Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/174

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the terms which they desire. But, perhaps, the most frequent mode of capture is surprize, the outposts are unguarded, the centinels are asleep; a reconnoitring party, which has approached the fortress without any thoughts of a capture, is invited by this obvious carelessness to make the attempt, and carries the castle before any alarm is given. Let my youthful readers of the softer sex attend to these admonitions: let them not trust too much to their own strength: their surest strength is the caution of conscious weakness. Let parents and guardians not only supply the garrison with stores of principles, but strongly line all the approaches to situations from which those principles might be blown up; and take special care firmly to secure the outposts: then they may avoid the fortune of Jenny Collings, who fell a victim, not to the designs of an enemy,