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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
It was as clear to soldiers then as it is now that mobility was impossible 
until the weight of the guns and carriages was considerably reduced, and 
until the drivers were to some extent organised; and the disasters of the 
artillery called forth loud, although unheeded remonstrances. “ *Tis sur¬ 
prising,” says a writer in the “ Annual Begister,” referring to the battle of 
Ealkirk, * 1 2 “ as this is not the first loss of artillery by bad horses, or by the 
country people going off with the horses, that one out of several remedies 
that might be thought of is not provided against suffering again by such 
defects. . . . But it seems the old way is supposed to be the lest; 
without explaining whether the good old way be that of staying for the 
cannon till the enemy gets off, or that other of leaving it behind when the 
enemy comes on. . . . Horses of strength ought to be as much bought 
up and appropriated to draw a train of artillery as for carrying our troopers 
and dragoons, 3 and the drivers ought to be enlisted under the military oath. 
. . . Several other methods, slighted as irregular (though on that 
account the more useful) might be mentioned; but it may not be proper, 
lest we should be first taught the use of them at a multiplied expense 
from the wisdom of our enemies, who have catched at inventions disre¬ 
garded here, and whose principles of economy do not condemn the 
extravagant practice of having two anchors to a ship.” But these just 
complaints fell upon dull ears. Ignorance and obstinacy ruled where 
liberality and wisdom should ever reign, and the artillery was hardly more 
disorganised than the infantry and cavalry. “ As to the English army,” 
says Mr. Carlyle, writing of this melancholy period of our military history, 
“ we may say it is, in a wrong sense, the wonder of the world, and continues 
so throughout this History, and further ! Never before, among the rational 
sons of Adam, were armies sent out on such terms—namely, without a 
General, or with no General understanding the least of his business. The 
English have a notion that generalship is not wanted; that War is not an 
Art, as playing chess is, as finding the Longitude and doing the Differential 
Calculus are (and a much deeper Art than any of these); that War is taught 
by Nature, as eating is; that courageous soldiers, led on by a courageous 
Wooden Pole with a Cocked Hat on it, will do very well. In the world I 
have not found opacity of platitude go deeper among any people.” 3 
Such was the state of things on the eve of the creation of horse artillery. 
Aldeeshot, 
July, 1870. 
die Infanterie dadurch in Vc-rwinning gebracht imd das Resulfcat des sons! so herrlichen Sieges 
verkiimmert. 
“ Dei* Konig (Frederick the Great) gab in Folgo dessen der Artillerie Kavallerie-Kommandos, 
um die Gespanne in Ordnung zu kalten.” 
1 Vol. XYI. p. 28. 
2 Before tbe breaking out of the Great Rebellion, the price of horses in England varied from 
30s. to 50s. In 1643 it had risen to £4. (See Warburton’s “Hist, of Prince Rupert and the 
Cavaliers,” Yol. I. p. 291). From the Pretender’s Proclamation to the Commissary of Supply for 
the Shire of Linlithgow, 30th Dec. 1745, it appears that the price of horses for military purposes 
was then £10. In Charles I.’s time, money was three times as valuable as at the present day. 
3 “ Hist, of Friedrich the Great,” Yol. III. p. 121. 
