What must be the situation of a general, if when directing the execution of any pressing service—a hill, suppose, to be occupied, a post to be main- 171 tained, a wood to be defended, a redoubt to be Stormed—In a Crisis which left no leisure or deliberation or inquiry he must be comparing the characters of the different corps under his command, and be exposed, at last, to the uncertainties of troops, whose composition was unknown, whose conduct in a days of action was to be tried for the first time, and who, in the mode of service now proposed for them, might involve in their defeat or miscarriage, the discomfiture of the whole army.