University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

It was the opinion of that poetical philosopher
Lucretius, that war was the original state of man;
whom he described as being primitively a savage
beast of prey, engaged in a constant state of hostility
with his own species, and that this ferocious spirit
was tamed and ameliorated by society. The same
opinion has been advocated by the learned Hobbes,
nor have there been wanting a host of sage philosophers
to admit and defend it.

For my part, I am prodigiously fond of these
valuable speculations so complimentary to human
nature, and which are so ingeniously calculated
to make beasts of both writer and reader; but in
this instance I am inclined to take the proposition
by halves, believing with old Horace,[3] that though
war may have been originally the favourite amusement
and industrious employment of our progenitors,
yet like many other excellent habits, so far

from being ameliorated, it has been cultivated and
confirmed by refinement and civilization, and encreases
in exact proportion as we approach towards
that state of perfection, which is the ne plus
ultra of modern philosophy.

The first conflict between man and man was the
mere exertion of physical force, unaided by auxiliary
weapons—his arm was his buckler, his fist was his
mace, and a broken head the catastrophe of his
encounters. The battle of unassisted strength,
was succeeded by the more rugged one of stones
and clubs, and war assumed a sanguinary aspect.
As man advanced in refinement, as his faculties
expanded, and his sensibilities became more exquisite,
he grew rapidly more ingenious and experienced,
in the art of murdering his fellow beings. He
invented a thousand devices to defend and to
assault—the helmet, the cuirass and the buckler;
the sword, the dart and the javelin, prepared him
to elude the wound, as well as to launch the blow.
Still urging on, in the brilliant and philanthropic
career of invention, he enlarges and heightens his
powers of defence and injury—The Aries, the
Scorpio, the Balista and the Catapulta, give a horror
and sublimity to war, and magnify its glory, by
encreasing its desolation. Still insatiable; though
armed with machinery that seemed to reach the
limits of destructive invention, and to yield a power
of injury, commensurate, even to the desires of

revenge—still deeper researches must be made in
the diabolical arcana. With furious zeal he dives
into the bowels of the earth; he toils midst poisonous
minerals and deadly salts—the sublime
discovery of gunpowder, blazes upon the world
—and finally the dreadful art of fighting by proclamation,
seems to endow the demon of war, with
ubiquity and omnipotence!

By the hand of my body but this is grand!—this
indeed marks the powers of mind, and bespeaks that
divine endowment of reason, which distinguishes us
from the animals, our inferiors. The unenlightened
brutes content themselves with the native force
which providence has assigned them. The angry
bull butts with his horns, as did his progenitors before
him—the lion, the leopard, and the tyger, seek
only with their talons and their fangs, to gratify
their sanguinary fury; and even the subtle serpent
darts the same venom, and uses the same wiles, as
did his sire before the flood. Man alone, blessed
with the inventive mind, goes on from discovery to
discovery—enlarges and multiplies his powers of
destruction; arrogates the tremendous weapons of
deity itself, and tasks creation to assist him, in murdering
his brother worm!

In proportion as the art of war has increased in
improvement, has the art of preserving peace advanced
in equal ratio. But as I have already been
very prolix to but little purpose, in the first part of

this truly philosophic chapter, I shall not fatigue my
patient, but unlearned reader, in tracing the history
of the art of making peace. Suffice it to say, as we
have discovered in this age of wonders and inventions,
that proclamation is the most formidable engine
in war, so have we discovered the no less ingenious
mode of maintaining peace by perpetual negociations.

A treaty, or to speak more correctly a negociation,
therefore, according to the acceptation of your
experienced statesmen, learned in these matters, is
no longer an attempt to accommodate differences, to
ascertain rights, and to establish an equitable exchange
of kind offices; but a contest of skill between
two powers, which shall over-reach and take in the
other. It is a cunning endeavour to obtain by
peaceful manœuvre, and the chicanery of cabinets,
those advantages, which a nation would otherwise
have wrested by force of arms.—In the same manner
that a conscientious highway-man reforms and
becomes an excellent and praiseworthy citizen contenting
himself with cheating his neighbour out of
that property he would formerly have seized with
open violence.

In fact the only time when two nations can be
said to be in a state of perfect amity, is when a negociation
is open, and a treaty pending. Then as
there are no stipulations entered into, no bonds to

restrain the will, no specific limits to awaken that
captious jealousy of right implanted in our nature,
as both parties have some advantage to hope and
expect from the other, then it is that the two nations
are as gracious and friendly to each other, as
two rogues making a bargain. Their ministers
professing the highest mutual regard, exchanging
billets-doux, making fine speeches and indulging
in all those little diplomatic flirtations, coquetries
and fondlings, that do so marvelously tickle the
good humour of the respective nations. Thus
it may paradoxically be said, that there is never
so good an understanding between two nations,
as when there is a little misunderstanding—and
that so long as they are on no terms, they are on
the best terms in the world!

As I am of all men in the world, particularly
historians, the most candid and unassuming, I would
not for an instant claim the merit of having made
the above political discovery. It has in fact long
been secretly acted upon by certain enlightened
cabinets, and is, together with divers other notable
theories, privately copied out of the common place
book of an illustrious gentleman, who has been
member of congress, and enjoyed the unlimited confidence
of heads of department. To this principle
may be ascribed the wonderful ingenuity that has
been shewn of late years in protracting and interrupting
negociations.—Hence the cunning measure

of appointing as ambassador, some political pettifogger
skilled in delays, sophisms, and misconstructions,
and dexterous in the art of baffling argument—
or some blundering statesman, whose stupid errors
and misconstructions may be a plea for refusing to
ratify his engagements. And hence too that most
notable expedient, so popular with our government,
of sending out a brace of ambassadors; who having
each an individual will to consult, character to
establish, and interest to promote, you may as well
look for unanimity and concord between them, as
between two lovers with one mistress, two dogs
with one bone, or two naked rogues and one pair
of breeches. This disagreement therefore is continually
breeding delays and impediments, in consequence
of which the negociation goes on swimmingly—inasmuch
as there is no prospect of its
ever coming to a close. Nothing is lost by these
delays and obstacles but time, and in a negociation,
according to the theory I have exposed, all time
lost, is in reality so much time gained—with what
delightful paradoxes, does the modern arcana of
political economy abound!

Now all that I have here advanced is so
notoriously true, that I almost blush to take up the
time of my readers, with treating of matters which
must many a time have stared them in the face.
But the proposition to which I would most earnestly
call their attention is this, that though a negociation

is the most harmonizing of all national transactions,
yet a treaty of peace is a great political evil and one
of the most fruitful sources of war.

I have rarely seen an instance in my time, of
any special contract between individuals, that did
not produce jealousies, bickerings, and often downright
ruptures between them; nor did I ever know
of a treaty between two nations, that did not keep
them continually in hot water. How many worthy
country neighbours have I known, who after living
in peace and good fellowship for years, have been
thrown into a state of distrust, cavilling and animosity,
by some ill starred agreement about fences,
runs of water, and stray cattle. And how many
well meaning nations, who would otherwise have
remained in the most amiable disposition towards
each other, have been brought to loggerheads
about the infringement, or misconstruction of some
treaty, which in an evil hour they had constructed
by way of making their amity more sure.

Treaties at best are but complied with so long as
interest requires their fulfillment; consequently they
are virtually binding on the weaker party only, or
in other words, they are not really binding at all.
No nation will wantonly go to war with another if
it has nothing to gain thereby, and therefore needs
no treaty to restrain it from violence; and if it has
any thing to gain, I much question, from what I
have witnessed of the righteous conduct of nations,

whether any treaty could be made so strong, that
it could not thrust the sword through—nay I would
hold ten to one, the treaty itself, would be the very
source to which resort would be had, to find a
pretext for hostilities.

Thus therefore I sagely conclude—that though it
is the best of all policies for a nation to keep up a
constant negociation with its neighbours, it is the
utmost summit of folly, for it ever to be beguiled
into a treaty; for then comes on the non-fulfilment
and infraction, then remonstrance, then altercation,
then retaliation, then recrimination and finally open
war. In a word, negociation is like courtship, a
time of sweet words, gallant speeches, soft looks
and endearing caresses, but the marriage ceremony
is the signal for hostilities—and thus ends this very
abstruse though very instructive chapter.