Doubts have often been entertained of the utility of these establishments.Rewards, it has been said, might be extended to a much greater number of individuals, if the annual amount of the expenses of these places were distributed in the shape of pensions, while the individuals would thus be rendered much happier, since men who have passed their days of activity, united in a place where they are no longer subject to the cares and labours of life, are exposed to the most ceaseless listlessness.
I shall not dispute the truth of these observations, but on the other hand, shall examine the effect of these establishments upon the minds of soldiers and sailors.Their imaginations are flattered by the magnificence of these retreats; it is a brilliant prospect, opened to them all; an asylum is provided for those who, having quitted their country and their families in their youth, have frequently, in their days of decrepitude and age, no other home in the world.Those who are mutilated or disfigured with wounds, are consoled by the renown which awaits them in the hospital, where everything reminds them of their exploits; It may also be for the benefit of the service more prudent thus to unite than to disperse them.It is a luxury; but it is rational, exemplary, and possesses a character of justice and magnificence.
These establishments being necessarily limited with respect to the number which can be admitted into them, may be considered upon the footing of extraordinary rewards, applicable to distinguished services.They would thus constitute a species of nobility for the soldiers and sailors.They would acquire an additional degree of splendour, were their walls adorned by the trophies taken in war, which would there appear much more appropriately placed, than when deposited in the temples of peace.
The decorations of the chapel of l'Hôtel des Invalides are admirable.The flags suspended in the cathedral of St.Paul only awaken thoughts at variance with those of religious worship: removed to Chelsea or Greenwich, they would be connected with natural associations, and would furnish a text to the commentaries of those who acquired them by their valour.
It is not often that every desirable quality is seen to be united in one and the same reward: this union, however, frequently takes place in an almost imperceptible manner.
An instance of a reward particularly well adapted to the nature of the service, is that of the monopoly which it is almost universally the custom to create in favour of inventors.From the very nature of the thing, it adapts itself with the utmost nicety to those rules of proportion to which it is most difficult for reward artificially instituted by the legislator to conform.It adapts itself with the utmost nicety to the value of the service.If confined, as it ought to be, to the precise point in which the originality of the invention consists, it is conferred with the least possible waste of expense: it causes a service to be rendered, which without it a man would not have a motive for rendering; and that only by forbidding others from doing that which, were it not for that service, it would not have been possible for them to have done.Even with regard to such inventions (for such there will be) where others, besides him who possessed himself of the reward, have scent of the invention, it is still of use, by stimulating all parties, and setting them to strive which shall first bring his discovery to bear.With all this it unites every property which can be wished for in a reward.It is variable, equable, commensurable, characteristic, exemplary, frugal, promotive of perseverance, subservient to compensation, popular, and revocable.
