found great difficulty in organizing the Portuguese troops, he laid down [Sidenote: Dated Badajoz, 8 Sept. 1809.] what may be considered a military creed. “They want the habits,” he wrote, “and the spirit of soldiers,--the habits of command on one side, and of obedience on the other--mutual confidence between officers and men: and, above all, a determination in the superiors to obey the spirit of the orders they receive, let what will be the consequence; and the spirit to tell the true cause, if they do not.” Poor Marshal Beresford had, indeed, need of support and sympathy [Sidenote: Supplementary Despatches of Duke of Wellington, vol. vi. p. 362.] in his task. Long habits of disregard to duty, and of consequent laziness, made it impossible for the senior officers to pay any regular or continued attention to the duties of their situations, and neither reward nor punishment would induce them to bear up against fatigue. By replacing these by younger officers, or English officers detached from the various regiments, he ultimately succeeded in making the Portuguese contingent a most valuable force; but this was only done by impressing on them the necessity of discipline and unhesitating obedience. More than sixty years have passed away, and the same lesson, though more difficult to learn, is not the less vitally necessary. The spirit of criticism spreads with the growth of education, and considerably out of proportion with it. The reasoning obedience which a soldier should yield is, perhaps, confused with an obedience which requires to know the reason of an order, instead of that which is readily yielded in the belief that what may be unintelligible in detail is necessary for the general plan. That such obedience is not easy always to give may be true enough. The possession, with a strong will, of but pigmy power, is undoubtedly trying; but the self-denial which is demanded stands among the highest of all military virtues, as it is the very alphabet of all military training. He only is fit to rule who has first learned to obey.