A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be : $b illustrated by examples during the Peninsular War; with observations upon India; the United States of America; Canada; the boundary line; the navy; steam warfare, &c.Campbell, James
History
A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be : $b illustrated by examples during the Peninsular War; with observations upon India; the United States of America; Canada; the boundary line; the navy; steam warfare, &c.
Campbell, James
Great Britain. Army
To expect that such objects can be attained by merely paying the
clergymen of towns, where troops are usually quartered, a certain
sum annually for performing clerical duties, is altogether out of
the question. Every regiment ought to have its own chaplain, and the
changes which have of late years taken place in the religious, as well
as in the moral feelings of the country, (for we ought not to attend
to the wild ideas and effusions of men, who in the present day are
leading the unwary astray,) have rendered their appointment to corps
no longer objectionable. The regimental chaplains should be required,
before appointment, to produce to the chaplain general, certificates
from bishops of the church of England, or from, at least, two ministers
of the church of Scotland, setting forth the respectability of their
characters, their fitness to discharge the religious duties, and to
direct and superintend the instruction of the regiment, to which they
might be attached, and in which a higher description of education was
hereafter to be looked for.
I must here declare, and I do so after long and serious consideration
of the subject, that the consequences of a mixture in corps of men
professing Protestant and Roman Catholic creeds have always been, that
religion, of any kind, became altogether a forbidden subject, and I
firmly believe, that much of the depravity and irregularities committed
by our soldiers, may be attributed to this cause; for what could be
expected from men, who, I may say, never gave religion even a thought.
The officers were almost all Protestants, whilst a considerable
proportion of the soldiers, in many regiments, from having been raised
in Ireland, were Papists; and it, unfortunately, yet clearly, became
the duty of those under whose command they were placed, to show no
respect of persons, or to hurt the feelings of either party on account
of religious opinions or differences; and thus what is commonly looked
upon as sacred amongst men, could not even be named, and much less
brought to the assistance of officers in the management of their men,
so that fear of punishment was all they had to depend upon (and even
corporal punishment when too frequently resorted to, lost its effects,)
for the maintenance of discipline, it was, therefore, to the system
pursued, and not to the officers that blame ought to have been attached
for much of the misconduct which the commanders of our armies, and Lord
Wellington in particular, had to lament and contend with. Much more
might be said upon this subject, but I do not wish to pursue it farther.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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