FOR PEACE AND WAR. 127 



mounted cavalry in the world, some national effort must 

 be made to alter the existing state of things regarding the 

 falling away in numbers and quality of our re-mount and 

 general horses. What so largely contributed to give 

 Cromwell's Ironsides so brilliant a jiage in History ? What 

 rode our mounted soldiers in the days of Ligonier's black 

 horse to glory and conquest ? What carried our mail-clad 

 warriors, " Scots' Greys," and poor Erin's " Green Horse," 

 through the chosen and serried ranks of France's great hero 

 to the crowning victory of Waterloo ? What bore with the 

 irresistible career of a swooping eagle " our Immortal Six 

 Hundred" over the flower of Russia's chivalry and her 

 barbarian hordes ? Oh ! it was our glorious British horses, 

 fleet, powerful, and beautiful; true as hearts of oak, and 

 trusty as the puissant and flashing steel of their hero 

 riders. And, shall we lose them ? Yes ! England, with 

 sorrow I write the appalling conviction, a continuance of 

 the present system, or rather, no system, and they will be 

 known only to posterity through history or by tradition, 

 " vanished as a tale that was told." 



