ducing it into order as well as I can, without any regard to time or other circumftances, while I ftrictly adhere to truth. My only concern is, that I fhall hardly be able to do juftice to my mafter's arguments and expreffions, which muft needs fuffer by my want of capacity, as well as by a tranflation into our barbarous English. In obedience therefore to his honour's commands, I related to him the revolution under the Prince of Orange; the long war with France entered into by the faid Prince, and renewed by his fucceffor the prefent Queen, wherein the greatest powers of Christendom were engaged, and which ftill continued: I computed, at his request, that about a million of yahoos might have been killed in the whole progrefs of it; and perhaps a hundred or more cities taken, and five times as many fhips. burnt or funk. He asked me, what were the ufual caufes or motives that made one country go to war with another I answered they were innumerable; but I fhould only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern. Sometimes the corruption of minifters, who engage their mafter in a war, in order to ftifle or divert the clamour of the fubjects against their evil adminiftration. Difference in opinions hath coft many millions of lives for inftance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue t; whether it be better to kijs a poft, or throw it into the fire ; what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or grey; and whether it thould be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean, with many more ** * Transubstantiation. † Church-mufic. Kiffing a cross. ** The colour and make of facred veftments, and different or dess of Popish eccleGastics, Neither Neither are any wars fo furious and bloody, or of fo long continuance, as thofe occafioned by difference in opinion, efpecially if it be in things indif-. ferent. Sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide, which of them fhall difpoffefs a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretend to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrelleth with another, for fear the other fhould quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too frong; and fometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours want the things which we have, or have the things which we want; and we both fight, till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very juftifiable cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have been wafted by famine, destroyed by peftilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is juftifiable to enter into a war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and compact. If a prince fends forces into a nation, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put the half of them to death, and make flaves of the reft, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent practice, when one prince defires the affiftance of another to fecure him against an invafion, that the affiftant, when he hath driven out the invader, should seize on the dominions himfelf, and kill, imprifon, or banish the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood, or marriage, is a frequent caufe of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater is their difpofition to quarrel: poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For thefe reafons the trade of a foldier is held the moft honourable of all others because ; because a foldier is a yahoo hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own fpecies, who have never offended him, as poffibly he can. There is likewife a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to make war by themfelves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for fo much a day to each man; of which they keep threefourths to themselves, and it is the beft part of their maintenance; such are those in many northern parts of Europe. What you have told me (faid my mafter) upon the fubject of war, does indeed difcover most admirably the effects of that reafon you pretend to : however it is happy that the fhame is greater than the danger; and that nature hath left you utterly incapable of doing much mischief. For, your mouths lying flat with your faces, you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unlefs by confent. Then as to the claws upon your feet before and behind, they are fo fhort and tender, that one of our yahoos would drive a dozen of yours before him. And therefore in recounting the numbers of thofe who have been killed in battle, I cannot but think you have said the thing which is not. I could not forbear fhaking my head, and fmiling a little at his ignorance. And being no ftranger to the art of war, I gave him a defeription of cannons, culverins, mufquets, carabines, piftols, bullets, powder, fwords, bayonets, battles, fieges, retreats, attacks, andermines, countermines, bombardments, fea-fights, fhips funk with a thoufand men, twenty thoufand killed on each fide, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, fmoke, noife, confufion, trampling to death under horfes feet ; flight, purfuit, victory; fields ftrewed with carcafes, left for food to dogs and wolves, and birds of prey; plundering, ftripping, ravifhing, burning and deftroying. And to fet forth the valour of my own dear countrymen, I affured him, that I had had feen them blow up a hundred enemies at once in a fiege, and as many in a fhip; and beheld the dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diverfion of the fpectators *. I was going on to more particulars,' when my mafter commanded me filence. He faid, whoever understood the nature of yaboos, might eafily believe it poffible for fo vile an animal to be capable of every action I had named, if their strength and cunning equalled their malice. But as my difcourfe had increafed his abhorrence of the whole fpecies, fo he found it gave him a disturbance in his mind, to which he was wholly a ftranger before. He thought his ears, being ufed to fuch abominable words, might by degrees admit them with lefs de teitation. That although he hated the yahoos of this country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh (a bird of prey) for its cruelty, or a fharp ftone for cutting his hoof. But when a creature, pretending to reafon, could be capable of fuch enormities, he dreaded, left the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself. He feemed therefore confident, that, instead of reafon, we were only' It would perhaps be impoffible, by the most laboured argument or forcible eloquence, to fhew the abfurd injustice and horrid cruelty of war fo effectually, as by this fimple exhibition of them in a new light. With war, including every fpecies of iniquity and every art of deftruction, we become familiar by degrees, under fpecious terms, which are feldom examined, becaufe they are learned at an age, in which the mind implicitly receives and retains whatever is impreft. Thus it happens, that when one man murders another to gratify his luft, we shudder; but when one man murders a million to gratify his vanity, we approve and we admire, we envy and we applaud. If, when this and the preceding pages are read, we difcover with aftonishment, thar, when the fame events have occurred in history, we felt no emotion, and acquiefced in wars which we could not but know to have been commenced for fuch caufes, and carried on by fach means; let not him be cenfured for two much debafing his fpecies, who has contributed to their felicity and prefervation, by ftripping off the veil of custom and prejudice, and holding up, in their native deformity, the vices by which they become wretched, and the arts by which they are deftroyed. poffeffed poffeffed of fome quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill fhapen body, not only larger but more distorted. He added, that he had heard too much upon the fubject of war, both in this, and fome former difcourses. There was another point, which a little perplexed him at prefent. I had informed him, that fome of our crew left their country on account of being ruined by law; that I had already explained the meaning of the word; but he was at a loss how it should come to pass, that the law, which was intended for every man's prefervation, fhould be any man's ruin. Therefore be defired to be farther fatisfied what I meant by law, and the dispensers thereof, according to the prefent practice in my own country because he thought nature and reafon were fufficient guides for a reasonable animal, as we pretend to be, in fhewing us what we ought to do, and what to avoid. I affured his honour, that law was a science, in which I had not much converfed, further than by employing advocates in vain upon fome injuftices that had been done me; however I would give him all he fatisfaction I was able. I faid, there was a fociety of men among us bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid *. To this fociety all the reft of the people are flaves. For example, if my neighbour hath a mind to my cow, he hires a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right; it being against all rules of law, that any man fhould be allowed to speak for himself. Now in this cafe I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages; firft, my lawyer, being As in every caufe council are feed on both fides, it cannot be pretended, that this account is much exaggerated. practifed |