the power of alarming 118the people, which they have found so convenient, it would be idle to conjecture. individuals profit slowly by experience, associations still more slowly, and governments the most slowly of all associated bodies.
