Septimation

To Wilberforce ‘the Sabbath was a delight’ […] O how often, even among those who most punctiliously observe it, does it seem […] an unwelcome exaction, a sort of septimation of time, as grievous as church decimations of property.

We had gone into the enemy’s ground with seven hundred warriors — a little over one hundred of whom were missing when we left it — as, at that time, we could hardly muster six hundred. This septimation of our men was accompanied by a proportionate riddance of such encumbrances of the expedition as wore the shape of women and little ones.