1774] SOLDIER'S TRAINING BEGINS 5

the boy was growing. He had, when he was only twelve years old, made up his mind to become a soldier, and his father, who quite approved his decision, reports with satisfaction, " He is often operating in the fields, and informs me how he would attack Geneva " (where they then were), " and shows me the weak parts of the fortification." His father was a man of wide culture, and under his influence John had already acquired a taste for history, poetry, and the best class of literature, a taste which he preserved throughout life. Prussia was at that time the model for all Europe in matters military, and, during a visit to Hanover, John writes to his brother :—

"My father is constantly with Field-Marshal Sporken, who is a fine old soldier with grey hairs, and has been in many battles. He loves the English, and is very good to me. At Brunswick the Duke got a sergeant, who came every day and taugtt us the Prussian exercise. We are both, pretty alert, and could fire and charge five times in a minute. We fired thirty times each, the last day of our exercise/'

That letter is dated May 2nd, 1775, when John was not fourteen. His father had already written home : " He dances, fences, and rides with uncommon address." Towards the end of May the party was very graciously received by the great Frederick at Berlin. John there saw field manoeuvres such as could have been studied in no other place in Europe. Nearly forty thousand infantry, cavalry, and artillery were during three days directed by Frederick himself in imitation of actual warfare. The boy's martial enthusiasm had other stimulus. The old " Earl Marischal" of Scotland, who, after the final failure of the Stewarts, had taken