among individuals so little connected, few have suffered from foreign aggression, either in property, in honour, or in liberty; and few can expect from a retaliatory war, either profit, employment, power, or glory. How then can a whole people be roused to warlike feeling? Partly through a passion honourable to human nature; partly through principles by no means honourable. First, the individual is lost in the citizen. In the injuries suffered by his country, he at once abhors the lawless aggression, and submits his own to the public weal. This is noble. But of this, ambitious men take immediate advantage. They magnify the injury. They traduce the aggressor. They work upon the love of action and of change. Not content with appealing to the spirit of patriotism, they demand and excite revenge and national animosity. They heighten the effect of these by lofty declamation, by portraying, on the one side, the glories of war and ages of freedom, on the other, the dishonours of peace and an enslaved posterity. Of the people, each one identifies his own happiness with the prospects of his country, and fancies himself honoured in the glory destined to surround its battles; while of the second class, of the men by whom their passions are roused, most desire war for personal advancement, for honour, for office, for wealth; and for these purposes, alternately reciprocate and excite popular threatenings of revenge and popular predictions of glory. On the leaders of the contest, this spirit concentrates itself most powerfully. With the people, they thirst for revenge, and aspire after honour and power. But their feelings are deeper and more exclusive; for they are to inflict the one and to gain the other. They are to mingle in the game, and not only to share, but to control the result. From the chief, through every subordinate rank, down to the common soldier, this spirit is

diffused, diminishing, however, as it descends, and mingling with the desire of gain, which increases, as ambition of eminence is repressed by inferiority. This classification brings us to the result of our previous analysis, exhibiting as causes of war, ambition of power, whether acquired by wealth or by physical strength, and desire of action, of revenge, and of glory.

To the same result we are brought by analyzing the complex end which is sought by war; power, including advanced liberty, retaliation, embracing revenge of past wrongs and precaution against future, wealth and glory. These ends are some of them avowed, while others may be concealed, but are still wrapped up in the designs of every war. These are announced by the government as guiding its decision; these are proclaimed to impel the army to battle; these are recounted in the tales of the war-worn veteran; these are sung in the ballads, and inscribed in the histories of the nation; these, through many generations, are traced to the field of battle, and the memory of its horrors is lost in the glory by which it is surrounded.

Though at first view it might seem impossible, that the hope, even of these ends, invigorating the strongest feelings of ambition, could create a passion for what is so calamitous as war, yet we have the fullest testimony to the occasional existence of such a

passion. Xenophon has given a fine example in the character of Clearchus, a Spartan general, in the service of the younger Cyrus. After recounting his labours in promoting war, he observes: "These seem to be deeds of a man loving war for itself; who, though he might have peace without shame and without injury, yet chooses to prosecute war,though he might indulge ease, desires the labour of war,-though he might possess wealth without danger, chooses to enlarge it by war.

So

of

strong indeed is his love of war, that in advancing it he incurs expense as if for indulgence of some natural desire."* Nor is there any thing unaccountable in this character. It must have been the legitimate result of circumstances operating on a mind which derived strong passions from nature, in connexion with a physical constitution favourable to their development. I cannot believe, that in the military passion, rather than in any other, the individual throws himself off, so to speak, from the mass contemporary habit; that he feels an impulse unknown to others, and that this impulse isolates him from his species. It is not so with genius in its other departments. The poet, the orator, the philosopher, with native powers stronger than ordinary, receives education from his age, from its modes of thinking, its habits, its institutions, its progressive intelligence, from the books which he reads, from the society with which he mingles, and even from apparent casualties in nature. He creates nothing. He collects scattered thoughts; he dissolves false combinations; he analyzes more thoroughly than others what they are attempting to analyze; he embodies conceptions of which others are conscious; he breathes through his works the character of his own feelings; in a word, he gives form and life to what was before chaotic. This, it seems to me, is analogous to the case of military genius, even in its widest aberrations. The hero does not create, he finds, the spirit of war. He derives it from society, and breathes it anew into society; each reciprocating an influence inseparable from the age. There must have been a Homer, when Homer lived; there must have been a Bacon, when Bacon lived; and had there been no Buonaparte, France must have made a Napoleon.

With the strength originally at

* Anabasis, b. ii. c. 6.

tached to the passions which meet in the love of war, especially those which are most generous, the love of liberty and the desire of glory, is connected the encouragement which they receive from society. In the savage state, where kingdoms are made up of tribes, united merely by proximity or relationship, and where the passions act without restraint, the trifling aggressions inseparable from human intercourse, are promptly and terribly avenged. As they recede from barbarism, revenge may become less violent in its action, but it is equally certain and more systematic. The deeds of their fathers are recounted; and they hope for the fame of equal deeds. With the rise of new occupations, knowlege increases and language improves. The bard collects ancient traditions, and embodies them in song. His productions are read with emotion; and the feeling which he drew from the past, he infuses into the present generation and transmits to the future. The historian adds, if not an equal, yet an abiding influence; and from his records, quickened by the poet's fervour, the orator derives lofty and exciting themes. Thus with its wars, the entire literature of the country is interwoven. Succeeding nations not only repeat from the impulse of nature similar feats of war, but as their knowledge extends, confirm the spirit of war by the literature of earlier tribes, and with this blend their own, enriched by numerous victories. The literature of both becomes ultimately a part of youthful education in every enlightened country; and the volumes which form the taste inspire martial sentiments,-carrying the mind forward in a portion of its powers, but detaining the rest on ground which ought to have been abandoned ages ago.

This is precisely our state in regard to the literature of Greece and Rome. It is our standard of intellectual elevation. It is our fountain

of refined taste and of vigorous conception. Nor is this all. Even its morality is commended; and the young scholar is sent to Homer to strengthen the desire of glory, to kindle the fervour of patriotism, and to nerve the purposes of heroism. Nay, more; writers, professedly Christian, have advanced little beyond the sages of antiquity; they have extolled the brave in strains equally beautiful with those of Alcæus and Tyrtæus, nor more congenial with the spirit of Christ. The poetry which now celebrates the deeds of war, is in reality but the echo of those notes which stirred the souls and strengthened the arms of Grecian and Roman youth, long before angels sung to the shepherds of Bethlehem. Even sober history, while it portrays the cruelties of war, seldom exposes the depravity attached to every passion ere it rises to the exorbitance necessary to excite war; nor does philosophy often propose a higher spirit, a ray of purer heaven, than

66 lights the public soul Of patriots and of heroes." *

Come to our own country:

on this spot, where Christianity is unshackled, where liberty was secured by the power of mind rather than by the sword, where, by our relative situation, the spirit of peace is forced, I had almost said, upon us. Has this spirit here acquired full and general development? Neither in the portion of our literature which promises to be permanent, nor in addresses designed for popular effect, do we often discern its features. Few productions in either class recognize any thing, as conceivable, beyond Grecian and Roman glory. An example immediately suggests itself as indicating the state of national feeling. The heathen poet or orator might fairly ascribe to his hero--for he knew no higher character-the

*Thomson's Winter, 695.

highest lot in his Elysium; but with what right can the Christian orator, on no other ground than of heroic devotion to his country, assign to the warrior, or the patriot, a seat in the celestial mansions? Yet this is done, and perhaps no year elapses without a promiscuous transfer of multitudes. from the battle-fields of our revolution, with the heroes of Greece and Rome, to scenes of immortal bliss. In addition to this, the spirit of revenge, that worst feature in the love of war, is breathed out in denunciations of a foreign power, and even in calumnious allusions to its character and its government.

The obvious inference is, that instead of cultivating the mild emotions of Christianity, our countrymen even now retain the military disposition. It may be softened; but it exists, stamped on the aspect of society, alike indicated and confirmed by its institutions, its laws, and its customs. The child is born into a martial atmosphere; the boy is led into martial scenes; the young man is compelled to martial exercise, and the old man enlivens him by tales of youthful enterprise. The learning of ancient days is not acquired; but its spirit, by men of higher stations and extended influence, descends upon him, and he talks withal of his country's glory, and sings with his companions the rough, yet exciting verse in which it is vaunted.

Thus I have endeavoured, not only to analyze the spirit of war, but to shew that, instead of being confined to military men, it is diffused through the mass of society, and confirmed by circumstances inseparable from society in its present condition. It is obvious, that the revolution which abolishes war must go through society. It is obvious, that while every thing serves to keep alive excitement, revenge, ambition, thirst of glory, some influence must be provided to counteract their disastrous issues. To effect this, shall

we extinguish passion, and reduce the human soul to feebleness and inertness? By no means. Let man feel, and think, and act, intensely. But let him direct his operations to noble ends : let him control them by beneficent views; let him secure their mutual harmony. Now imagine him to do so. Imagine him to imbibe perfectly the spirit of Jesus Christ. He retains human passions; but he directs them toward worthy objects, and assigns to each its proper place in the scale of ascendancy and subordination. Revenge he cannot feel. If he can ever desire evil to a created being, it is only for higher good and for the glory of God. He is active; but his activity is prompted by benevolence, and concentrated on fitting objects. He seeks power; but it is power over himself, and a beneficent influence over others: he seeks wealth; but it is the wealth of eternity glory, but it is the glory which cometh from God. Now here are the very materials, out of which the vindictive and turbulent spirit of war might have been wrought, shaped and blended into perfect meekness. I do not ask you, then, to extinguish in yourselves, or to impair in your children, the legitimate exercise of passions implanted by nature. Their bestower has not left them unprovided with objects. The world is full of objects. The eternity which the Gospel reveals is full of objects. And the passions will act. Isolated from external things, they will create a world within. Kindled by no outward flame, they will break forth like the fires of the volcano, and burn deep and inextinguishable. But they are not ungovernable. Be it then your care to point their course, to restrain their excess, and to guide their progress.

influence

upon

the mind.

B.

AN

THE ARMY IN EGYPT, FROM INTERCEPTED Letter.-Without ex

aggerating, there have died of thirst alone, in the space of five or six days, from five to six hundred men. Our soldiers have killed themselves in the very presence of the commander-inchief, exclaiming, "This is your doing." We have seen soldiers, who, witnessing the sufferings of their companions, have shot themselves through the head; others have been seen to leap into the Nile, with arms and knapsacks, and then perish amid the waters.-Vol. I. p. 127.

On the 11th of February, 1799, we commenced our march for Syria, with about twelve thousand men. It has been erroneously published that our numbers amounted to only six thousand; nearly that number perished in the campaign.—Vol. I. p. 147.

The siege of Jaffa commenced on the fourth, and terminated on the sixth of March. The carnage was horrible. Buonaparte sent his aidesde-camp, Beauharnois and Croiser, to appease, as far as possible, the fury of the soldiery; to examine what passed, and report. They learned, that a numerous detachment of the garrison had retired into a strong position, where large buildings, or caravansaries, surrounded a

court

yard. This court they entered, displaying scarfs which marked their rank. The Albanians and Arnauts, composing nearly the entire of these refugees, cried out from the windows, that they wished to surrender, on condition that their lives were spared; if not, threatening to fire upon the officers, and to defend themselves to the last extremity. The young men conceived they ought, and had power, to accede to the demand, in opposition to the sentence of death pronounced against the garrison of every place taken by assault. I was walking with General Buonaparte before his tent, when these prisoners, in two columns, amounting to about four thousand, were marched into the camp.....The two aides-de-camp, on their arrival and explanations, received the strongest reprimands; their defence was, that they were alone amid numerous enemies, and that he had recommended them to appease the slaughter. "Yes," replied the General in the sternest tone, "without doubt, the slaughter of women, children, old men, the peaceable inhabitants; but not of armed soldiers : you ought to have braved death, and not brought these to me: what would you have me to do with them?"

But the evil was done-four thousand men were there- their fate must be determined. The prisoners were made to sit down, huddled together, before the tents, their hands tied behind them. A gloomy rage was depicted in every lineament; they received a little biscuit and

some bread, deducted from the already scanty provisions of the army. A council was held in the General's tent, which, after long deliberation, broke up without coming to any resolution. The day following arrived, in the evening, the reports of the generals of division: these contained only complaints on the insufficiency of provisions, and the discontent of the soldiers, who murmured because of their rations

VOL. VIII. NEW SERIES.

being devoured by enemies. All these reports were alarming, especially those of General Bar; they even induced the fear of a revolt. Again the council assembled, to which were summoned all the generals of division. The measures here discussed for hours, with a sincere desire of adopting and executing that which might save these unfortunate captives, were,-if practicable, to send them to Egypt; or to liberate them; or disarm and incorporate them among their own troops.- -Bourrienne here states the impossibility of sending them to Egypt, and the objections made to the other two plans, and proceeds :

The third day arrived, yet no means, so desired, of safety presented for these unhappy men. The mur murs of the camp augmented-the evil went on increasing-remedy appeared impossible danger was real and pressing. On the 10th of March the order" that they should be shot," was issued and executed. There was no separation of the Egyptians, as has been said--there were none.

Many of these miserable beings, composing the smaller column, which, amounting to about fifteen hundred, was drawn up on the beach, at some distance from the main body, while the butchery was going on, escaped by swimming to some reefs out of gun shot. On perceiving this, our

men laid down their muskets on the sand, and employing the signs of reconciliation and amity, which they had learned in Egypt, invited the return of their victims. They did return; but, as they came within reach, they found death, and perished amid the waters. I limit myself to those details of this horrible necessity, of which I was an eye-witness. The atrocious scene makes me yet shudder when I think of it, as when it passed before me much rather would I forget, if possible, than describe. All that can be imagined of fearful, in this day of blood, would

D