Historical Sketches, Volume I

previously to the revolutionary war; in which he praised our troops highly, but said they would not be effective till they were supported by a better commissariat. Moreover, one commonly hears, that the supply of this deficiency is one of the very merits of the great Duke of Wellington. So it is with civilized races; but the Tartars, as is evident from what I have already observed, have in their wars no need of any commissariat at all; and that, not merely from the unscrupulousness of their foraging, but because they find in the instruments of their conquests the staple of their food. "Corn is a bulky and perishable commodity," says an historian;[3] "and the large magazines, which are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of civilized troops, are difficult and slow of transport." But, not to say that even their flocks and herds were fitted for rapid movement, like the nimble sheep of Wales and the wild cattle of North Britain, the Tartars could even dispense with these altogether. If straitened for pro