The miseries of war.-Military ambition.

cent to be forgotten. The earth still smokes with human blood; bones scattered over the fields, every where obstruct the plough of the peaceful husbandman. Cities are sacked, and converted into solitary wastes, or heaps of rubbish. What a horrid spectacle does the action of war every day present! The feeble old man abandons, with trembling steps, the abode of his forefathers; the weeping mother drags along, in her flight, her tender children; the afflicted husbandman mourns in vain over the ruin and waste of his harvests; the voice of reason and of law is drowned amid the din of arms!unbridled license, greedy rapacity, injustice and inhumanity, reign without controul. All tremble in silence before the proud victor, who draws in his train the bloody spoils of the vanquished, to serve as trophies of his fame. In every age, in every empire, conquerors are seen preceded by terror, followed by death and slavery, their laurels bedewed with the tears of humanity.

9. As if the earth did not present a field wide enough for the work of human destruction, the sea has been joined to it, and made one vast tomb. It seems that, unable to attempt other conquests, they have wished to contend for that of the elements. The sea always inspires a haughtiness, natural to men habituated to a nautical life. Maritime commerce, the general tie of nations separated by an immense ocean, has become the instrument of ambition and tyranny. For more than a century

Balance of power on the continent.-Empire of the seas.

past, nations have fought chiefly for commerce, which is made productive by the blood of their citizens. On the continent of Europe, states are now less unequal, and being confined, and compressed, as it were, by a mutual gravitation, proportioned to their extent, their population, and to a situation more or less advantageous, they seldom transcend their limits: they balance, they agitate, without entirely destroying, each other. The ancient and gigantic ideas of the empire of the world, and of an universal monarchy in Europe, are abandoned, to be revived only on the ocean.*

10. Maritime dissensions more than ever disturb the earth. Under the name of the empire of the seas, of an exclusive commerce, it is attempted to restore universal monarchy. Commercial jealousy and political economy, are, at the present day, the two predominant passions of all European governments. Religious fanaticism, and the Gothic pride of feudal manners, have given place to modern systems of finance. The science of calculation, and commercial speculation, are closely connected with the prosperity of empires. The spirit of continental conquests, has been insensibly banished from European policy. They no longer dream of aggrandise ment, but in distant climates; and almost all the

* Where is now (1806) the balance of Europe, and who ventures to predict the limits which the present ruler of France may assign to his empire?....T.

Effects of commercial wars, and the empire of the sea.

wars which have happened for more than a century past, have scarcely had any other object than commerce and colonies. This new order of things accelerates the ruin of states, extends the sphere of war, and deplorably multiplies the heads of that hideous hydra. It is necessary to fight in every part of the world, and in every sea, at the same time. Such is the invention of modern diplomacy.

11. The general interest of nations, imperiously demands, that an equilibrium should be established on the ocean, without which the balance of power on the continent will be a vain chimera, and every pacification a deceitful phantom. It is time to efface from the pages of diplomacy the atrocious maxim which ambition has consecrated to despotism, to tyranny, and to the eternal shame of other maritime powers: "that whoever possesses the empire of the sea holds the empire of the world." While despotism, tyranny, and oppression, prevail on that element, the agriculture, the commerce, and the industry of other maritime nations will be crushed, and the powers of industry stifled in their growth. In short, without the entire liberty of the seas, there will be no more riches; for in this liberty consists the political balance. There will be no equilibrium, peace, nor prosperity, among nations, until each power shall resume its rights, and that portion of property and industry, of free commerce and navigation, allotted to it by nature out of the general domain; until, in short, by a firm, mag

Nations should unite against monopolies.

nanimous, and fixed resolution, all powers shall agree to destroy every system of monopoly, exclusion, and prohibition, which dries up, and destroys the sources of commerce, arms shore against shore, nation against nation, government against government, which kills, in the bosom of the earth, and in the workshops, the germs of those productions which the unfettered industry of man would have brought to maturity.

12. Europe forms in itself a political system, a social body connected by the relations and different interests of the nations, who inhabit it. It is no longer, as in remote ages, a confused collection of detached portions, each feeling little or no interest in the fate of the others, and rarely concerning itself with what does not immediately affect its own tranquillity. The constant attention of governments to the conduct of their neighbours, the maintenance of resident ministers, and the perpetual negociations carried on with each other, make modern Europe a kind of federative republic, the members of which are independent, but, connected by a common interest, are united together for the support of order and liberty. This gave birth to the celebrated notion of the political equilibrium of Europe, or the balance of power. By this is understood that disposition of things which renders any one power unable to predominate, and give law to the

rest.

Importance of neutrality.-Neutrals must be affected by war.

neral of the Samnites, in Livy. According to the reflection of a great historian, it is better to be a calm spectator of the misfortunes of our neighbours, than to take part in them, unless compelled by very important considerations; for it often happens, that those who do not interfere until after the breaking out of the fire, are involved in total ruin, while the authors of the conflagration remain untouched.(8)

16. War is, in truth, a state of extreme violence, for the nations who are engaged in it; so that even those who remain in tranquillity, and are so fortunate as to maintain an exact neutrality, ought always to expect some impediments in the exercise of their rights, some interruption of their commercial relations; but what may reasonably be required of them, in this respect, is not that they should suspend and break off their lawful commerce, founded on the exchange of their respective productions, by which nature seems to have intended to bring distant nations nearer to each other, to unite all mankind, promote their civilization, increase the happiness of the human race, and induce men, by their mutual wants, no longer to regard each other as enemies. For this reason, the earth, that common mother, rarely produces in the same country, every thing necessary for the use of the inhabitants. Each country, each climate, is better adapted for one pro

(8) Thucydides, Hist. lib. 1.