that they should make war their only business, and carry their valour to the utmost excesses of fanaticism. Such also will be the features which I shall most frequently have occasion to present, when I come to give a picture of their manners: there the influence of a doctrine so pernicious will be felt in its utmost extent. But justice obliges me to observe here, that the reproach arising from it does not affect the ancient inhabitants of the North more, than those of all Europe in general, unless it be that they continued to deserve it longer. However strange to a man who reasons coolly may appear the madness of making war habitually, for the sake of war itself: it must not-withstanding be allowed, that this hath been for a succession of ages the favourite passion of all those nations at present so polite; and it is but, as it were, of yesterday that they began to be sensible of the value of peace, of the cultivation of arts, and of a government favourable to industry. The farther we look back towards their infancy, the more we see them occupied in war, divided among themselves, cruelly bent on the destruction of each other, by a spirit of revenge, idleness and fanaticism. There was a time when the whole face of Europe presented the same spectacle as the forests of America; viz. a thousand little wandering
