Family
interest, or something very like it, put Alexander, at the age of
twenty, at the head of an army with which he went on conquering to the
end of his short life. The same influence put Hannibal, at
twenty-seven, at the head of an army with which he continued for
seventeen years to shake the foundations of Rome. Family interest
thrust forward such men as Edward the Black Prince, the fifth Harry of
England, and the fourth Henri of France. This, too, thrust forward the
great Conde to offer to France the first fruits of his heroism, when
victor at Rocroi, at twenty-two. So, too, with Gustavus Adolphus,
Turenne, Eugene of Savoy, and Frederick the Great. Family interest,
not of the most creditable kind, turned the courtier Churchill into
the conquering Marlborough; and his nephew, the gallant young Berwick,
found that being, somewhat irregularly, the son of an English king,
helped him much in obtaining the command of the armies of France. Just
at this time the son of an earl, and the brother of a governor-general
of India, pushed on by family interest, was proving himself not unfit
to direct the efforts of the British arms. It is curious to see in
these, and many an instance more in military history, how aptly family
interest has come into play.
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