28 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
its institutions must ever be intrusted to the people at large; 
and the adaptibility of the people to that defence will ever de¬ 
pend on their aptitude to become soldiers at a short notice, and 
especially on their readiness with the gun. 
So far as they have been tried hitherto, nothing can be more 
satisfactory than the results. But, I think, it will appear, on a 
little consideration, that the probability of those results continu¬ 
ing the same for a large term of years, as far as regards the use 
of the gun, is small indeed and hourly decreasing. 
During the war of the Revolution, every countryman was a 
rifleman. Burgoyne surrendered as much to the unerring aim 
of the undisciplined American militia, as to the skill or courage 
of the regulars. Even in the last war, the northern and mid¬ 
land states could produce their hundreds and thousands of rifle 
shots ; and on the Canada frontier they did good service. 
Along the Atlantic sea-board the rifle is now, already, an 
unknown arm; and I doubt extremely whether, between the 
Kennebec, the Delaware, the great lakes, and the ocean, one 
regiment could be raised of men practically familiar with the 
use of this deadly national weapon. 
According to this rate, the use of the weapon, of course, 
passing away so soon as its utility passes, the rifle will ere long 
be as rare in the western, as it now is in the eastern states. 
The Bison, the Elk, are already rare on this side the Mississippi, 
if not extinct. The Deer are, in the same ratio, declining, and 
the Turkey. 
These gone, the utility and honor of the rifle are extinct also. 
So long as smaller game exist, the shot-gun will still continue, 
replacing the rifle as it has done to the eastward, to be in use ; 
and the practice of fire-arms will not be wholly lost. Destroy 
the small game, too, and the fowling-piece falls into disuse also. 
I do not myself believe that one century will pass over the 
United States, before its population, now the readiest on earth 
with the gun, will have cast it aside altogether ; and before a 
firelock will be as rare, unless in the hands of trained regulars, 
as the rifle is now on the sea-board. 
