It is happy for us to have fear for a keeper, as long as our reason is not strong enough to govern our appetites: And I believe, that the great dread I had more particularly against the word, to enervate, and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it, did me abundance of good when I was a school boy: But since I have seen something in the world, the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so dreadful to me as they did. As long as men have the same appetites, the same vices will remain. In all large societies, some will love whoring, and others drinking. The lustful that can get no handsome clean women, will content themselves with dirty drabs: and those that cannot purchase true Hermitage or Pontack, will be glad of more ordinary French claret. Those that cannot reach wine, take up with most liquors, and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits, as a lord with Burgundy, Champaign, or Tockay. The cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging our passions, does as much mischief to a man’s constitution, as the most elegant and expensive.
The greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings, furniture, equipages, and clothes: Clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel; tapestry, fine painting, or good wainscot, are no more unwholesome than bare walls; and a rich couch, or a gilt chariot, are no more enervating than the cold floor, or a country cart. The refined pleasures of men of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution, and there are many great epicures that will refuse to eat or drink more than their heads or stomachs can bear. Sensual people may take as great care of themselves as any: and the errors of the most viciously luxurious, do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness, and their eating and drinking too much (which are the things which would most enervate them), as they do in the operose contrivances, the profuseness and nicety they are served with, and the vast expence they are at in their tables and amours.
But let us once suppose, that the ease and pleasures, the grandees, and the rich people of every nation live in, render them unfit to endure hardships, and undergo the toils of war. I will allow that most of the common council of the city would make but very indifferent foot soldiers; and I believe heartily, that if your horse was to be composed of aldermen, and such as most of them are, a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to route them. But what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation, the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground tilled. Such a variety of labours in every great nation, require a vast multitude, in which there are always loose, idle, extravagant fellows enough to spare for an army; and those that are robust enough to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash, or else not too much enervated to be smiths, carpenters, sawyers, cloth-workers, porters or carmen, will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make good soldiers, who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much plenty and superfluity come to their share, as to do them any hurt.
The mischief, then, to be feared from luxury among the people of war, cannot extend itself beyond the officers. The greatest of them are either men of a very high birth and princely education, or else extraordinary parts, and no less experience; and whoever is made choice of by a wise government to command an army en chef, should have a consummate knowledge in martial affairs, intrepidity to keep him calm in the midst of danger, and many other qualifications that must be the work of time and application, on men of a quick penetration, a distinguished genius, and a world of honour. Strong sinews and supple joints are trifling advantages, not regarded in persons of their reach and grandeur, that can destroy cities a-bed, and ruin whole countries while they are at dinner. As they are most commonly men of great age, it would be ridiculous to expect a hale constitution and agility of limbs from them: So their heads be but active and well furnished, it is no great matter what the rest of their bodies are. If they cannot bear the fatigue of being on horseback, they may ride in coaches, or be carried in litters. Mens conduct and sagacity are never the less for their being cripples, and the best general the king of France has now, can hardly crawl along. Those that are immediately under the chief commanders must be very nigh of the same abilities, and are generally men that have raised themselves to those posts by their merit. The other officers are all of them in their several stations obliged to lay out so large a share of their pay in fine clothes, accoutrements, and other things, by the luxury of the times called necessary, that they can spare but little money for debauches; for, as they are advanced, and their salaries raised, so they are likewise forced to increase their expences and their equipages, which, as well as every thing else, must still be proportionable to their quality: by which means, the greatest part of them are in a manner hindered from those excesses that might be destructive to health; while their luxury thus turned another way, serves, moreover, to heighten their pride and vanity, the greatest motives to make them behave themselves like what they would be thought to be (See Remark on l. 321).
There is nothing refines mankind more than love and honour. Those two passions are equivalent to many virtues, and therefore the greatest schools of breeding and good manners, are courts and armies; the first to accomplish the women, the other to polish the men. What the generality of officers among civilized nations affect, is a perfect knowledge of the world and the rules of honour; an air of frankness, and humanity peculiar to military men of experience, and such a mixture of modesty and undauntedness, as may bespeak them both courteous and valiant. Where good sense is fashionable, and a genteel behaviour is in esteem, gluttony and drunkenness can be no reigning vices. What officers of distinction chiefly aim at, is not a beastly, but a splendid way of living, and the wishes of the most luxurious, in their several degrees of quality, are to appear handsomely, and excel each other in finery of equipage, politeness of entertainments, and the reputation of a judicious fancy in every thing about them.
But if there should be more dissolute reprobates among officers, than there are among men of other professions, which is not true, yet the most debauched of them may be very serviceable, if they have but a great share of honour. It is this that covers and makes up for a multitude of defects in them, and it is this that none (how abandoned soever they are to pleasure) dare pretend to be without. But as there is no argument so convincing as matter of fact, let us look back on what so lately happened in our two last wars with France. How many puny young striplings have we had in our armies, tenderly educated, nice in their dress, and curious in their diet, that underwent all manner of duties with gallantry and cheerfulness?
Those that have such dismal apprehensions of luxury’s enervating and effeminating people, might, in Flanders and Spain have seen embroidered beaux with fine laced shirts and powdered wigs stand as much fire, and lead up to the mouth of a cannon, with as little concern as it was possible for the most stinking slovens to have done in their own hair, though it had not been combed in a month, and met with abundance of wild rakes, who had actually impaired their healths, and broke their constitutions with excesses of wine and women, that yet behaved themselves with conduct and bravery against their enemies. Robustness is the least thing required in an officer, and if sometimes strength is of use, a firm resolution of mind, which the hopes of preferment, emulation, and the love of glory inspire them with, will at a push supply the place of bodily force.
Those that understand their business, and have a sufficient sense of honour, as soon as they are used to danger will always be capable officers: and their luxury, as long as they spend nobody’s money but their own, will never be prejudicial to a nation.
By all which, I think, I have proved what I designed in this remark on luxury. First, that in one sense every thing may be called so, and in another there is no such thing. Secondly, that with a wise administration all people may swim in as much foreign luxury as their product can purchase, without being impoverished by it. And, lastly, that where military affairs are taken care of as they ought, and the soldiers well paid and kept in good discipline, a wealthy nation may live in all the ease and plenty imaginable;