Privateers and Moorish corsairs possess not the best seamanship, and
very little discipline, and indeed can make no figure in regular
service; but in desperate adventures, and animated with a lust of
plunder, they are truly formidable.
That the land forces of France are well adapted to concur with their
marine in conjunct expeditions of this nature. In such expeditions,
enterprise supplies the want of discipline, and perhaps more than
supplies it. Both for this, and for other service, (however contemptible
their military is in other respects,) one arm is extremely good, the
engineering and artillery branch. The old officer corps in both being
composed for the greater part of those who were not gentlemen, or
gentlemen newly such, few have abandoned the service, and the men are
veterans, well enough disciplined, and very expert. In this piratical
way they must make war with good advantage. They must do so, even on the
side of Flanders, either offensively or defensively. This shows the
difference between the policy of Louis the Fourteenth, who built a wall
of brass about his kingdom, and that of Joseph the Second, who
premeditatedly uncovered his whole frontier.
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