thirty-three to thirty-eight thousand men. The physical agencies which
Great Britain employed were;, therefore, far beneath the prestige of her
accredited position among the nations; and the disparity between the
contending forces was mainly in discipline and equipment, with the
advantage to Great Britain in naval strength, until that was supplanted
by that of France.

To free the question from a popular fallacy which treats oldtime
operations as insignificant, in view of large modern armies and
campaigns, it is pertinent to state, just here, that the issues of the
battle-field for all time, up to the latest hour, have not been
determined by the size of armies, or by improvements in weapons of war,
except relatively, in proportion as civilized peoples fought those of
less civilization; or where some precocity of race or invention more
quickly matured the operations of the winning side.

If the maxims of Napoleon are but a terse restatement of those of
Caesar, and the skill of Hannibal at Cannae still holds place as a model
for the concave formation of a battle-line, so have all the decisive
battles of history taken shape from the timely handling of men, in the
exercise of that sound judgment which adapts means to ends, in every
work of life. Thus it is that equally great battles, those in the
highest sense great, have become memorial, although numbers did not
impart value to the struggle; but they were the expression of that skill
and wisdom which would have ensured success, if the opposing armies had
been greater or less.

If a timely fog did aid the retreat of Washington from Brooklyn, in
1776, so did a petty stream, filled to the brim by a midnight shower,
make altogether desperate, if it did not, alone, change, the fortunes of