rodina, of Smolensko, of Austerlitz, of Leipsic, of Jena, of Eylan, of Waterloo, and other warlike events, which have happened within the last thirty years, we should meet with atrocities and scenes of slaughter, no less horrible than those which I have now related. I shall content myself with stating only two or three instances. "We After the taking of Alexandria by Buonaparte, were under the necessity," says the relator," of putting the whole of them to death at the breach. But the slaughter did not cease with the resistance. The Turks and inhabitants fled to their mosques, seeking protection from God and their prophet; and then, men and women, old and young, and infants at the breast, were slaughtered. This butchery continued for four hours; after which the remaining part of the inhabitants were much astonished at not having their throats cut." Be it remembered, that all this bloodshed was premeditated. "We might have spared the men whom we lost," says General Boyer, by only summoning the town; but it was necessary to begin by confounding our enemy."* After the battle of the Pyramids, it is remarked by an eye-witness, that "the whole way through the desart, was tracked with the bones and bodies of men and animals, who had perished in these dreadful wastes.-In order to warm themselves at night, they gathered together the dry bones and bodies of the dead, which the vultures had spared, and it was by a fire composed of this fuel that Buonaparte lay down to sleep in the desart!" A more revolting and infernal scene it is scarcely possible for the imagination to depict. Miot gives the following description in relation to a scene at Jaffa :--" The soldier abandons himself to all the fury which an assault authorizes. He strikes, he slays, nothing can impede him. All the horrors which accompany the capture of a town by storm, are repeated in every street, in every house. You hear the cries of violated females calling in vain for help to those relatives whom they are butchering. No asylum is respected. The blood streams on every side; at every step you meet with human Miot's Memoirs. † Ibid. beings groaning and expiring, &c."-Sir Robert Wilson, when describing the campaigns in Poland relates, that "the ground between the wood, and the Russian batteries, about a quarter of a mile, was a sheet of naked human bodies, which friends and foes had during the night mutually stripped, not leaving the worst rag upon them, although numbers of these bodies still retained consciousness of their situation. It was a sight which the eye loathed, but from which it could not remove. "-In Labaume's "Narrative of the Campaign in Russia," we are presented with the most horrible details of palaces, churches, and streets, enveloped in flames,-houses tumbling into ruins,--hundreds of blackened carcasses of the wretched inhabitants, whom the fire had consumed, blended with the fragments,-hospitals containing 20,000 wounded Russians on fire, and consuming the miserable victims,-numbers of half-burned wretches crawling among the smoking ruins,-females violated and massacred,-parents and children half naked, shivering with cold, flying in consternation with the wrecks of their half-consumed furniture,-horses falling in thousands, and writhing in the agonies of death,-the fragments of carriages, muskets, helmets, breastplates, portmanteaus, and garments strewed in every direction,- roads covered for miles with thousands of the dying and the dead heaped one upon another, and swimming in blood,-and these dreadful scenes rendered still more horrific by the shrieks of young females, of mothers and children, and the piercing cries of the wounded and the dying, invoking death to put an end to their agonies. But I will not dwell longer on such revolting details. It is probable, that the feelings of some of my readers have been harrowed up by the descriptions already given, and that they have turned away their eyes in disgust from such spectacles of depravity and horror. Every mind susceptible of virtuous emotions, and of the common feelings of humanity, must, indeed, feel pained and even agonized, when it reflects on the depravity of mankind, and on the atrocious crimes they are capable of committing, and have actually perpetrated. A serious retrospect of the moral state of the world in past ages, is calculated to excite emotions, similar to those which overpowered the mourning prophet when he exclaimed, "O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughters of my people !" But, however painful the sight, we ought not to turn away our eyes, with fastidious affectation, from the spectacles of misery and devastation which the authentic records of history present before us. They form traits in the character of man, which ought to be contemplated, they are facts in the history of mankind, and not the mere pictures of fancy which are exhibited in poetry, in novels, and romances,-facts which forcibly exemplify the operation of the malevolent principle, and from which we ought to deduce important instructions, in reference to the evil of sin, and the malignancy of pride, covetousness, ambition, and revenge. We think nothing, in the common intercourse of life, of indulging a selfish disposition, of feeling proud and indignant at a real or supposed affront, of looking with a covetous eye at the possessions of our neighbours, of viewing the success and prosperity of our rivals with discontentment and jealousy, or of feeling a secret satisfaction at the distress or humiliation of our enemies; and we seldom reflect on the malignant effects which such pas sions and dispositions would produce, were they suffered to rage without control. But, in the scenes and contentions of warfare which have been realized on the great theatre of the world, we contemplate the nature and effects of such malignant dispositions in their true light; we perceive the ultimate tendency of every malevolent affection, when no physical obstruction impedes its progress; we discern that it is only the same dispositions which we daily indulge, operating on a more extensive scale; and we learn the necessity of mortifying such dispositions, and counteracting their influence, if we expect to enjoy substantial felicity either here or hereafter; and if we wish to see the world restored to order, to happiness and repose. I shall only observe farther on this part of my subject, that, besides the atrocities already noticed, war has been the nurse of every vicious disposition, and of every immoral practice. The Carthaginians, who were almost incessantly engaged in war, were knavish, vicious, cruel and superstitious; distinguished for craft and cunning, lying and bypocrisy, and for the basest frauds and the most per fidious actions. The Goths and Vandals are uniformly characterized, as not only barbarous and cruel, but avaricious, perfidious, and disregardful of the most solemn promises. It was ever a sufficient reason for them to make an attack, that they thought their enemies could not resist them. Their only reason for making peace, or for keeping it, was because their enemies were too strong; and their only reason for committing the most horrible massacres, rapes, and all manner of crimes, was because they had gained a victory. The Greeks and Romans, it is well known, notwithstanding their superior civilization, were distinguished for the most degrading and immoral practices. They gloried in being proud, haughty, and revengeful; and even their amusements were characterized by a spirit of ferocity, and by the barbarisms of war.-It is almost needless to say that war blunts the finer feelings of humanity, and engenders a spirit of selfishness, and of indifference even towards friends and companions. Of this many shocking instances could be given. Miot, in his Memoirs of the War in Egypt, relates the case of a soldier who was seized with the plague, and with the delirium which sometimes accompanies the disease. He took up his knapsack, upon which his head was resting, and, placing it upon his shoulders, made an effort to rise, and to follow the army. The venom of the dreadful malady deprived him of strength, and after three steps, he fell again upon the sand, headlong. The fall increased his terror of being left by the regiment, and he rose a second time, but with no better fortune. In his third effort, he sunk, and, falling near the sea, remained upon that spot which fate had destined for his grave. The sight of this soldier was frightful: the disorder which reigned in his senseless speech-his figure, which represented whatever is mournful-his eyes staring and fixed -his clothes in rags-presented whatever is most hideous in death. The reader may perhaps believe that his comrades would be concerned for him; that they would stop to help him; that they would hasten to support him, and direct his tottering steps. Far from it: the poor wretch was only an object of horror and derision. They ran from him, and they burst into loud laughter at his motions, which resembled those of a drunken man. "He has got his account," cried one; "He will not march far," said another; and, when the wretch fell for the last time, some of them added, "See, he has taken up his quarters!" This terrible truth, says the narrator, which I cannot help repeating, must be acknowledged-Indifference and selfishness are the predominant feelings of an army. Rocca, in his "Memoirs of the War in Spain," remarks, "The habit of danger made us look upon death as one of the most ordinary circumstances of life; when our comrades had once ceased to live, the indifference which was shown them amounted almost to irony. When the soldiers, as they passed by, recognized one of their companions stretched among the dead, they just said, 'He is in want of nothing, he will not have his horse to abuse again, he has got drunk for the last time,' or something similar, which only worked, in the speaker, a stoical contempt of existence. Such were the funeral orations pronounced in honour of those who fell in our battles."— Simpson, in his "Visit to Flanders," in 1815, remarks, "Nothing is more frightful than the want of feeling which characterizes the French soldiery. Their prisoners who were lying wounded in the hospitals of Antwerp, were often seen mimicking the contortions of countenance which were produced by the agonies of death, in one of their own comrades in the next bed. There is no curse to be compared with the power of fiends like these." Thus it appears, that wars have prevailed in every period, during the ages that are past, and have almost extirpated the principle of benevolence from the world; and, therefore, it is obvious, that, before the prevailing propensity to warfare be counteracted and destroyed, the happiness which flows from the operation of the benevolent affections cannot be enjoyed by mankind at large. counteract this irrational and most deplorable propensity, by every energetic mean which reason, humanity, and Christianity can suggest, must be the duty of every one who is desirous to promote the present and everlasting happiness of his species.* Το * The Author intended, had his limits permitted, to state some additional considerations to show the folly and wickedness of war. In the mean time, he refers his readers to "Letters addressed to Caleb Strong, Esq." which contain a series of energetic and impressive rea |