other. He explained to me the movements of the advanced guard, the main body, the wings, the reserve, and the artillery; and discoursed freely of sentinels, videttes, patroles, piquets, and the general arrangements of an army in the field.”

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He would be quite at home there !”

"Such conversation as this led me to read of celebrated military and naval commanders, with the battles they had fought, and the victories they had won. Of Frederick the Great, of Prussia; Charles of Sweden; Peter the Great, of Russia; Buonaparte of France; and Marlborough and Wellington of England; with Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Rodney, Howe, Duncan and Nelson. At that time I knew nothing, or next to nothing, of a sea-fight, of the order of battle, of ships taking their stations, of signals, and the several duties of officers and men during the action; and of broadsides, raking, and boarding; but since then I have picked up some information on most of these points."

"That old soldier must have known a great deal!"

"He did know a great deal, for he had mingled among sailors as well as soldiers, so that he could talk freely of actions, attacks, and attempts, battles, blockades, and bombardments, descents and defeats, engagements and expeditions, invasions, reductions, sea-fights and storms, sieges, surprises, skirmishes, repulses, and explosions."

"We do not wonder at your having entered the army, but a battle must be a terrible thing." "That is true, sure enough. It is one thing to hear or to read of a battle, and another to fight in the ranks. War is no child's play, as every one knows who has seen service. There are dif

ferent opinions about war: one man sees in it nothing but what is honourable and glorious; another maintains that it is in no case to be justified. It is not for me to decide between the two, seeing that I agree with neither, for while on the one hand I hold it wrong to plunge into war on light grounds when it can be avoided, or when it inflicts a greater evil than it undertakes to remove; on the other, I cannot see how war can be always evaded. If to oppress others be wrong, to allow ourselves to be oppressed can hardly be right; and though conquest and national glory will not justify those who draw the sword, yet, as a nation, we must be other than we are before we could give up what is dearer than life without an effort to defend it. However, my object is not to turn your heads with false notions of honour and glory, that you may long to become Wellingtons and Nelsons, but simply to give, according to your desire, what information I can about soldiers and sailors, and to explain to you the way in which they carry on war.

"Ay, those are the very things! We want to know everything about them. We saw a sailor

yesterday; and the road seemed hardly broad enough for him, he reeled about so much from one side to the other.”

"Jack-tars too often fall into this error; they are too often half-seas-over before they are out of port, and they are usually the most steady when being tossed about on the ocean.'

"That sounds comical, however."

"Perhaps it does, but I wish to be pointed in my remarks, that there may be some likelihood of your remembering what I say. The army, from the commander-in-chief to the men in the ranks, should aim at respectability. A general should never be without a good private character, and a private should be generally acknowledged as a man of courage and sobriety. As a standing rule, a soldier under arms should not be above doing his duty though he wears a red coat he must be a true blue, and peacefully preserve, in every situation, the articles of war."

A general rule for the conduct of a good Soldier. The beginning of Sailors.-The origin of the British Army.-The oldest regiment in the service.-Description of the Life Guards.-British Soldiers and Sailors the best in the world. -The Flemish brig and the Deal galley. The French sloop and the British fisherman. The Black Trumpeter and the bold Soldier.-A Soldier should attend to his own duty.

BEAR in mind, boys, that I shall tell you of many places where I have never been, and of

battles that I have never seen. Much have I talked with old soldiers and sailors in my time and much have they told me. It may happen that in speaking of ships I may be, now and then, "out of my reckoning," and a little "disorderly at times, in describing things belonging to the army, for we are all of us liable to commit mistakes, and no doubt I make as many as other people.

"The more you tell us of the army and navy the better."

"Well, I will do my best for you. Let me here give you one of my general rules for the conduct of a good soldier. The advanced guard should fall back from every dishonourable action, and every rear-rank man should set a bold front against insubordination."

"Yes, that is a capital rule. Please now to tell us what was the very beginning of soldiers and sailors?"

"That would puzzle the horse-guards and the Admiralty to tell you. Sailors I suppose began with ships; and father Noah, who commanded the good ship the Ark, was the first sailor that I ever heard of. As to soldiers, we must confine ourselves to our own country, for we know very little about the soldiers of the earliest nations of the world."

“Please to tell us, then, the beginning of English soldiers?"