room enough for your whole power, it is uncertain and dangerous; and that which per∣suades
me to be of that opinion, is the example of such as having been invaded by a potent
Enemy, though their Country was environed with Mountains and Rocks, yet they would
not attend, and engage the Enemy upon the passes or Mountains, but marched out of their
holds to encounter him; or else (which is as bad) they forsook their advantages, and
expected him in some plain or convenient place within: And the reason is (as aforesaid)
because many men cannot be brought to defend such places as are Rocky, for want of sub∣sistance;
and the passage being streight, it can receive but few people, and by consequence
is not able to sustain the insult of a very great Army, and the Enemy may bring as may as
he pleases to attack it, because his business is not to fix there, but to pass thorow and be gone:
whereas he who is to defend it, cannot be in any considerable Body, being (by reason of
the uncertainty of the Enemies approach) to lie there continually, though (as I said be∣fore)
the places are both barren and streight. Having lost therefore that pass which you
imagined to keep, and upon which your Army and People did wholly rely, the remainder
of your Army, and Subjects are possessed with such a fear, that you can have no farther
trial of their courage, but all goes to wrack, and your whole fortune lost, but with part of
your Army. With what difficulty Hannibal passed the Alps betwixt France and Lombardy,
and betwixt Lombardy and Tuscany, there is no body ignorant; nevertheless the Romans
chose rather to attend him upon the Tesin, and afterwards in the plain of Arezzo, where
the danger was equal both to the Enemy and them; than to carry their Army up into the
clouds upon the Rocks and the Snow, to be consumed by the incommodity of the place,
before the Enemy came at them. And whosoever shall read History deliberately, shall find
few great Captains that would coop themselves up in such passes and streights, not only
for the reasons abovesaid, but because all of them cannot be stop'd the Mountains in that
respect being like the fields, having not only their Roads and High-ways, but by-paths
and passages, which though not observed by Strangers, are well enough known to the In∣habitants,
who will be always ready to conduct the Enemy, to remove them farther off
who lie constantly upon them. Of this a late Example may be brought, in the year 1515,
when Francis King of France design'd to pass into Italy for the recovery of Lombardy, the
great objection by those who were against the Expedition, was, That the Swizzers
would obstruct his passage over the Mountains, which argument was found idle after∣wards,
for the Kings of France waving two or three places which they had guarded, passed
by a private and unknown way, and was upon their backs in Italy, before they perceiv'd
him; so that being mightily surprized, the Enemy quitted his Posts, and retired into Italy,
and all the Lombards submitted to the French; they being deceived in their opinion, who
thought the French were with more Ease and Convenience to be obstructed in the Moun∣tains.