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To the artificial advantages of war, I oppose with confidence, the real losses of mankind: To the pomp and splendour of martial heroism, I oppose the orphan's tear, and the widow's cry: And to the vain and idle boast of the victor, the sad and untimely fate of the vanquished. When the glories of a battle are the theme of conversation, how seldom are those remembered who fought and fell in it! Twenty thousand of what are called common soldiers, might perish, and no one concern himself to enquire how they died, or where they were buried; but let inhuman and insolent pride be told, that every one of those poor men, who thus fell neglected and forgotten, were as true to their king, as faithful to their country, had dispositions as good, and hearts as brave and honest, and souls as dear, as the greatest and noblest warrior among them. How often are the common soldiers doomed to “beg bitter bread," while too 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 losers, the most inoffensive 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.
