better learned their trade; yet we bore up then, as the French do now: nor was there any thing decisive in their successes; they grew weary as well as we, and at last consented to a peace, under which we might have been happy enough, if it had not been followed by that wise treaty of partition, which revived the flame that has lasted ever since. I see nothing else in the modern way of making war, but that the side which can old out longest will end it with most advantage. In such a close country as Flanders, where it is carried on by sieges, the army that acts offensively is at a much greater expense of men and money; and there is hardly a town taken, in the common forms, where the besiegers have not the worse of the bargain. I never yet knew a soldier, who would not affirm, that any town might be taken, if you were content to be at the charge. If you will count upon sacrificing so much blood and treasure, the rest is all a regular, established method, which cannot fail. When the king of France, in the times of his grandeur, sat down before a town, his generals and engineers would often fix the day when it should surrender: the enemy, sensible of all this, has for some years past avoided a battle[1], where he has so ill succeeded, and taken a surer way to consume us, by letting our courage evaporate against stones and rubbish, and sacrificing a single town to a campaign, which he can so much better afford to lose, than we to take.
- ↑ This expression admits of ambiguity; a battle seems to point to some particular engagement, instead of battle in general; the article therefore should be left out, and it should be written 'avoided battle.'
