It has
oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily
distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you know that I am.
Should it please Providence to restore to me even the late weak remains
of my strength, I propose to make this matter the subject of a
particular discussion. I only mean here to argue, that the mode of
conducting the war on our part, be it good or bad, has prevented even
the common havoc of war in our population, and especially among that
class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way
amidst the perils and slaughter of the field of battle.
The other causes which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower
classes, but which I have shown not to have existed to any such degree
during this war,--penury, cold, hunger, nakedness,--do not easily reach
the higher orders of society. I do not dread for them the slightest
taste of these calamities from the distress and pressure of the war.
They have much more to dread in that way from the confiscations, the
rapines, the burnings, and the massacres that may follow in the train of
a peace which shall establish the devastating and depopulating
principles and example of the French Regicides in security and triumph
and dominion. In the ordinary course of human affairs, any check to
population among men in ease and opulence is less to be apprehended from
what they may suffer than from what they enjoy. Peace is more likely to
be injurious to them in that respect than war.
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