you may not sooner or later siuk under the burden? "'* In this last inquiry, by whatever jealousy of spirit it might have been prompted in Napoleon, there is something worthy of the attention of the friends of England. Great Britain, with all the wealth of her cities and the grandeur of her nobles, with all the resources of her commerce, and the unrivalled skill of her manufactures, finds it difficult to conceal it from the world that her giant footsteps are treading on the brink of bankruptcy. If she falls, it will be the result of war, of victorious war; for war is destructive to the victors as well as the vanquished. If she sustains this great trial, which now presses so heavily on the resources of her genius, and the endurance of her patriotism, where is the recompense, either in the past or the present, for her starving operatives, her beggared peasantry, the millions of her ignorant and wretched population, whose cry and wailing, amid the hum of her manufactures and the roar of her mighty cities, so often come up, as if from the interminable depths, and thrill in the heart of philanthropy in the distant corners of the world? In the SECOND place, we must take into view the loss suffered by the community, in consequence of the abstraction of the vast numbers that are employed in armies and navies, from profitable employments. A nation's resources are to be considered as diminished, not only by what it is compelled to pay, but also by what it might have saved to itself, from its own efforts, by taking a different course. The loss, in this point of view, is immense. In time of war, the land forces of Europe, as we have already had occasion to remark, amount to 4,578,430. And yet this vast body of men, consisting precisely of that portion which is most active and efficient, depend wholly upon others for their support; they do nothing of themselves towards this object; the whole burden of * Las Casas, Pt. HI. p. 40. their maintenance is thrown upon others. As to all positively beneficial purposes, aside from the benefits which are commonly, though erroneously, supposed to be connected with war, they are mere drones in the social and political hive, - utterly useless. If these men were required to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, -if they were permitted to remain in a situation where they could apply themselves to the business of agriculture, to the fisheries, to navigation, and the common arts of peace, what beneficial results would speedily follow! The inhabitants at home would not only be freed from the immense expense attendant upon supporting them in idleness, but there would be a positive and rapid accession to the resources and wealth of the community, which would diffuse a vivifying and cheering influence through all classes of people, and all branches of industry. The face of nature and of the useful arts would be changed at once. What sterile and desolate tracts of country would be rendered fertile! what marshes would be reclaimed! what numbers of canals would be opened, and railroads erected! what an increase of the productions of the earth necessary for man's subsistence! what an impulse would be given to commerce! The great cause of humanity, embraced in the gospel principle, THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF, is but very imperfectly understood. Mankind are but just awaking to a perception of its glory. They begin to feel for their brother man; they begin to pity the heathen, and to send to them the missionary and the Bible; they begin to sympathize in the wretchedness of the slave, and are striving to break his chains; they begin to explore prisons and dungeons, and to shed the light of benevolence on those abodes of darkness; but this is only the first step, the commencement of a great work of benevolence, the length and breadth of which the most glowing philanthropists have but imperfectly explored. It is indeed right that we should begin with those whose condition is the most debased and hopeless; but as the noble cause of philanthropy rolls on, it will be found that there is also a great work to be done at home. Every man must be furnished with his farm or his workshop; the means of moral and religious education must be brought to every man's door; every man must have it in his power to reap some enjoyment even in the present life, not, indeed, as a brute animal, rioting in the excess of passion, but as a rational and moral being; so that happy faces, radiant with intelligence and virtue, may be seen looking out from the humblest cottages, and even from workshops and manufactories. But in vain shall we look for the realization of this delightful vision, so long as wars continue to exist. In consequence of the abstraction of soldiers from profitable pursuits, those who remain at home are compelled, without the least aid from the military portion of the nation, to bear the immense amount requisite for the support of armies and navies, in addition to the no small burden of the ordinary taxation. The number of those who pay is diminished, while they are compelled to pay a greatly increased sum. And this they are less able to do than they would otherwise be, in consequence of the direct destruction of their property, the devastation of their lands, and particularly the interruption of commerce and other civic pursuits by reason of a state of war. Scarcely able to support their families, and utterly unable to obtain for them many things exceedingly desirable for their convenience, and especially for their intellectual and moral improvement, they nevertheless find it impossible to evade the demands of the tax-gatherer, which are multiplied upon them in every shape. Their lands are taxed, their houses are taxed, their cattle are taxed, their persons are taxed, their clothing is taxed, their bread, and salt, and tea, are taxed, the very light of heaven, in the shape of an impost on windows, is taxed; indeed, it is not easy to mention any thing which is free, not merely from taxation, but from excessive taxation. This is no exaggeration. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, for January of 1820, undertakes to designate to Americans the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory. And what are these inevitable consequences? "Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot-taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste - --- taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion-taxes on every thing on earth, and the waters under the earth -on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home - taxes on the raw material - taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man - taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride. At bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top- the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road -and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid 22 per cent., makes his will on an eight pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and - he is then gathered to his fathers, to be taxed no more. Now, what hope is there of competency and happiness, or even of a tolerable degree of comfort, for a man, in the common ranks of life, surrounded by the wants of a rising family, if the little he earns is to be thus plucked from his hands? It is individuals that constitute the nation; and if the resources of individuals are diminished, those of the nation are diminished also. There is no fallacy more dangerous, and perhaps none more frequently committed, than to separate between the nation and the citizens of the nation. If the people are in mourning, if their fields and vineyards are desolate, if their children are slain on the field of battle, or prisoners in foreign lands, no magic of illuminations, of monumental piles, and of triumphal processions, will make such a nation happy. Rachel will still mourn for her children, and refuse to be comforted. And here, as we have already had occasion to intimate, is the great source of mistake and illusion: we look at things in the aggregate, and do not contemplate them in their elements; we behold the whited sepulchre of national glory, and do not look at the death and horror within. The situation of the great mass of the people, who are the real constitutors and essence of the nation, is wholly overlooked by the promoters and advocates of war. The leaders of the nation, too rich and too elevated to feel the effects of the storm, which must smite somewhere with unmitigated fury, contemplate the splendor of their armies, and the proud banners of their floating military castles, and consider themselves increased in goods and glory, while the condition of the great body of citizens, for whom, in particular, government was instituted, is one of disappointment, poverty, and wretchedness. The vast majority of the community, in those nations that have plunged deeply into the practice of war, are compelled |