ON MILITAKY HOKSE-POWER. 197 



sustenance to maintain tliem, it lias often been absolutely 

 necessary to bring forward, by bullocks and other ineffi- 

 cient means, the battering train, ammunition, entrenching 

 tools, materials, &c., amounting in weight, even for the 

 attack of a second-rate fortress, to several thousand tons. 

 In moments of such distress the infantry working in the 

 trenches have often severely suffered from the delay 

 occasioned by the want of horse-power, while their com- 

 rades, the cavalry, have been deemed incapable of sharing 

 the honour and fatigue of the day, from the anomalous 

 conclusion that, although it is easy to extract from men 

 manual labour, it is impossible to extract from horses 

 horse-power; and yet there exists no reason why, in 

 moments of emergency, cavalry horses should not be 

 required to work (most particularly at drag-ropes) as 

 well as infantry soldiers ; for although the patient endur- 

 ance of hardships and privations is one of the noblest 

 features in military life, yet absolutely to suffer from 

 the want of what one positively possesses is, even in 

 common life, a discreditable misfortune, indicating not 

 bodily weakness, but mental imbecility. 



Even in that noble department, the Horse Artillery 

 itself, there existed throughout the Peninsular War a 

 striking example of latent power which had never 

 been exerted. To each gun there were attached twelve 

 horses trained to draught. Of these, only eight possessed 



