To AID-DE-CAMPS of GENERAL OFFICERS. An aid-de-camp is to his general what Mercury was to Jupiter, and what the jackall is to the lion. It is a poft that very few can fill with credit, and requires parts and education to execute its duties with propriety. It is the graces you must court, by means of their high-prieft, a dancing-mafter. Learn to make a good bow; that is the first grand effential: the next is to carve and hold the toast; and if you afpire to great eminence, get a few French and German phrafes by rote: these, befides giving you an air of learning, may induce people to fuppofe you have ferved abroad.

If your genera! keeps a girl, it is your duty to fquire her to all public places, and to make an humble third of a party at whift or quadrille; but be fure never to win: if you should be fo unlucky as to have a good hand, when against your general, renounce, or by fome other means contrive to make as little of it as you can.

Whenever the general fends you with a meffage in the field, though ever so trifling, gallop as fast as you can up to and against the person to whom it is addreffed. Should you ride over him, it would fhew your alertnefs in the performance of your duty,

In delivering the meffage be as concife as poffible, no matter whether you are understood or not, and gallop back again as fast as you came. To appear the more warlike, you should ride with your fword drawn; but take care you do not cut your horfe's ear off.

In coming with orders to a camp, gallop through every street of the different regiments, particularly if the ground is foft and boggy. A great man fhould always leave fome tracks behind him.

In a word, let your deportment be haughty and infolent to your inferiors, humble and fawning to your fuperiors, folemn and diftant to your equals.

To MAJOR S.

Every one knows it is the major's business to exercise the regiment on horfeback. It appears, therefore, that the principal, and indeed the only requifites for this office, are the lungs of a Stentor, and a good feat in the faddle.

Whenever you are to exercise the regiment, get the adjutant, or ferjeant-major, to write out on a fmall card the words of command in the proper order: and if you cannot retain the ma➡

N 2

nœuvres

nœuvres in your head, you may at least keep them in your hat, which will answer the fame purpose.

But however convenient it may be to keep your card in the crown of your hat, when you exercife the regiment on foot, it will not do quite fo well on horfeback. In this case you may fix it on the faddle or holfter-pipe, or, which I would rather recommend, on the cap of the orderly drummer; but then you must take care that he fticks as clofe to you as Eo, Meo, and Areo,

When it is your turn to be field-officer of the day in camp, be fure to keep the picquets waiting as long as you can, particularly if it fhould rain; this will accuftom the foldiers to stand the weather, and will make them glad to fee you. When you come, contrive by fpurring your horfe to make him prance, so that he may be near overturning the captain of the picquet; by which means you will get the credit of riding a fpirited charger. But this must be done with caution: I knew a major, who, by an attempt of this kind, wound up a fpirit in his horfe that he could not lay, but was himself depofited in the dirt.

To the QUARTER-MASTER,

The ftanding maxim of your office is to receive whatever is offered you, or you can get hold of, but not to part with any thing you can keep. Your ftore-room muft resemble the lion's den; Multa te advorfum spectantía, pauca retrorfum.

With refpect to ftraw and wood, it is mechanical and unbez coming a gentleman to be weighing them like a cheesemongers When the foldiers are receiving ftraw for the hofpital, order them to drop a trufs or two at your hat in the rear. This will lighten their burthen, and make the task lefs toilfome. The fame may be done with the wood for the hofpital; and the fick, efpecially the feverish, have little need of fire in fummer.

You need not mind whether the provifions iffued to the foldiers be good or bad. If it were always good, they would get too much attached to eating to be good foldiers; and as a proof that this gormandifing is not military, you will not find in a gallant army of 50,000 men, a fingle fat man, unless it be a quarter-mafter, or a quarter-mafter ferjeant,

If the foldiers complain of the bread, tafte it, and say, better men have eat much worfe. Talk of the bompernicle, or black rye bread of the Germans, and fwear you have feen the time when you would have jumped at it. Call them a fet of grumbling rafcals, and threaten to confine them for mutiny. This, if it does not convince them of the goodness of the bread, will at leaft frighten them, and make them take it quietly.

Always

Always keep a horfe or two. It would be hard, if you could not have hay and corn enough to maintain them, confidering how much paffes through your hands.

A regimental furgeon must invert the apothecaries' maxim, of drenching the patient with medicines, and must be a great advocate for leaving nature to her own operations; unless he has difcovered fome fuch useful and unchargeable panacæa as doctor Sangrado's.

Whenever you are ignorant of a foldier's complaint, you fhould first take a little blood from him, and then give him an emetic and a cathartic; to which you may add a blifter. This will ferve, at leaft, to diminish the number of your patients.

Keep two lancets; a blunt one for the foldiers, and a sharp one for the officers: this will be making a proper distinction between them.

If it is the cuftom of your regiment for the foldiers to be cured of the venereal disease gratis, give yourself but little concern about them, and be fure to treat them as roughly as poffible. Tenderness towards patients of that kind, is only an encouragement for vice; and if you make a perfect and fpeedy care, they will foon forget the inconveniencies of the diforder: whereas, if they carry fome mementos about them, it will make them thenceforward be more cautious,

When the flux, or any putrid diforder, reigns in the camp or garrifon, be fure to procure wine for the ufe of your hofpital. But confider, it is a great antifeptic, and alfo inflammatory; and therefore to be given fparingly to your patients. The remainder may ferve to treat your brother furgeons and mates with, and indeed will be heceffary to prevent your taking any infectious diforder.

To the CHAPLAIN.

The chaplain is a character of no fmall importance in a regiment, though many gentlemen of the army think otherwife. Yet, if you are not more fuccefsful in the cure of the foul, than the furgeon is in that of the body, I must confefs your 6s. 8d. a day would be a judicious faving. You have fuch hardened finners to deal with, that your office is rather an ungracious one; but though the officers and foldiers are in general irreclaimable, the women of the regiment may perhaps be worked on with better effect.

If you are ambitious of being thought a good preacher by your fcarlet flock, you must take care that your fermons be very fhort. That is the firft excellence in the idea of a foldier.

Never preach any practical morality to the regiment; that would be only throwing away your time. To a man they all know, as well as you do, that they ought not to get drunk, or commit adultery; but preach to them on the trinity, the attributes of the deity, and other myftical and abftrufe fubjects, which they may never before have thought or heard of. This will give them an high idea of your learning; befides, your life might otherwife give the lie to your preaching.

You may indulge yourfelf in fwearing and talking bawdy as much as you please: this will fhew you are not a stiff highprieft.

If any one offends you, by rivalling you in your amours, or debauching your girl, call him out to give you the fatisfaction of a gentleman; for though the chriftian religion and the articles of war both forbid duelling, yet these restraints are not regarded by men of spirit.

When any old campaigners bore the mess with their long ftories of marches or battles, be fure to retort upon them with a hiftory of your exploits at college, of the defperate combats you have had with the raffs, the fweating you were obliged to go through in the pig-market, and your hair-breadth escapes from the proctor's clutches.

To YOUNG

OFFICERS.

Those who are unacquainted with the fervice, may perhaps imagine that this chapter is addreffed to the fubalterns only; but a little knowledge of the present ftate of the British forces will foon convince them, that it comprehends not only the greatest part of the captains, but alfo many of the field-officers of the army.

The firft article we shall confider is your drefs; a taste in which is the most diftinguishing mark of a military genius, and the principal characteristic of a good officer.

Ever fince the days of antient Piftol, we find that a large and broad trimmed beaver has been peculiar to heroes. A hat of this kind, worn over your right eye, with two large dangling taffels, and a proportionate cockade and feather, will give you an air of courage and martial gallantry.

Your cross-belt fhould be broad, with a huge blade pendant to it; to which you may add a dirk and a bayonet, in order to give you the more tremendous appearance.

Thus

Thus equipped, you fally forth, with your colours, or chitterlin, advanced and flying; and I think it will be beft in walking through the streets, particularly if they are narrow, to carry your sword in your right hand: for, befides its having a handfome and military appearance, the pommel of the fword will ferve to open you a free paffage, by fhoving it in the guts of every one who does not give way. He must be a bold man who will venture to oppose you, as by your dress he cannot in reafon expect the least quarter.

When you go to London,-to fee your friends in the country, or to any other part where your regiment is not known, immediately mount two epaulets, and pass yourself for a grenadier officer.

If you belong to a mess, eat with it as feldom as poffible, to let folks fee you want neither money nor credit.

If the dinner is not ferved up immediately on your fitting down, draw circles with your fork on the table; cut the tablecloth; and, if you have pewter plates, fpin them on the point of your fork, or do fome other mischief, to punish the fellow for making you wait.

If you have any turn for reading, or find it neceffary to kill in that manner the tedious hours in camp or garrifon, let it be fuch books as warm the imagination, and infpire to military atchievements; as, The Woman of Pleafure, Crazy Tales, Rochefter's Poems. If you aim at folid inftruction and useful knowledge, you must study Lord Chesterfield's Letters, or Trufler's Politeness. If you have a turn for natural philofophy, you may perufe Ariftotle's Mafter-piece; and the Trials for Adul tery will afford you a fund of historical and legal information.

S

If there fhould be a foberly-difpofed perfon, or, in other words, a fellow of no fpirit, in the corps, you must not only bore him conftantly at the mefs, but should make ufe of a kind of practical wit to torment him. Thus you may force open his doors, break his windows, damage his furniture, and put w in his bed; or, in the camp, throw fquibs and crackers into his tent at night, or loosen his tent-cords in windy weather. Young gentlemen will never be at a lofs for contrivances of this nature. When a guard mounts with colours, they will make a handfome covering for the card-table at night, and will prevent ic from being stained or foiled.

At exercife you must be continually thrufting out your fpontoon, ordering the men to drefs, and making as much noife as poffible, in order to fhew your attention to your duty.

Always ufe the moft opprobrious epithets in reprimanding the foldiers, particularly men of good character; for these men it