The precarious
subsistence which the chase affords could seldom allow a
greater number to keep together for
any considerable time. An army of
shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount to two
or three hundred
thousand. As long as nothing stops their progress, as long as they can go
on
from one district, of whic h they have consumed the forage, to another
which is yet entire,
there seems to be scarce any limit to the number who can
march on together. A nation of
hunters can never be formidable to the
civilised nations in their neighbourhood. A nation of
shepherds may. Nothing
can be more contemptible than an Indian war in North America.
Nothing, on the
contrary, can be more dreadful than Tartar invasion has frequently been
in
Asia. The judgment of Thucydides, that both Europe and Asia could not
resist the Scythians
united, has been verified by the experience of all ages.
The inhabitants of the extensive but
defenceless plains of Scythia or Tartary
have been frequently united under the dominion of
the chief of some
conquering horde or clan, and the havoc and devastation of Asia have
always
signalized their union. The inhabitants of the inhospitable Mens Mulberry
Holdalls bag
deserts of Arabia, the other
great nation of shepherds, have
never been united but once; under Mahomet and his
immediate successors. Their
union, which was more the effect of religious enthusiasm than of
conquest,
was signalized in the same manner. If the hunting nations of America should
ever
become shepherds, their neighbourhood would be much more dangerous to
the European
colonies than it is at present.
In a yet more advanced state
of society, among those nations of husbandmen who have
little foreign
commerce, and no other manufactures but those coarse and household ones
which
almost every private family prepares for its own use, every man, in the same
manner,
either is a warrior or easily becomes such. They who live by
agriculture generally pass the
whole day in the open air, exposed to all the
inclemencies of the seasons. The hardiness of
their ordinary life prepares
them for the fatigues of war, to some of which the ir necessary
occupations
bear a great analogy. The necessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to
work
in the trenches, and to fortify a camp as well as to enclose a field.
The ordinary pastimes of
such husbandmen are the same as those of shepherds,
and are in the same manner the images
of war. But as husbandmen have less
leisure than shepherds, they are not so frequently
employed in those
pastimes. They are soldiers, but soldiers not quite so much masters of
their
exercise. Such as they are, however, it seldom costs the sovereign or
commonwealth any
expense to prepare them for the field.
Agriculture, even
in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement: some sort of
fixed
habitation which cannot be abandoned without great loss. When a nation
of mere
husbandmen, therefore, goes to war, the whole people mulberry satchel
bag sale
cannot take the field together. The old
men, the women and
children, at least, must remain at home to take care of the habitation.
All
the men of the military age, however, may take the field, and, in small
nations of this kind,
have frequently done so. In every nation the men of the
military age are supposed to amount
to about a fourth or a fifth part of the
whole body of the people. If the campaign, should begin
after seed-time, and
end before harvest, both the husbandman and his principal labourers can
be
spared from the farm without much loss. He trusts that the work which must be
done in the
meantime can be well enough executed by the old men, the women,
and the children. He is
not unwilling, therefore, to serve without pay during
a short campaign, and it frequently costs
the sovereign or commonwealth as
little to maintain him in the field as to prepare him for it.
