many who are conversant only in the knaveries of war, and who without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverishing; find their infamies at length rewarded, by equipages that shine like meteors, and palaces that rise like exhalations. In short, war is altogether a system of folly and devastation, of knavery and ingratitude, where the chief actors are the greatest lossers, the most inossen give the greatest sufferers - Where the least entitled grow rich upon the spoil of those who serve them, and where the most deserving are repaid with poverty and disgrace. Nay more, where men at the instigation of those who glory in their destruction, ACT A PART CONTRARY TO HUMAN NATURE, THE DICTATES OF SOUND REA- NON, AND TO THE VERY SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY.
THE STORMING OF BADAJOZ. Camp before Badajoz, 5th April, 1812
MY DEAR FRIEND,
" We expect to storm Badajoz to-night in three separate places, so I shall soon see real service, and it is expected to be very sharp work unless they surrender, which is not likely, as General PHILIPPON is a very determined fellow. The French seem, however, to be short of powder and shot ;
