In 1809, in the very Crisis of a Bloody and Desperate War, and at, probably, the 688 darkest hour of that crisis, the Parliament of that time had the magnanimity to enact that any pecuniary dealings in reference to the purchase of commissions in the Army, should render the parties liable to be cashiered, and the brokers concerned in it to be punished for misdemeanour, and that, too, at a moment when, if ever, it was most necessary to offer every inducement to officers to enter the Army.