judice them. On the contrary, the more clofely the Origin of Religion and Government are examined, the more clearly their Excellencies muft appear. They come purified from the Fire. My Bufinefs is not with them. Having entered a Proteft against all Objections from thefe Quarters, I may the more freely enquire from History and Experience, how far Policy has contributed in all Times to alleviate thofe Evils which Providence, that perhaps has defigned us for a State of Imperfection, has impofed; how far our phyfical Skill has cured our conftitutional Disorders; and whether, it may not have introduced new ones, curable perhaps by no Skill.

In looking over any State to form a Judgment. on it; it prefents itfelf in two Lights, the external and the internal. The firft, that Relation which it bears in point of Friendship or Enmity to other States. The fecond, that Relation its component Parts, the Governing and the Governed, bear to each other. The firft Part of the external View of all States, their Relation as Friends, makes fo trifling a Figure in Hiftory, that I am very forry to say, it affords me but little Matter on which to expatiate. The good Offices done by one Nation to its Neighbour [a]; the Support given in publick Diftrefs; the Relief afforded in general Calamity; the Protection

[a] Had his Lordship lived to our Days, to have feen the noble Relief given by this Nation to the diftreffed Portuguese, he had perhaps owned this Part of his Argument a little weakened; but we do not think ourselves intitled to alter his lordship's Words, but that we are bound to follow him exactly.

VOL. II.

C

granted

3

granted in immergent Danger; the mutual Return of Kindness and Civility, would afford a very ample and very pleafing Subject for History. But, alas! all the Hiftory of all Times, concerning all Nations, does not afford Matter enough to fill ten Pages, though it should be fpun out by the Wire-drawing Amplification of a Guicciardini himself. The glaring Side is that of Enmity. War is the Matter which fills all Hiftory, and confequently the only, or almost the only View in which we can see the External of political Society, is in a hoftile Shape; and the only Actions, to which we have always feen, and ftill fee all of them intent, are fuch, as tend to the Destruction of one another. War, fays Machiavell, ought to be the only Study of a Prince; and by a Prince, he means every fort of State however conftituted. He ought, fays this great political Doctor, to confider Peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him Leifure to contrive, and furnishes Ability to execute military Plans. A Meditation on the Conduct of political Societies made old Hobbes imagine, that War was the State of Nature; and truly, if a Man judged of the Individuals of our Race by their Conduct when united and packed into Nations and Kingdoms, he might imagine that every fort of Virtue was unnatural and foreign to the Mind of Man.

The firft Accounts we have of Mankind are but fo many Accounts of their Butcheries. All Empires have been cemented in Blood; and in those early Periods when the Race of Mankind began firft to form themselves into Parties and Combinations,

the

the first Effect of the Combination, and indeed the End for which it seems purpofely formed, and beft calculated, is their mutual Destruction. All antient Hiftory is dark and uncertain. One thing however is clear. There were Conquerors, and Conquefts in thofe Days; and confequently all that Devastation, by which they are formed, and all that Oppreffion by which they are maintained. We know little of Sefoftris, but that he led out of Egypt an Army of above 700,000 Men; that he over-ran the Mediterranean Coaft as far as Colchis; that in fome Places, he met but little Refiftance, and of course shed not a great deal of Blood; but that he found in others, a people who knew the Value of their Liberties, and fold them dear. Whoever confiders the Army this Conqueror headed, the Space he traversed, and the Oppofition he frequently met; with the natural Accidents of Sicknefs, and the Dearth and Badness of Provifion to which he must have been fubject in the variety of Climates and Countries his March lay through, if he knows any thing, he must know, that even the Conqueror's Army must have fuffered greatly; and that, of this immenfe Number, but a very fmall Part could have returned to enjoy the Plunder accumulated by the Lofs of fo many of their Companions, and the Devaftation of fo confiderable a Part of the World. Confidering, I fay, the vaft Army headed by this. Conqueror, whofe unwieldy Weight was almoft alone fufficient to wear down its Strength, it will be far from Excefs to fuppofe that one half was loft in the Expedition. If this was the State of the Victo

rious, and, from the Circumstances, it must have been this at the leaft; the Vanquished must have had a much heavier Lofs, as the greatest Slaughter is always in the Flight, and great Carnage did in thofe Times and Countries ever attend the first Rage of Conqueft. It will, therefore, be very reafonable to allow on their account as much. as, added to the Loffes of the Conqueror, may amount to a Million of Deaths, and then we fhall fee this Conqueror, the oldeft we have on the Records of History, (though, as we have obferved before, the Chronology of these remote Times is extremely uncertain,) opening the Scene by a Deftruction of at least one Million of his Species, unprovoked but by his Ambition, without any Motives but Pride, Cruelty and Madness, and without any Benefit to himfelf; (for Juftin exprefsly tells us, he did not maintain his Conquefts) but folely to make fo many People, in so distant Countries, feel experimentally, how fevere a Scourge Providence intends for the human Race, when he gives one Man the Power over many, and arms his naturally impotent, and feeble Rage, with the Hands of Millions, who know no common Principle of Action, but a blind Obedience to the Paffions of their Ruler.

The next Perfonage, who figures in the Tragedies of this ancient Theatre, is Semiramis: For we have no particulars of Ninus, but that he made immenfe and rapid Conquefts, which doubtlefs were not compaffed without the ufual Carnage. We fee an Army of above three Millions employed by this martial Queen

Queen in a War against the Indians. We fee the Indians arming a yet greater; and we behold a War continued with much Fury, and in various Succefs. This ends with the Retreat of the Queen, with scarce a third of the Troops employed in the Expedition; an Expedition, which at this rate must have coft two Millions of Souls on her part; and it is not unreasonable to judge that the Country which was the Seat of War, muft have been an equal Sufferer. But I am content to detract from this, and to fuppofe that the Indians loft only half fo much, and then the Account ftands thus: In this War alone, (for Semiramis had other Wars) in this fingle Reign, and in this one Spot of the Globe, did three Millions of Souls expire, with all the horrid and fhocking Circumstances which attend all Wars, and in a Quarrel, in which none of the Sufferers could have the leaft rational Concern.

The Babylonian, Affyrian, Median, and Perfian Monarchies must have poured out Seas of Blood in their Formation, and in their Destruction. The Armies and Fleets of Xerxes, their Numbers, the glorious Stand made against them, and the unfortunate Event of all his mighty Preparations, are known to every body. In this Expedition, draining half Afia of its Inhabitants, he led an Army of about two Millions to be flaughtered, and wafted, by a thousand fatal Accidents, in the fame Place where his Predeceffors had before, by a fimilar Madness, confumed the Flower of fo many Kingdoms, and wafted

C 3