OUR INFANTRY. 113 



and I cannot entrust them to the young gen- 

 tlemen on the staff of this army. Indeed I 

 may say I do not know how to employ them" 

 If our government could so conduct itself to- 

 wards so powerful and able a commander as 

 the Duke of Wellington, it is clear that a 

 military system under which such things could 

 happen, is a dangerous one, and if in the next 

 European war we send, as we ought, a large 

 British army on the continent, it may, by 

 failing, endanger our national independence. 



