from the field of battle. You know too well the ineffable atrocity that marks the abode and the progress of armies. The meagre barriers of martial law, form all the restraint generally known both by officers and soldiers. They deride the sabbath-they mock at chastity-a perpetual roar of profanity ascends to heaven: even the barriers of martial law are boldly thrown down in relation to life, and a military man must accept a challenge, on however slight occasion given, and must murder if he can, or be killed as he may they burn for plunder, rapine, revenge; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways.

Sir, what amazing and unmeasurable guilt brands the character of Christian nations, nay of Churches; who, notwithstanding all these known facts, yet throw a cloak over their armies, and say, "there may be some irregularities in a camp, indeed, but the soldiers were brave fellows, they fought well, and died in a good cause;" leaving the incautious mind to make an involuntary and inevitable transition to the idea, that they fell in a cause which will be their passport to heaven. Mahomet artfully wove it into his scheme, that every mussulman who fell bravely fighting in his armies and under his orders, went instantly to a paradise of sensual pleasures. He did not do things by the halves. But, Sir, the Christian nations, without the open avowal of Mahomet, do not fail to avail themselves of the same principle. The almost apotheosis of their heroes; their praises of those who fall in battle, their prayers, hymns, illuminations, and solemn festivals for the dead, give a tone to the public, which would accuse any one of great audacity, were he even to call in question their future felicity; and, in fact, to induce some even to envy their fall. Yet, after all, not a single one of those motives, so proudly graved on monumental marble, or propagated by the trumpet's voice, as the true basis of their perennial glory, ever reached their hearts, or swayed a single action. The exceptions to this rule, and doubtless there are some, are exceedingly rare.

But how many heroes, while they have listened to the thunders of applause bursting from a nation, telling them what sacrifices they have made, and what victories won, for the good of their country, have felt a silent conviction sickening to their souls, while their consciences whispered, "Alas! deluded wretches, did you know the motives of my conduct as well as I know them, you would see as little cause to celebrate my actions, as I see cause to rejoice in them!" Yet, so sweet, so inebriating are the strains of adulation, that they

are rarely unacceptable, however false and extravagant. They are seldom repelled, though they blasphemously ascribe divine honours to the bloodiest monster on earth.

Besides a due consideration of the grand and ruling motives of fighting men, as well as of the true authors of war, the little apparent good, and the unmeasurable mass of evil, both natural and moral, which war produces ;-its unequal, partial, and cruel operation; probably never affecting the person supposed to be guilty-seldom ever procuring a redress of the grievances for which undertaken; suddenly sending hundreds of thousands of guilty wretches, who have no share in the controversy otherwise than as hired labourers, into a miserable eternity; and overwhelming the surviving part of a nation in unspeakable guilt, and in that way training a successive throng of victims for the shambles of the field of blood: I say, these things duly considered, there never entered the human mind a more vile and audacious imputation on the Divine oharac ter, than the supposition that, when two nations, unfortunately, as is sometimes said, get at war, Divine Justice winks at the scene; that, though there must have been some wrong somewhere, yet as they are now both fairly engaged, it is certainly the duty of both nations to fight bravely for their own laws and customs; that God is on the whole pleased to see their patriotism and bravery; and, in fine, now gives them full permission to fight it out.

This, Sir, is the bearing which national wars hold in the minds of Christians. But, the fantastic and delusive forms by which pride and ambition thus plunge millions in misery, are loathsome in the sight of God. While there is one set of men who have objects to accomplish by setting others at war, another set, who are willing to seek renown and glory in that horrid business,-it furnishing the most, abundant fuel for the flame of their passions; there is a third and very numerous class, whose vices have already excluded them from all the walks of life, except those where destruction and death have erected their standard, and claim dominion, these are the ruthless soldiery, who are willing to kill and be killed for wages.

In the mean time, the secret movers of war see how their own purposes may be answered by a war; they issue a proclamation of war. Perhaps by a proper spirit of concession and benevolence, the difficulty could have been all removed by amicable negotiation: perhaps the proclamation does not assign the real and grand motives of the war, which the movers of it would blush to publish, and then is the whole pro

clamation an audacious falsehood;-or peradventure the proclamation sets forth causes wholly inadequate to the dreadful expedient resorted to.

Sir, the supposed efficacy of proclamations to legalize the slaughter of thousands, and perhaps of millions of men, as one of the steps whereby it is contended God has permitted nations to fall upon each other with relentless fury, has never been duly examined, and the amazing atrocity of the principles it involves thoroughly exposed. An object so enormous-so hideous in its features-so diabolical in its nature, so dreadful in its effects, could not escape the notice of any one who took the most cursory survey of this subject; but it has only shared a glance of the eye and perhaps a dash of the pen. These proclamations are generally considered of omnipotent force to level all objections to the equity of war; they quiet the conscience, and reconcile the most pious, scrupulous, and zealous Christian to any war, though never so apparently wicked and unjust; for he says, "True, indeed,I do not believe the war is either just or politic, but my government has proclaimed war, and if unjustly, it is their concern, not mine; I have nothing to do but to fight for my own nation and country ;" and thus it is rashly presumed that the sanction of the God of the universe, by a mere diplomatic trick or falsehood, is extorted to cover all the cruelty, murder, and wickedness that shall follow, merely because it is an act of government and therefore legal. But, this shall be the subject of the following letter.

In the mean time, suffer me to say, that, in relation to wars between nations, what God has not commanded he has not permitted; and those governments and nations who have rushed into this bloody work so frequently, and with such confidence in the Divine permission, have already received, or have still to receive, a dreadful retribution from him who has said, "Thou shalt not kill: He that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword."

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

SIR,

LETTER XII.

Declarations of war considered.

THE ultimate decision of the question, whether war shall be proclaimed or not, generally rests in very few hands, often in one.

But, let us suppose a declaration of war is made, when it is well known to its immediate author or authors, and even to the great body of the nation, that the whole dispute might be easily adjusted by amicable negociation, without the loss of a life, or any of the troubles of war: let us suppose that negociations entered into, for the sake of an appearance to the people, have been artfully frustrated, the aggrievances greatly exaggerated, haughty and insulting attitudes assumed, and provoking language and menaces used by the men who wish for war, with a view to excite hostility, and widen the difference between the two powers as much as possible; while, at the same time, an ardent desire for peace is expressed, and the most pompous professions and pretences of amicable dispositions every where trumpeted and boasted.

At length, however, with many expressions of regret at the necessary but dire alternative, war is proclaimed, and they venture to appeal, as they often express it, "to the God of battles. 99. Can any thing, Sir, in the history of governments, be found more odious-any thing from which the moral sense of mankind revolts with more indignation and contempt? Yet how often has this farce of falsehood and folly been acted!

The men who proclaim this war, well know that the existing cause of complaint might be obviated by negociation, but have no reason to think or to hope it can by war: yet war they want for far other purposes.

I

I have here proceeded on the presumption that war is sometimes admissible, and that in the present case the aggrievance is very great, and even a sufficient cause for war. therefore, for a moment, yield the controversy its main ground, in order more fully to expose the inconsistency of the authors of war on their own ground. And, in the first place, a declaration of war, under the above mentioned circumstances, is contrary to the maxims of the wisest and ablest human legislators, who with one consent declare that war should not be made but in the very last resort, and especially, not till the utmost efficacy of negociation has failed.

Sir, it is of little consequence what men may think or pretend, on this business. The Ruler of the Universe, who is the Judge of judges, and the true Guardian of the lives of men, will judge, and all the smooth language and courtly arts of diplomatists and statesmen, will force no imposition on his eternal wisdom. If he sees the amicable professions to be false, the pretences about peace deceitful, the negociations insincere, and their effects frustrated by design, he cannot but abhor the whole transaction; and, however much men

may repose in the legality of such a war, God will judge its authors, and will charge to their account all the blood that shall be shed, as the blood of murder.

Nothing, in the course of my speculations, has more surprised me than that men so fearful of death, and so deeply abhorring murder, under certain circumstances, should so suddenly lose all regard for human life, and see thousands after thousands butchered under the slightest and falsest of all pretences. And, Sir, rulers, in this case, are not alone guilty: nations that eagerly rush to shed blood, share equally in the guilt. If any regard is due to the word of God; if there is any meaning, any propriety in the solemn forms of civil trial for life; if God Almighty has said, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," it is the duty of every man to know who, and wherefore he kills. The plea of ignorance is nothing-affords no shelter. The man who takes his sword or gun, and proceeds deliberately, and with all his power, to killing his fellow creatures, his brethren, for such they are, merely because some other man has commanded him to do it, is a murderer before God, and if he dies in that work, he sinks to endless perdition. When two armies are engaged, to say the least, one or the other of them is certainly fighting in a bad cause. And can the wretched throng of common soldiers hope to throw all the responsibility on their officers-the officers on the commander in chief, and he on the president, king, or monarch of a nation? Alas! there is a far more general and diffusive guilt in this horrid business than all this would seem to indicate.

The field of general slaughter is black with individual guilt; and if there is a scene above all others delightful to devils, it must be where two adverse armies are engaged in mutual havoc and destruction. But to pursue the case of the declaration of war, with which this Letter commenced, let us imagine a soldier in the army of a nation, at once made fully acquainted with the circumstances under which he was fighting: let him be told that peace might have been maintained, and that all the injuries, which he was fighting to redress, might have been amicably redressed by friendly negociation; but that his government chose war in preference to peace, to gratify their revenge and ambition: would he not say to himself," Am I then killing these men merely because it will gratify the revenge and ambition of my rulers? Am I exposing myself to the same fate, for the same vile purpose? Is my eternal destiny thus to be sported with, thus to be covered with the guilt of murder?" No! There is not one soldier perhaps in a million ever assailed by such re