EXERCISE, in military affairs, is the practice of all those motions and actions, together with the whole management of arms, which a soldier is to be perfect in, to render him fit for service, and make him understand how to attack and defend. Exercise is the first part of the military art; and the more it is considered the more essential it will appear. It disengages the human frame from the stiff rusticity of simple nature, and forms men and horses to all the evolutions of war. The honor, merit, appearance, strength, and success of a corps depend wholly upon the attention which has been paid to the drill and exercise of it, according to prescribed rules and regulations; while on the other hand we see the greatest armies, for want of being exercised, instantly disordered, and that disorder increasing in spite of command; the confusion oversets the art of skilful masters, and the valor of the men only serves to precipitate the defeat: for which reason it is the duty of every officer to take care, that the recruits be drilled as soon as they join the corps. The greatest advantage derived from the exercise, is the expertness with which men become capable of loading and firing, and their learning an attention to act in conformity with those around them. It has always been lamented, that men have been brought on service, without being informed of the uses of the different manœuvres they have been practising; and that having no ideas of any thing but the uniformity of the parade, they instantly fall into disorder and confusion when they lose the step, or see a deviation from the straight lines they have been accustomed to at exercise. It is a pity to see so much attention confined to show, and so little given to instruct the troops in what may be of use to them on service. Though the parade is the place to form the characters of soldiers, and to teach them uniformity, yet when confined to that alone, it is too limited and mechanical for true military use. The great loss which the British troops sustained in Germany, America, and the West Indies, during the war of 1783, from sickness, as well as from the enemy, was chiefly owing to a neglect of exercise. An army whose numbers vanish after the first 4 months of a campaign, may be very ready to give battle in their existing period; but the fact is, that although fighting is one part of a soldier’s business, yet bearing fatigue, and being in health, is another, and at least as essential as the first. A campaign may pass without a battle; but no part of a campaign can be gone through without fatigue, without marches, without an exposure to bad weather; all of which have exercise for their foundation; and if soldiers are not trained and enured to these casualties, but sink under them, they become inadequate to bodily fatigue, and eventually turn out a burthen to the country.