"P.S.--The general has not sent off his despatches till to-day, so that I have an opportunity of saying a few words more. Our army disembarked on the 4th of October, and took possession of the peninsula of Quiberon, without opposition. We lay there, without molestation, for eight days, though the enemy had formed a powerful, at least a numerous, army of militia on the continent. The separation of so many of our transports, and the reinforcements not coming, determined us to reimbark, and return home, with some small hopes that our expedition has answered the chief part of its intended purpose, by making a diversion from the French army in Flanders. The French pretend to have gained a great victory; but with what truth we know not. The admiral landed some sailors, and took possession of the two islands of Houat and Hedie, which were secured by small forts. The governor of one of them, when he surrendered his fort, delivered up his purse to the sea officer, and begged him to take care of it, and secure it from the pillage of the sailors. The officer took charge of it, and, finding afterwards a proper opportunity to examine it, found it contained the important sum of ten sous, which is less than sixpence of our money."[217:1] "_October 17._" As Niebuhr was an eye-witness of the battle of Copenhagen, so Hume also had thus an opportunity of observing some practical warlike operations, though they were on a much smaller scale, and were witnessed in much less exciting circumstances than those which attended the position of the citizen of Copenhagen. Thus, although not themselves soldiers, these two great historians swell the list, previously containing the names of Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Guicciardini, Davila, and Rapin, of those historians of warfare who have witnessed its practical operation. Voltaire, when the accuracy of his description of a battle was questioned by one who had been engaged in it, bid the soldier keep to his profession of fighting, and not interfere with another man's, which was that of writing; but there is little doubt, that the person who would accurately describe military manoeuvres, will have his task facilitated by having actually witnessed some warlike operations, on however small a scale, and however unlike in character to those which he has to describe. Scott considered that he had derived much of his facility as a narrative historian from his services in the Mid-Lothian yeomanry; and Gibbon found that to be an active officer in the Hampshire militia was not without its use to the historian of the latter days of Rome.