The strong opinions expressed in these books of course provoked controversy. Sir John Smyth, knight, an officer of some repute, boldly took up the cudgels on the other side, and undertook to prove even in 1591 that the archer was more formidable than the arquebusier and the arrow than the bullet, which was an argument only too welcome to old-fashioned insular Englishmen. On the other hand, he enters minutely and intelligently into points of drill and manœuvre, condemns the bombasted hose as vehemently as Garrard himself, and prescribes a more serviceable dress for the soldier. From him we learn our first knowledge of the manual exercise of the pike, how it should be advanced and how shouldered with comely and soldierlike grace, and how men should always step off with the right foot. From him also we obtain sound instruction for the shock attack of cavalry, and some mention of the Hungarian light horsemen, called "ussarons"; and from him finally we gather information of the extraordinary inefficiency even at the close of the reign of the shire-levies of England, of the neglect of the arms and the corruption of the muster-masters. Roger Williams, whom I have already quoted, also entered the lists at this time with an account of the Spanish organisation, and combated warmly for the superiority of the lance over the pistol as the weapon of cavalry; and a translation by Sir Edward Hoby from the Spanish of Mendoza (1597) also upheld the cause of shock-action. Hard upon these followed a version of the striking work of Martin du Bellay, with its complete scheme for what we now call the short-service system; and in the same year (1598) appeared a dialogue by one Barret, which sought to close the whole controversy. A conservative gentleman who upholds bows and bills is utterly demolished by a captain who pleads for pike and musket, would abolish the shire-levies bodily as useless, and would substitute a reorganised force on the favourite model, already once adopted in France, of the Roman legion. But Barret knew his countrymen and expected little. "Such as have followed the wars," he says, "are despised of every man until a very pinch of need doth come"; and military reform then as now could not be pushed forward except under pressure of a scare of war.