Let it not be thought, however, that there were not many exceptions to this general character which I have drawn, (some of whom I will have occasion to mention in this narrative,) who have shed a lustre around the military character that has often served to conceal its defects. FOOTNOTES: [4] This is not to be wondered at when we consider how the army was at that time recruited; it is very different now. CHAPTER VI. About the beginning of May, we got the route for Aberdeen. On the march I have nothing interesting to take notice of, unless the kindness which we experienced from the people where we were billeted on the road, particularly after we crossed the Firth of Forth. We arrived in Aberdeen, after a march of ten days, where we had better barracks, and cheaper provisions than in Dunbar; but the barracks being too small, a number of our men were billeted in the town, and not being in the mess when pay-day came, it was a common thing for many of them to spend what they had to support them in drink; and some of them were so infatuated as to sell even their allowance of bread for the same purpose. They were then obliged (to use their own phraseology) to ‘Box Harry,’ until the next pay-day; and some of them carried this system to such a length, that it was found necessary to bring them into barracks, to prevent them from starving themselves. If I may be allowed to draw a conclusion from what I have seen, the men’s morals are no way improved by being lodged out of barracks; for, while here, the principal employment of many of them when off duty was drinking, and associating with common women; and I think, if anything tends to depreciate the character of the soldier in the eyes of his countrymen, in civil life, more than another, it is this habit of associating publicly with such characters. This total disregard of even the appearance of decency, conveys an idea to the mind that he must be the _lowest of the low_. But many of them seem to be proud of such company; and it is quite a common thing to meet them on the streets arm in arm. This debasement of feeling and character, I imagine, arises from the system of discipline pursued by many commanding officers, which teaches the soldier to believe that he is a mere piece of machinery in the hands of his superiors, to be moved only as they please without any accordance of his own reason or judgment, and that he has no merit in his own actions, independent of this moving power. Such a belief has naturally the effect of making a man so little in his own eyes, that he feels he cannot sink lower, let him keep what company he may.