This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ... the higher circles, as at the present time." The first of these assertions is emphatically true; the second deliberately mistaken. There is little or no military spirit among our higher circles. Even in the Army, a nobleman who is enthusiastic about his profession is looked on as singular, like the Earl of ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ... the higher circles, as at the present time." The first of these assertions is emphatically true; the second deliberately mistaken. There is little or no military spirit among our higher circles. Even in the Army, a nobleman who is enthusiastic about his profession is looked on as singular, like the Earl of Cardigan, while the Duke of Cambridge is sneered at for showing a soldier-like ardour. When you quote Sir Robert Peel, stating his opinion that there is little danger of aggression, I cannot help smiling at the bland and oily assurances to the nation in which that eminent statesman dealt. He did not live to see his ideas on Catholic Emancipation verified, by the mild and forbearing conduct of the Roman Catholics; he did not witness the humility of a Cahill and a Newman, and the gratitude of an oppressed religion set free; he dib! not even behold a Cardinal come to take charge of his little flock at Westminster. He also seems to be endowed with a portion of the prophetic spirit of those whom I shall term the "seers of expediency." Sir Robert Feel said, in 1841, that "the danger of aggression is infinitely less than the danger of those sufferings to which the present exorbitant expenditure must give rise.' You add, "athwart these armed and drilled mechanical tools of oppression (videlicet our army) may be often heard low mutterings, which will assuredly swell some day into a shout of defiance." What Peel knew of the horrors of invasion, I know not. It is a pity he never witnessed some of the scenes in Algeria, when the French soldiers plundered, ravished and slaughtered, until their very features have assumed the expression of Herod's murderers, as now with ferocious aspect and rolling eyes, they stalk through the streets of Paris. He would then...
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