CHAP. V.
In what Countries the best Soldiers are to be raised.
SEeing you are hitherto so well pleased, I will deduce my discourse of this mat∣ter from the fountain, that thereby you may comprehend it the better, and I be enabled to demonstrate it more copiously. When War is resolved, every man's chief business is to put himself into a condition of giving the Enemy Battel, and fighting him fairly in the field. To enable himself for this, it is necessary to raise an Army; to raise an Army, there is a necessity of men, of arming them, disciplining them, exercising them, (and that in great as well as small bodies) of teaching them to encamp, and ac∣quainting them with the Enemy by degrees, either by frequent facing or confronting him, or by encamping somewhere near his march, where they may have the prospect of his Army as he passes by. In this the whole address and industry of a Campania, or field War con∣sists, which doubtless is more necessary and honorable than any other; and he who under∣stands well how to draw up an Army, and present his Enemy Battel, may be excused for all his other errors in the management of the War; but if he be ignorant or defective in that, though in other things he be sufficient enough; yet he shall never bring his War to any honourable conclusion. For win a Battel, and you cancel all your former miscarriages; lose one, and all that ever you did well before evaporates, and comes to nothing.
It being so necessary then to find men, the first thing to be done, is to know how to make our choice (which the ancients called Delectus, and we Levies) of which I shall give you some light.
They who have given us rules of the management of War, have recommended to us to make our Levies in temperate regions, that our Soldiers may be both valiant, and cunning For hot Countries are observed to produce wise and subtle people, but not couragious; cold Countries on the other side do afford stout men, and hardy, but then they are seldom dis∣creet. This Rule was proper enough for a Prince that was Monarch of the whole world, and might make his Levies where he pleas'd: But to give a rule that all may follow, I must needs say that all Commonwealths, or Kingdoms, are to make their Levies in their own Countries, whether hot or cold, or temperate, it's the same thing; because by ancient ex∣perience we find that in any Country, Exercise and Discipline makes good Soldiers; for where Nature is defective, industry will supply; and in this case it's the better of the two. And indeed to raise men in other Countries cannot be call'd properly a delectus, for delectum habere is to pick and cull the best men in a Province, and to have power to choose those who are unwilling as well as those who are willing to the War; which kind of delectus cannot be made exactly but in your own dominion; for in Countries belonging to another Prince, you must be contented with such as are willing, it being not to be expected that you should have liberty to choose as you please.
Yet among those who are willing, you may pick and choose, take and leave what you think good, and therefore it is not so improper to call that a delectus.
You are in the right as to one way; but if you consider the secret defects of such an Election, you will find that in strictness it is not an Election; and that for these following reasons. First, those who are not your Subjects, but are willing to the Wars, are none of the best, but generally the lewdest and most dissolute persons in the Province; for if any be scandalous, idle, incorrigible, irreligious, disobedient to their Parents, Blas∣phemers, Cheats, and altogether ill bred, they are those who are most likely to list them∣selves for the War, and there is nothing so contrary to good and true discipline, as such kind of humors: When of such kind of Cattle you have more offer themselves, than the number you design to entertain, you may take your choice indeed, but the whole mass be∣ing