An army composed, as that I have in view, ought not to be officered by men who can get forward, as at present, by purchasing over the heads, too often, of much better soldiers than themselves, in point of gallantry, military science, and experience. And how strangely also, and inconsistently, are honours conferred upon officers in our army--not for alone distinguishing themselves in action, but because they happened to hold a rank sufficiently high to entitle them to a certain command, or to be the head of a department, and to which the greater part of them had attained, perhaps, by money, well backed by interest; for an officer may have been in every action of importance, from the beginning of the present century up to Waterloo; may have frequently distinguished himself, and may have been even promoted to the rank of Major, and Lieutenant-Colonel, for services in the field, and yet not be entitled to either a clasp or medal, because he did not happen to hold that which would bring him within a fixed regulation on this head. I do not, however, pretend to say, that many of those who commanded corps or detached bodies, and who had arrived at that honour by means of money, were not excellent and gallant officers, but others, over whose heads they, perhaps, had got, could have been pointed out, whom, from not possessing that mainspring, money, or from want of opportunity of applying it, had been obliged to submit to the, perhaps, annoying questions of a genteel, though not rich, and consequently uninfluential family--such as--pray, Colonel, how comes it, that you have neither a clasp nor a medal, nor any thing else to show, although we know that you were present in so many battles, and at so many sieges; when there was at the Mayor's feast the other day (and yet we never heard much of him) General Sir Richard Sam, the son of old Dickey Sam, who, years ago, did his best to bring in ---- for ----, who was quite covered with clasps, medals, and ribbons, and he is also a Knight Commander of the Bath into the bargain. Well might it have puzzled the Emperor Napoleon to conceive how a British army could have been kept efficient, and in the state it was, in which high minded gentlemen were subjected to so galling and absurd a system of obtaining rank and honours; especially when it was also seen, that through the effects of our strange brevet system, a Captain of a Company, from being, perhaps, a senior Lieut.-Colonel in the Army, could in garrison, or when acting with a mixed body of troops in the field, take the command of the whole, and likewise of the Lieut.-Colonel of his own regiment,--and I have known instances of this kind--but probably the very next day, when the corps came to act separately, or when a senior officer took the command of the troops, the Lieut.-Colonel of the corps, or its major, or any of its captains, who happened to have seniority in the regiment to the Brevet Lieut.-Colonel, could drill