Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1702-1714
Some, who had more nicely enquired into the Particulars of the ill
Usage which was the Cause of this Resentment, have given the oddest
contradicting Accounts of it that any History can Parallel: As first,
That the great Commander had restrained the rashness of this young
Hotspur General, who being but a Boy in Experience, compared to the
Commander, was always for pushing into the Heart of _Tartary_ with the
Army; not considering, That to run up a Hundred Mile into the Country,
and leave the Enemies Towns untaken, and their Armies in a Condition to
Recruit, cut off their Convoys and Communication, and make their
Subsistence impracticable, was the ready way to destroy them, as has
been seen by a woful Example in _Spain_. But the General was wiser, and
regarded more the Safety of the Army, and the Honour of his Mistress;
and therefore, by the unanimous Approbation of all the allied Generals,
(for it was not his own single Opinion) and according to the just Rules
of War, went on gradually to take their fortified Towns, and ruin their
Defences on the Frontiers, that at last, he might have a sure and easie
Conquest of the rest: This was one Pretence. The second was just the
Reverse of this: For at a great Battle with the _Tartarians_, the
Commander having resolved to attack the Enemy in their advantageous
Camp, and having drawn up in Battalia his whole Army, he gives the Post
of Honour to the Prince, appointing him, with a select Body of the best
Troops in the Army, to fall on upon the Right, and Charge the Enemy,
while other Generals did the like, and with equal Hazard and more real
Danger, on the Left. There was not a Gentleman in the Enemies Army but
would have taken this as the greatest Testimony of his General's
Esteem, and would have thought any Man in the Army his mortal Enemy
that should have gone about to have deprived him of it. Nor was there
any Man in the _Attalantick_ Army, who did not take it as an Evidence
of the great Opinion the Commander had of the Prince's Courage; and all
the World talked of it as the greatest Honour could possibly be done
the Prince.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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