was ever engaged in, with the anticipation of all the other calamities I have mentioned added to it.
It has been said by some that ought to have been better employed; that the Revolutionary army was needless; that the Militia were competent for all that the crisis required. That there was then, and now is in the Militia, as brave and as good men as were ever in any army since the creation, I am ready and willing to allow, but there are many among them too, I hope the citizen soldiers will be as ready to allow, who are not so good as regulars; and I affirm that the Militia would not have answered so well as standing troops, for the following reason, among many others. They would not have endured the sufferings the army did; they would have considered themselves (as in reality they were and are) free citizens, not bound by any cords that were not of their own manufacturing and when the hardships of fatigue, starvation, cold and nakedness, which I have just mentioned, begun to seize upon them, in such awful array as they did on us, they would have instantly quitted the service in disgust; and who would blame them? I am sure I could hardly find it in my heart to do it.
That the Militia did good and great service in that war, as well as in the last, on particular occasions, I well know, for I have fought by their side; but still I insist that they would not have answered the end so well as regular soldiers; unless they were very different people from what I believe and know them to be, as well as I wish to know. Upon every exigency they would have been to be collected, and what would the enemy have been doing in the mean time?—The regulars were there, and there obliged to be; we could not go away when we pleased without exposing ourselves to military punishment; and we had trouble enough to undergo without that.
It was likewise said at that time, that the army was idle; did nothing but lounge about from one station to another, eating the country's bread and wearing her clothing without rendering her any essential service, (and I wonder they did not add, spending the country's money, too, it would have been quite as consistent as the other charges.) You ought to drive on, said they, you are competent for the business; rid the country at once of her invaders.
