fractions of duty which indicate a misdirected, but respectable vigor of intellect, unspeakable contempt must inevitably attach to a policy which prudence, as well as virtue, condemns as, at the same time, weak and wicked.

In the examination of this subject we do not propose to go into statistical calculations of profit and loss; though it is a subject in which political arithmetic affords irrefragable proof. Let the account be stated with commercial precision, between wealth won, and expense incurred, and a startling balance will be found against the most fortunate conquerors.

The wars of Great Britain have drawn upon her a debt of 3500 millions of dollars! Prudent posterity will hardly allow her kings to offset against this her political influence and glory; and they have no other results, of a more substantial character, wherewith to balance the account.

But we have no wish to startle by an enormous array of figures. We choose rather to appeal to those principles of economical science, which are so well established by moral proof, as to deserve the same practical confidence which is yielded to the propositions of demonstrative science; while they are so general in their application, that we may apply them with equal certainty and convenience to the income and outlay of regal extravagance, or the frugal finances of a Republic.

Doubtless, the dominant nations of antiquity temporarily enriched themselves, by plundering their neighbours in war. The spoils of conquest supported the monstrous luxury of Rome in the era of her greatest magnificence. The immense treasures, garnered up by her generals and armies, enabled her Emperors to maintain a degree of splendor which modern royalty has seldom equalled. Rome was immensely enriched by her conquests. A single victory brought the state, on some occasions, an amount of wealth, which a century of steady industry could hardly have produced. If the attention be fixed on some single period, and an estimate of wealth be made, having reference to some brief moment in the long circle of Roman centuries, the superabundant wealth she possessed might fully satisfy the most greedy ambition of the

political economist. But a just view must stretch over a wider space. It must embrace causes and consequences and must involve a consideration of incidents, the effect of which, if we mistake not, completely neutralized, even in the estimate of the economist, all the advantages conferred by this ill-gotten abundance.

In the first place, it is an inductive truth, well founded in observation, and as true of communities as it is of individuals, that sudden riches are seldom a blessing. In the Roman Empire, the flood of wealth came with such overwhelming profusion as to prostrate most of the industrial institutions of the country. Destruction was thus brought upon those peaceful resources and inventions, discovered and adopted by the ingenuity and industry of man, for the satisfaction of his wants. The soldier brought back from a single campaign, greater wealth than the artisan could acquire in a long life of peaceful industry; and, of course, peaceful industry was abandoned. The victors, therefore, were no longer industrious. The vanquished were wholly checked in their industrious pursuits. They were stripped of the results of their labor, and subjected to lawless extortion; either of which causes would annihilate all industry; for men will not toil for property which they have no reasonable hope of enjoying. Thus, a cessation of industrious exertion resulted, in both regions. The conquerors ceased from their labors, to enjoy their spoils; and the spoliation of the conquered, disheartened them from further exertion. But industry is the chief source of wealth; and without its continual operation, the most ample resources cannot long supply human consumption. Misery and want first fell upon the conquered provinces. Plundered by the insatiate minions of Roman power, and discouraged from domestic industry, they became unable, in a short time, either to furnish for their own consumption, the necessary articles of subsistence, or further to contribute the means of luxurious indulgence to their masters. Cruelty and extortion, at length, proved unprofitable and useless. The imperial city exhausted the unnatural fountains of wealth she had thus forcibly opened, and her magnificence

faded into destitution and famine. So that the conquests of Rome, viewed simply with reference to the extension of her power and the enhancement of her wealth, proved to be examples of gross political error.

It is easy to observe what policy would have secured wealth to the Roman state and permanence to Roman glory. If the enterprizes of peace had been carried on with the perseverance and strength which were expended in war; if the energies of her active and numerous population had been directed into the channels of industry; wealth would have flowed into her coffers in gentle but perennial streams. The cultivation of peaceful relations with the nations around her would have left leisure, both to their citizens and her own, to increase their common resources, by the only permanent means of increasing national wealth. Commercial intercourse would have led to an interchange of commodities reciprocally beneficial; and each successive year would have added to the strength and wealth of the Mistress of the world; whose distinction and extent rendered her the natural centre of commerce, and the reservoir of the

arts.

It is furthermore to be remarked, that in the comparatively barbarous æra of Roman conquest, martial enterprise might fairly be expected to show its best results. Practices, which are now discarded from the warfare of all civilized nations, and are condemned by universal consent, were then allowed; and in many respects furnished means of aggrandizement to the conqueror which the rules of modern warfare forbid. Private and public property were equally plundered; the rights of neutrals were unknown; and booty was unscrupulously seized, wherever it could be found. Captured property awaited the condemnation of no international tribunals or prize courts; force was the title by which it was retained; and the violence of the officer and of the private soldier were equally unrestrained. Honorable capitulation neither afforded personal security, nor saved from pillage those cities whose wealth excited the cupidity of the conquerors. Prisoners of war were sold as slaves, and swelled the profits of victory. The conquered coun

try was stripped, with lawless violence, of every thing which the avarice of the conquerors could make the source of gain.If conquest ever brought wealth, it must have been amid such rules of warfare, and in such an organization of society. If the conquests of that æra failed to enrich, in vain must the conqueror, at the present day, amid the restraints which civilization have imposed upon warfare, expect to derive wealth from success in arms.

To exhibit more in detail the historical proofs which illustrate this subject, would be trespassing upon the time of the reader. In fact, every war is a proof. No war has arisen, or can arise, in which the principles which have been briefly applied to Roman conquests, may not find an equally just application. For all wars interrupt industry, the parent of wealth: and how great soever may be the resources of a nation, they cannot long outlast the interruption of industry; an interruption which is nearly as great in the nation which conquers, as in that which submits.

The bearing of war upon national wealth may be traced into certain estimates, which are not usually embraced in the views that are taken of this subject. We rest, in most cases, with an estimate of the money expended, and the debt incurred, by the belligerent parties. But notwithstanding the enormous amount of expense embraced in these obvious estimates, we are free to assert, that they are actually but a fraction of the loss sustained by the nation in the operations of war. National wealth is impaired in countless other particulars, together forming an aggregate amount vastly out-balancing the pretended expenses involved in a national conflict.

The abstraction of thousands of able-bodied men from the class of population who produce by labour, strikes at the root of national wealth, and cuts off the fountain streams of public property. And, often times, not the labour alone, of each individual thus withdrawn, ceases to act with his removal, but others who have acted in subordination to his strength and skill, or have laboured at the detailed branches of an employment whose main support was his activity, cease to work, when they

can no longer enjoy his co-operation. And while production is thus checked, no corresponding diminution occurs in the products required to be consumed. Unlike instances of epidemic diseases, wars make no large reduction of the number of consumers; while they take the best portion of producers from their pursuits. There is rather, on the contrary, an enhancement of the expense of sustaining those who have taken upon themselves to fight and not to work. The removal of labourers, too, is sudden and indiscriminate; embracing a proportion of those whose skill, as master workmen, is necessary to the success of their subordinates at home. A helpless horde of feeble men, of women and children, remain behind, who, unaided by the constant guidance of the energetic and discreet, soon become rather burdens to society, than contributors to the resources upon which all depend for support.

Let us turn to another operation of war, equally fatal to national wealth. It is the sudden check it brings upon many departments of business. Commerce is much interrupted—it may be destroyed; foreign markets are, in some degree, cut off; and the current of domestic consumption is diverted from its ordinary channel. Necessity compels the unprofitable production at home of certain articles, which can no longer be procured from abroad. Credit is shaken; navigation often times ruined; the proceeds of domestic industry and manufacturing skill are suddenly enhanced in value, and again as suddenly depressed, with a violence which is fatal to steady industry; and a revulsion is experienced in all the departments of production, ruinous to its best interests. Hence, industry ceases to be active; energy is relaxed; capital is unemployed; and the additions to national wealth, which nature and art are momentarily making, in their ordinary and peaceful state, are incalculably diminished.

Meantime, national consumption is increased; new expenses arise; articles of necessary usefulness are dear; and a wasting of public and private resources ensues, of alarming extent and rapidity. Immense must be the amount of the wealth thus annihilated; and of that wealth, the production of which is