181K] Vapouy^ Baths,—Boliiical Errors of Spanish Way fare, S4S 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ERIE'S respecting vapour baths. 
1. AS vapour or steam battis have of 
late been much anti deservedly 
veconmiended from their powerful and pe¬ 
netrating eiFects, especially in all chronic 
and obstinate rheumatic alfeclions, it is a 
much wished-for object to ascertain, 
whether there is any and what difference 
in the vapour of sea and that of fresh 
water ? 
2. Sea-water being rendered fresh or 
sweet by distillation, does it alter the na¬ 
ture of the steam, so as to render it pro¬ 
bable to cause any different effects in its 
medical application ? 
3. As two infiammahle gassesy viz. the 
sulphurated hydrogen, and the arnmoni- 
acal gas, are miscible with water, it may 
be presumed that certain waters and na¬ 
tural springs, impregnated therewith, will 
have some good effects as medicinal 
baths; it is not probable that these wa¬ 
ters, being reduced into vapour, and ap¬ 
plied to medicinal purposes, will act with 
the same characteristic difference as the 
simple hot waters and their aeriform sub¬ 
stances ? 
5. In like manner, as the following six 
uninflammable gasses, also miscible with 
water, viz. 
Carbonic acid gas—Muriatic acid gas 
Sulphurous acid gas—Fluoric acid gas 
Phosphoric acid gas, and nitrous acid 
gas, 
exist more or less in natural springs, and, 
as these waters are frequently applied 
both as warm-water baths and iiot-vapour 
baths, is it not presumable that these 
gasses will penetrate diseased parts, and 
act with the same characteristic benefit 
as the simple vapour baths, by solving, 
dispersing, and expelling, diseased par¬ 
ticles, and healing and invigorating the 
enfeebled organs. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
POLITICAL ERRORS of' the SPANISH 
WARFARE. 
E very friend to liberty wishes suc¬ 
cess to our gallant, but unfortunate, 
allies, the Spaniards; and every friend 
to Great Britain must also know, that 
the emancipation of the Peninsula would 
be attended with commercial advantages, 
and many other probable benefits, of in¬ 
calculable moment. It was not to be 
expected that the Spaniards could over¬ 
come the French, whose valour, Harry 
Fielding says, is reliance upon superior 
numbers, and whose perseverance, he 
adds, is like that of hunger, suspended. 
Monthly Mag. No, 219. 
but not destroyed, by defeat. From 
causes, connected with the decay of 
national well-being in all respects, the 
Spaniards have done less than could in 
other circumstances have been prognos¬ 
ticated ; and it may be useful to show 
some important errors into whicli they 
have fallen. 
Popular associations are incapable of 
carrying on war.-^^ The Juntas should 
therefore have appointed one person of 
extreme caution; the kind of character 
which the Italians opposed to French 
impetuosity; in wliom should have been 
lodged the supreme military power. Tiie 
famous defence of Saragossa wa^ indubi¬ 
tably owing to the personal merits of 
Pal a fox. 
They have totally mistaken the proper 
method of defending a country against 
an invading enemy. From the time of 
the Romans, to the famous campaigns of 
Dumourier and Lord Wellington, the 
only proper and effectual plan for de¬ 
feating the invasion of a powerful enemy, 
is the following; to take up an impreg¬ 
nable position, and never to fight, with¬ 
out a certainty of success; to throw gar¬ 
risons only into towns of great strengrh; 
to deprive the enemy of subsistence by 
laying waste the country before them, 
and to save the whole kingdom by sacri¬ 
ficing one of the provinces. Tiie success, 
indeed infallibility, of this plan is affirmed 
and well displayed by Robertson, Ch. V« 
anno 1536, 1554, 1557. Under the 
year 1522, he shows, that it was the 
method by which the French defended 
themselves against the EngliTi, The 
Spaniards seem also not to have known, 
that an irregular army is much easier led 
to battle, than induced to bear the fa¬ 
tigues of a campaign ;f and that want of 
courage, according uo Casar, results 
from inexperience in war. In omitting 
the Fabian system and training of their 
troops, they have therefore made the 
most unfortunate mistakes. To sub¬ 
ject undisciplined troops to t!ie forms of 
artful w'ar, is a revival of the Pretender’s 
errors, wiio tlius repressed the native 
ferocity of tlie Highlanders, from which 
alone he could hope for success. Add 
to this, that recruits shudder at the 
fatigues of military iife.| 
In their modes of desultory warfare, 
against regular troops, they seem nor to 
have known the policy of eternally fa¬ 
tiguing tliem, by retreating, when they 
* i'.obert. Ch V. anno 1522. 
J Goidsm. Engl. Plist. Lett. 52 . 
i Liv, 23,18. 
o Y 
5 
