40

the duty of nearly every citizen to be prepared to enter the military service, for the purpose either of defending his own country or of attacking others. Standing armies were entirely unknown; and in their place there existed a rude and barbarous militia, always ready for battle, and always unwilling to engage in those peaceful pursuits which were then universally despised. Nearly every man being a soldier, the military profession, as such, had no separate existence; or, to speak more properly, the whole of Europe composed one great army, in which all other professions were merged. To this the only exception was the ecclesiastical profession; but even that was affected by the general tendency, and it was not at all uncommon to see large bodies of troops led to the field by bishops and abbots, to most of whom the arts of war were in those days perfectly familiar." At all events, between these two professions men were necessarily divided the only avocations were war and theology; and if you refused to enter the church, you were bound to serve in the army. As a natural consequence, every thing of real importance was altogether neglected. There were, indeed, many priests and many warriors, many sermons and 42 battles.1 many But, on the other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce, nor manufactures there was no science, no literature: the useful arts were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society were unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts, but with the commonest decencies of civilized life.

But so soon as gunpowder came into use, there was laid the foundation of a great change. According to the old system, a man had only to possess, what he generally inherited from his

40 Vattel, le Droit des Gens, vol. ii. p. 129; Lingard's History of England, vol. ii. pp. 356, 357. Among the Anglo-Saxons, "all free men and proprietors of land, except the ministers of religion, were trained to the use of arms, and always held ready to take the field at a moment's warning." Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 62. "There was no distinction between the soldier and the citizen." Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 200.

On these warlike ecclesiastics, compare Grose's Military Antiq. vol. i. pp. 678: Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. ii. pp. 26, 183, vol. iii. p. 14; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 458, vol. v. pp. 92, 402, 406; Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. pp. 173, 193, 241; Crichton's Scandinavia, Edinb. 1838, vol. i. p. 220. Such opponents were the more formidable, because in those happy days it was sacrilege for a layman to lay hands on a bishop. In 1095 his Holiness the Pope caused a council to declare, "Quòd qui apprehenderit episcopum omnino exlex fiat." Matthæi Paris Historia Major, p. 18. As the context contains no limitation of this, it would follow that a man became spiritually outlawed if he, even in self-defence, took a bishop prisoner.

แ

42 As Sharon Turner observes of England under the Anglo-Saxon government, war and religion were the absorbing subjects of this period." Turner's History of England, vol. iii. p. 263. And a recent scientific historian says of Europe generally: alle Künste und Kenntnisse, die sich nicht auf das edle Kriegs-, Rauf- und Raubhandwerk bezogen, waren überflüssig und schädlich. Nur etwas Theologie war vonnöthen, um die Erde mit dem Himmel zu verbinden." Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, 1854, p. 56.

43

father, either a sword or a bow, and he was ready equipped for the field. According to the new system, new means were required, and the equipment became more costly and more difficult. First, there was the supply of gunpowder; then there was the possession of muskets, which were expensive weapons, and considered difficult to manage. Then, too, there were other contrivances to which gunpowder naturally gave rise, such as pistols, bombs, mortars, shells, mines, and the like. All

45

46

43 In 1181, Henry II. of England ordered that every man should have either a sword or bow; which he was not to sell, but leave to his heir; "cæteri autem omnes haberent wanbasiam, capellum ferreum, lanceam et gladium, vel arcum et sagittas: et prohibuit ne aliquis arma sua venderet vel invadiaret; sed cùm moreretur, daret illa propinquiori hæredi suo." Rog. de Hov. Annal. n Scriptores post Bedam, p. 348 rev. In the reign of Edward I., it was ordered that every man possessing land to the value of forty shillings should keep "a sword, bow and arrows, and a dagger. Those who were to keep bows and arrows might have them out of the forest." Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. ii. pp. 301, 302. Compare Geijer's History of the Swedes, part i. p. 94. Even late in the fifteenth century there were at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, "in each from four to five thousand scholars, all grown up, carrying swords and bows, and in great part gentry." Sir William Hamilton on the History of Universities, in Hamilton's Phil osoph. Discussions, p. 414. One of the latest attempts made to revive archery, was a warrant issued by Elizabeth in 1596, and printed by Mr. Collier in the Egerton Papers, pp. 217-220, edit. Camden Soc. 1840. In the south-west of England, bows and arrows did not finally disappear from the muster-rolls till 1599; and in the meantime the musket gained ground. See Yonge's Diary, edit. Camden Soc. 1848, p. xvii.

"It is stated by many writers that no gunpowder was manufactured in England until the reign of Elizabeth. Camden's Elizabeth, in Kennett's History, vol. ii. p. 388, London, 1719; Strickland's Queens of England, vol. vi. p. 223, Lond. 1843; Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 378. But Sharon Turner (History of Eng land, vol. vi. pp. 490, 491, Lond. 1839) has shown, from an order of Richard III. in the Harleian manuscripts, that it was made in England in 1483; and Mr. Eccleston (English Antiquities, p. 182, Lond. 1847) states, that the English both made and exported it as early as 1411: compare p. 202. At all events, it long remained a costly article; and even in the reign of Charles I., I find a complaint of its dearness, whereby the train-bands are much discouraged in their exercising." Parliament. Hist. vol. ii. p. 655. In 1686, it appears from the Clarendon Correspondence, vol. i. p. 413, that the wholesale price ranged from about 27. 10s. to 31. a barrel. On the expense of making it in the present century, see Liebig and Kopp's Reports on Chemistry, vol. iii. p. 325, Lond. 1852.

45 The muskets were such miserable machines, that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, it took a quarter of an hour to charge and fire one. Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 342. Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 146, vol. ii. pp. 292, 337) says, that the first mention of muskets in England is in 1471; and that rests for them did not become obsolete until the reign of Charles I. In the recent edition of Beckmann's History of Inventions, Lond. 1846, vol. ii. p. 535, it is strangely supposed that muskets were "first used at the battle of Pavia." Compare Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. p. 464, with Smythe's Military Discourses, in Ellis's Original Letters, p. 53, edit. Camden Society.

46 Pistols are said to have been invented early in the sixteenth century. Grose's Military Antiq. vol i. pp. 102, 146. Gunpowder was first employed in mining towns in 1487. Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. p. 32; Koch, Tableau des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 243; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice Française, vol. i. p. 574. Daniel (Milice Française, vol. i. pp. 580, 581) says, that bombs were not invented till 1588; and the same thing is asserted in Biographie Universelle, vol. xv. p. 248: but, according to Grose (Military Antiq. vol. i. p. 387), they are mentioned by Valturinus, in 1472. On the general condition of the French artillery in

these things, by increasing the complication of the military art, increased the necessity of discipline and practice; while, at the same time, the change that was being effected in the ordinary weapons deprived the great majority of men of the possibility of procuring them. To suit these altered circumstances, a new system was organized; and it was found advisable to train up bodies of men for the sole purpose of war, and to separate them as much as possible from those other employments in which formerly all soldiers were occasionally engaged. Thus it was that there arose standing armies; the first of which were formed in the middle of the fifteenth century, almost immediately after gunpowder was generally known. Thus, too, there arose the custom of employing mercenary troops; of which we find a few earlier instances, though the practice was not fully established until the latter part of the fourteenth century.18

The importance of this movement was soon seen, by the change it effected in the classification of European society. The regular troops being, from their discipline, more serviceable against the enemy, and also more immediately under the control of the government, it naturally followed that, as their merits became understood, the old militia should fall, first into disrepute, then be neglected, and then sensibly diminish. At the same time, this diminution in the number of undisciplined soldiers deprived the country of a part of its warlike resources, and therefore made it necessary to pay more attention to the disciplined ones, and to confine them more exclusively to their military duties. Thus it was that a division was first broadly established between the soldier and the civilian; and there arose a separate military profession, which, consisting of a comparatively small number of the total amount of citizens, left the

the sixteenth century, see Relations des Ambassadeurs Venetiens, vol. i. pp. 94, 476, 478, Paris, 1838, 4to; a curious and valuable publication. There is some doubt as to the exact period in which cannons were first known; but they were certainly used in war before the middle of the fourteenth century. See Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 63; and Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. pp. 441, 442.

47 Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 413: Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. p. 210, vol. ii. pp. 491, 493; Euvres de Turgot, vol. viii. pp. 228.

The leading facts respecting the employment of mercenary troops are indicated with great judgment by Mr. Hallam, in his Middle Ages, vol. i. pp. 328

-337.

Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 310, 311) says, that until the sixteenth century, English soldiers had no professional dress; but "were distinguished by badges of their leaders' arms, similar to those now worn by watermen." It was also early in the sixteenth century that there first arose a separate military literature. Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. p. 380: "Les auteurs qui ont écrit en détail sur la discipline militaire: or ce n'est guères que sous François I, et sous l'Empereur Charles V, que les Italiens, les François, les Espagnols et les Allemans ont commencé à écrire sur ce sujet."

remainder to settle in some other pursuit.50 In this way, immense bodies of men were gradually weaned from their old warlike habits; and being, as it were, forced into civil life, their energies became available for the general purposes of society, and for the cultivation of those arts of peace which had formerly been neglected. The result was, that the European mind, instead of being, as heretofore, solely occupied either with war or with theology, now struck out into a middle path, and created those great branches of knowledge to which modern civilization owes its origin. In each successive generation this tendency 'towards a separate organization was more marked; the utility of a division of labour became clearly recognized; and as by this means knowledge itself advanced, the authority of this middle or intellectual class correspondingly increased. Each addition to its power lessened the weight of the other two classes, and checked those superstitious feelings and that love of war, on which, in an early state of society, all enthusiasm is concentrated. The evidence of the growth and diffusion of this intellectual principle is so full and decisive, that it would be possible, by combining all the branches of knowledge, to trace nearly the whole of its consecutive steps. At present, it is enough to say, that, taking a general view, this third, or intellectual, class, first displayed an independent, though still a vague, activity, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; that in the sixteenth century, this activity, assuming a distinct form, showed itself in religious outbreaks; that in the seventeenth century, its energy, becoming more practical, was turned against the abuses of government, and caused a series of rebellions, from which hardly any part of Europe escaped; and finally, that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has extended its aim to every department of public and private life, diffusing education, teaching legislators, controlling kings, and, above all, settling on a sure foundation that supremacy of Public Opinion, to which not only constitutional princes, but even the most despotic sovereigns, are now rendered strictly amenable.

These, indeed, are vast questions; and without some knowledge of them, no one can understand the present condition of

50 The change from the time when every layman was a soldier, is very remarkable. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. p. 291) says, "Among the civilized nations of modern Europe, it is commonly computed, that not more than the one-hundredth part of the inhabitants of any country can be employed as soldiers, without ruin to the country which pays the expense of their service." The same proportion is given in Sadler's Law of Population, vol. i. p. 292; and in Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, chap. iii.; Euvres de Montesquieu, p. 130: also in Sharpe's History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 105; and in Alison's History of Europe, vol. xii. p. 318.

European society, or form the least idea of its future prospects. It is, however, sufficient that the reader can now perceive the way in which so slight a matter as the invention of gunpowder diminished the warlike spirit, by diminishing the number of persons to whom the 'practice of war was habitual. There were,

no doubt, other and collateral circumstances which tended in the same direction; but the use of gunpowder was the most effectual, because, by increasing the difficulty and expense of war, it made a separate military profession indispensable; and thus, curtailing the action of the military spirit, left an overplus, an unemployed energy, which soon found its way to the pursuits of peace, infused into them a new life, and began to control that lust of conquest, which, though natural to a barbarous people, is the great enemy of knowledge, and is the most fatal of those diseased appetites by which even civilized countries are too often afflicted.

The second intellectual movement, by which the love of war has been lessened, is much more recent, and has not yet produced the whole of its natural effects. I allude to the discoveries made by Political Economy; a branch of knowledge with which even the wisest of the ancients had not the least acquaintance, but which possesses an importance it would be difficult to exaggerate, and is, moreover, remarkable, as being the only subject immediately connected with the art of government that has yet been raised to a science. The practical value of this noble study, though perhaps only fully known to the more advanced thinkers, is gradually becoming recognized by men of ordinary education: but even those by whom it is understood, seem to have paid little attention to the way in which, by its influence, the interests of peace, and therefore of civilization, have been directly promoted.51 The manner in which this has been brought about, I will endeavour to explain, as it will furnish another argument in support of that great principle which I wish to establish.

It is well known, that, among the different causes of war, commercial jealousy was formerly one of the most conspicuous; and there are numerous instances of quarrels respecting the promulgation of some particular tariff, or the protection of some favourite manufacture. Disputes of this kind were founded upon the very ignorant, but the very natural notion, that the advantages of commerce depend upon the balance of trade, and that whatever is gained by one country must be lost by another. It was believed that wealth is composed entirely of money; and

The pacific tendencies of political economy are touched on very briefly in Blanqui, Histoire de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 207; and in Twiss's Progress of Political Economy, p. 240.