An Essay Upon Projects

  2. The grace of swearing has not obtained to be a mode yet among

  the women: "God damn ye" does not fit well upon a female tongue; it

  seems to be a masculine vice, which the women are not arrived to

  yet; and I would only desire those gentlemen who practice it

  themselves to hear a woman swear: it has no music at all there, I

  am sure; and just as little does it become any gentleman, if he

  would suffer himself to be judged by all the laws of sense or good

  manners in the world.

  It is a senseless, foolish, ridiculous practice; it is a mean to no

  manner of end; it is words spoken which signify nothing; it is folly

  acted for the sake of folly, which is a thing even the devil himself

  don't practice. The devil does evil, we say, but it is for some

  design, either to seduce others, or, as some divines say, from a

  principle of enmity to his Maker. Men steal for gain, and murder to

  gratify their avarice or revenge; whoredoms and ravishments,

  adulteries and sodomy, are committed to please a vicious appetite,

  and have always alluring objects; and generally all vices have some

  previous cause, and some visible tendency. But this, of all vicious

  practices, seems the most nonsensical and ridiculous; there is

  neither pleasure nor profit, no design pursued, no lust gratified,

  but is a mere frenzy of the tongue, a vomit of the brain, which

  works by putting a contrary upon the course of nature.

  Again, other vices men find some reason or other to give for, or

  excuses to palliate. Men plead want to extenuate theft, and strong

  provocations to excuse murders, and many a lame excuse they will

  bring for whoring; but this sordid habit even those that practise it

  will own to be a crime, and make no excuse for it; and the most I

  could ever hear a man say for it was that he could not help it.

  Besides, as it is an inexcusable impertinence, so it is a breach

  upon good manners and conversation, for a man to impose the clamour

  of his oaths upon the company he converses with; if there be any one

  person in the company that does not approve the way, it is an

  imposing upon him with a freedom beyond civility.

  To suppress this, laws, Acts of Parliament, and proclamations are

  baubles and banters, the laughter of the lewd party, and never had,

  as I could perceive, any influence upon the practice; nor are any of

  our magistrates fond or forward of putting them in execution.

  It must be example, not penalties, must sink this crime; and if the

  gentlemen of England would once drop it as a mode, the vice is so

  foolish and ridiculous in itself, it would soon grow odious and out

  of fashion.

  This work such an academy might begin, and I believe nothing would

  so soon explode the practice as the public discouragement of it by

  such a society; where all our customs and habits, both in speech and

  behaviour, should receive an authority. All the disputes about

  precedency of wit, with the manners, customs, and usages of the

  theatre, would be decided here; plays should pass here before they

  were acted, and the critics might give their censures and damn at

  their pleasure; nothing would ever die which once received life at

  this original. The two theatres might end their jangle, and dispute

  for priority no more; wit and real worth should decide the

  controversy, and here should be the infallible judge.

  The strife would then be only to do well,

  And he alone be crowned who did excel.

  Ye call them Whigs, who from the church withdrew,

  But now we have our stage dissenters too,

  Who scruple ceremonies of pit and box,

  And very few are sound and orthodox,

  But love disorder so, and are so nice,

  They hate conformity, though 'tis in vice.

  Some are for patent hierarchy; and some,

  Like the old Gauls, seek out for elbow room;

  Their arbitrary governors disown,

  And build a conventicle stage of their own.

  Fanatic beaux make up the gaudy show,

  And wit alone appears incognito.

  Wit and religion suffer equal fate;

  Neglect of both attends the warm debate.

  For while the parties strive and countermine,

  Wit will as well as piety decline.

  Next to this, which I esteem as the most noble and most useful

  proposal in this book, I proceed to academies for military studies,

  and because I design rather to express my meaning than make a large

  book, I bring them all into one chapter.

  I allow the war is the best academy in the world, where men study by

  necessity and practice by force, and both to some purpose, with duty

  in the action, and a reward in the end; and it is evident to any man

  who knows the world, or has made any observations on things, what an

  improvement the English nation has made during this seven years'

  war.

  But should you ask how clear it first cost, and what a condition

  England was in for a war at first on this account--how almost all

  our engineers and great officers were foreigners, it may put us in

  mind how necessary it is to have our people so practised in the arts

  of war that they may not be novices when they come to the

  experiment.

  I have heard some who were no great friends to the Government take

  advantage to reflect upon the king, in the beginning of his wars in

  Ireland, that he did not care to trust the English, but all his

  great officers, his generals, and engineers were foreigners. And

  though the case was so plain as to need no answer, and the persons

  such as deserved none, yet this must be observed, though it was very

  strange: that when the present king took possession of this

  kingdom, and, seeing himself entering upon the bloodiest war this

  age has known, began to regulate his army, he found but very few

  among the whole martial part of the nation fit to make use of for

  general officers, and was forced to employ strangers, and make them

  Englishmen (as the Counts Schomberg, Ginkel, Solms, Ruvigny, and

  others); and yet it is to be observed also that all the

  encouragement imaginable was given to the English gentlemen to

  qualify themselves, by giving no less than sixteen regiments to

  gentlemen of good families who had never been in any service and

  knew but very little how to command them. Of these, several are now

  in the army, and have the rewards suitable to their merit, being

  major-generals, brigadiers, and the like.

  If, then, a long peace had so reduced us to a degree of ignorance

  that might have been dangerous to us, had we not a king who is

  always followed by the greatest masters in the world, who knows what

  peace and different governors may bring us to again?

  The manner of making war differs perhaps as much as anything in the

  world; and if we look no further back than our civil wars, it is

  plain a general then would hardly be fit to be a colonel now, saving

  his capacity of improvement. The defensive art always follows the

  offensive; and though the latter has extremely got the start of the

  former in this age, yet the other is mightily improving also
.

  We saw in England a bloody civil war, where, according to the old

  temper of the English, fighting was the business. To have an army

  lying in such a post as not to be able to come at them was a thing

  never heard of in that war; even the weakest party would always come

  out and fight (Dunbar fight, for instance); and they that were

  beaten to-day would fight again to-morrow, and seek one another out

  with such eagerness, as if they had been in haste to have their

  brains knocked out. Encampments, intrenchments, batteries, counter-

  marchings, fortifying of camps, and cannonadings were strange and

  almost unknown things; and whole campaigns were passed over, and

  hardly any tents made use of. Battles, surprises, storming of

  towns, skirmishes, sieges, ambuscades, and beating up quarters was

  the news of every day. Now it is frequent to have armies of fifty

  thousand men of a side stand at bay within view of one another, and

  spend a whole campaign in dodging (or, as it is genteelly called,

  observing) one another, and then march off into winter quarters.

  The difference is in the maxims of war, which now differ as much

  from what they were formerly as long perukes do from piqued beards,

  or as the habits of the people do now from what they then were. The

  present maxims of the war are:

  "Never fight without a manifest advantage."

  "And always encamp so as not to be forced to it."

  And if two opposite generals nicely observe both these rules, it is

  impossible they should ever come to fight.

  I grant that this way of making war spends generally more money and

  less blood than former wars did; but then it spins wars out to a

  greater length; and I almost question whether, if this had been the

  way of fighting of old, our civil war had not lasted till this day.

  Their maxim was:

  "Wherever you meet your enemy, fight him."

  But the case is quite different now; and I think it is plain in the

  present war that it is not he who has the longest sword, so much as

  he who has the longest purse, will hold the war out best. Europe is

  all engaged in the war, and the men will never be exhausted while

  either party can find money; but he who finds himself poorest must

  give out first; and this is evident in the French king, who now

  inclines to peace, and owns it, while at the same time his armies

  are numerous and whole. But the sinews fail; he finds his exchequer

  fail, his kingdom drained, and money hard to come at: not that I

  believe half the reports we have had of the misery and poverty of

  the French are true; but it is manifest the King of France finds,

  whatever his armies may do, his money won't hold out so long as the

  Confederates, and therefore he uses all the means possible to

  procure a peace, while he may do it with the most advantage.

  There is no question but the French may hold the war out several

  years longer; but their king is too wise to let things run to

  extremity. He will rather condescend to peace upon hard terms now

  than stay longer, if he finds himself in danger to be forced to

  worse.

  This being the only digression I design to be guilty of, I hope I

  shall be excused it.

  The sum of all is this: that, since it is so necessary to be in a

  condition for war in a time of peace, our people should be inured to

  it. It is strange that everything should be ready but the soldier:

  ships are ready, and our trade keeps the seamen always taught, and

  breeds up more; but soldiers, horsemen, engineers, gunners, and the

  like must be bred and taught; men are not born with muskets on their

  shoulders, nor fortifications in their heads; it is not natural to

  shoot bombs and undermine towns: for which purpose I propose a

  ROYAL ACADEMY FOR MILITARY EXERCISES.

  The founder the king himself; the charge to be paid by the public,

  and settled by a revenue from the Crown, to be paid yearly.

  I propose this to consist of four parts:

  1. A college for breeding up of artists in the useful practice of

  all military exercises; the scholars to be taken in young, and be

  maintained, and afterwards under the king's care for preferment, as

  their merit and His Majesty's favour shall recommend them; from

  whence His Majesty would at all times be furnished with able

  engineers, gunners, fire-masters. bombardiers, miners, and the like.

  The second college for voluntary students in the same exercises; who

  should all upon certain limited conditions be entertained, and have

  all the advantages of the lectures, experiments, and learning of the

  college, and be also capable of several titles, profits, and

  settlements in the said college, answerable to the Fellows in the

  Universities.

  The third college for temporary study, into which any person who is

  a gentleman and an Englishman, entering his name and conforming to

  the orders of the house, shall be entertained like a gentleman for

  one whole year gratis, and taught by masters appointed out of the

  second college.

  The fourth college, of schools only, where all persons whatsoever

  for a small allowance shall be taught and entered in all the

  particular exercises they desire; and this to be supplied by the

  proficients of the first college.

  I could lay out the dimensions and necessary incidents of all this

  work, but since the method of such a foundation is easy and regular

  from the model of other colleges, I shall only state the economy of

  the house.

  The building must be very large, and should rather be stately and

  magnificent in figure than gay and costly in ornament: and I think

  such a house as Chelsea College, only about four times as big, would

  answer it; and yet, I believe, might be finished for as little

  charge as has been laid out in that palace-like hospital.

  The first college should consist of one general, five colonels,

  twenty captains.

  Being such as graduates by preferment, at first named by the

  founder; and after the first settlement to be chosen out of the

  first or second colleges; with apartments in the college, and

  salaries.

  Pounds per ann.

  The general . . . . . . . . . . 300

  The colonels . . . . . . . . . . 100

  The captains . . . . . . . . . . 60

  2,000 scholars, among whom shall be the following degrees:

  Pounds per ann.

  Governors . . . . 100 allowed 10

  Directors . . . . 200 5

  Exempts . . . . . 200 5

  Proficients . . . 500

  Juniors . . . . . 1,000

  The general to be named by the founder, out of the colonels; the

  colonels to be named by the general, out of the captains; the

  captains out of the governors; the governors from the directors; and

  the directors from the exempts; and so on.

  The juniors to be divided into ten schools; the schools to be thus

  governed: every school has

  100 juniors, in 10 classes.

  Every class to have 2 directors.

  100 classes of juniors is . . .
. . 1,000

  Each class 2 directors . . . . . . . 200

  =====

  1,200

  The proficients to be divided into five schools:

  Every school to have ten classes of 10 each.

  Every class 2 governors.

  50 classes of proficients is . . . . . . . 500

  Each class 2 governors is . . . . . . . . . 100

  ===

  600

  The exempts to be supernumerary, having a small allowance, and

  maintained in the college till preferment offer.

  The second college to consist of voluntary students, to be taken in,

  after a certain degree of learning, from among the proficients of

  the first, or from any other schools, after such and such

  limitations of learning; who study at their own charge, being

  allowed certain privileges; as -

  Chambers rent-free on condition of residence.

  Commons gratis, for certain fixed terms.

  Preferment, on condition of a term of years' residence.

  Use of libraries, instruments, and lectures of the college.

  This college should have the following preferments, with salaries

  Pounds per ann.

  A governor . . . . . . . . . . 200

  A president . . . . . . . . . . 100

  50 college-majors . . . . . . . . 50

  200 proficients . . . . . . . . . 10

  500 voluntary students, without allowance.

  The third and fourth colleges, consisting only of schools for

  temporary study, may be thus:

  The third--being for gentlemen to learn the necessary arts and

  exercises to qualify them for the service of their country, and

  entertaining them one whole year at the public charge--may be

  supposed to have always one thousand persons on its hands, and

  cannot have less than 100 teachers, whom I would thus order:

  Every teacher shall continue at least one year, but by allowance two

  years at most; shall have 20 pounds per annum extraordinary

  allowance; shall be bound to give their constant attendance; and

  shall have always five college-majors of the second college to

  supervise them, who shall command a month, and then be succeeded by

  five others, and, so on--10 pounds per annum extraordinary to be

  paid them for their attendance.

  The gentlemen who practise to be put to no manner of charge, but to

  be obliged strictly to the following articles:

  1. To constant residence, not to lie out of the house without leave

  of the college-major.

  2. To perform all the college exercises, as appointed by the

  masters, without dispute.

  3. To submit to the orders of the house.

  To quarrel or give ill-language should be a crime to be punished by

  way of fine only, the college-major to be judge, and the offender be

  put into custody till he ask pardon of the person wronged; by which

  means every gentleman who has been affronted has sufficient

  satisfaction.

  But to strike challenge, draw, or fight, should be more severely

  punished; the offender to be declared no gentleman, his name posted

  up at the college-gate, his person expelled the house, and to be

  pumped as a rake if ever he is taken within the college-walls.

  The teachers of this college to be chosen, one half out of the

  exempts of the first college, and the other out of the proficients

  of the second.

  The fourth college, being only of schools, will be neither

  chargeable nor troublesome, but may consist of as many as shall

  offer themselves to be taught, and supplied with teachers from the

  other schools.

  The proposal, being of so large an extent, must have a

  proportionable settlement for its maintenance; and the benefit being

  to the whole kingdom, the charge will naturally lie upon the public,

  and cannot well be less, considering the number of persons to be

  maintained, than as follows.

  FIRST COLLEGE.