Whether our troops are defective in discipline or in courage, is not
very useful to inquire; they evidently want something necessary to
success; and he that shall supply that want will deserve well of his
country.
_To learn of an enemy_ has always been accounted politick and
honourable; and therefore I hope it will raise no prejudices against my
project, to confess that I borrowed it from a Frenchman.
When the Isle of Rhodes was, many centuries ago, in the hands of that
military order now called the Knights of Malta, it was ravaged by a
dragon, who inhabited a den under a rock, from which he issued forth
when he was hungry or wanton, and without fear or mercy devoured men and
beasts as they came in his way. Many councils were held, and many
devices offered, for his destruction; but as his back was armed with
impenetrable scales, none would venture to attack him. At last Dudon, a
French knight, undertook the deliverance of the island. From some place
of security, he took a view of the dragon, or, as a modern soldier would
say, _reconnoitred_ him, and observed that his belly was naked and
vulnerable.
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