The Strength of Nations: An Historical Retrospect |
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according acted Adam Smith amount ancient appears arms Athenian authority Bacon battle Blake body called carried cause century chapter character chief civilization command condition conquest consequence constitution Cromwell defence destroyed discipline Duke effect enemy England English Europe evidence exercises fact fleet followed force foreign France French Greece hands held Highland honour houses hundred Italy king labour land least less live Lord March means ment military militia moral nation nature Naval never Norman observed officers once opinion orators parish Parliament Persians persons possessed present principle produced proved qualities question raised regard remarkable rendered respect result rhetoric Roman Rome says ships Socrates soldiers Spartan spirit standing army strength successful superiority things thousand tion troops true Turks wealth whole
Popular passages
Page 1 - When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace ; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
Page 276 - ... the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils, and not men, who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance...
Page 174 - Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you cannot see a man begging about the streets ; but what ? You shall have this captain turned a shoemaker; the lieutenant, a baker ; this a brewer ; that a haberdasher ; this common soldier, a porter ; and every man in his apron and frock, &c., as if they never had done any thing else : whereas, the others go with their belts and swords, swearing, and cursing, and stealing; running into people's houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away...
Page 227 - The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner ; a perfumed Seigneur, delicately lounging in the CEil-de-Bceuf, has an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third nettle, and name it Rent and Law: such an arrangement must end.
Page 267 - ... a set of the greatest geniuses for government that the world ever saw embarked together in one common cause...
Page 222 - He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles apiece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm, where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pound by year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.
Page 221 - My father was a yeoman and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine.
Page 243 - But in other, and in but too many instances, the glens of the Highlands have been drained, not of their superfluity of population, but of the whole mass of the inhabitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice, which will be one day found to have been as shortsighted as it is unjust and selfish.
Page 149 - And accordingly we find one, among the laws of William the Conqueror,(/) which in the king's name commands and firmly enjoins the personal attendance of all knights and others ; " quod habeant et teneant se semper in armis et equis, ut decet et oportet: et quod semper sint prompti et parati ad servitium suum integrum nobis explendum et peragendum, cum opus adfuerit, secundum quod debent feodis et tenementis suis de jure nobis faceré.
Page 183 - Like ours, it should wholly be composed of natural subjects; it ought only to be enlisted for a short and limited time ; the soldiers also should live intermixed with the people; no separate camp, no barracks, no inland fortresses should be allowed. And perhaps it might be still better, if, by dismissing a stated number and enlisting others at every renewal of their term, a circulation could be kept up between the army and the people, and the citizen and the soldier be more intimately connected together.