With him, the love of fame was an
instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how
easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and
address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the
only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very
moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he
knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment
of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of
the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to
rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and promotion,--nothing
but his own merits to justify the countenance that his ingenuity
should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to say
now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to
confidently predicate his own success on these estimates.
It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English
officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that
most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military
instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical
capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a
commission.
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