In the mean time, the maxims which are here controverted, have had by so much the more success in the world, as they bear some resemblance to the purest sentiments of virtue. Virtue is nothing else hut kind and sympathetic feelings reduced into prin- ciple. Undisciplined feeling would induce me, now to interest myself exclusively for one man, and now for another, to be eagerly solicitous for those who are present to me, and to forget the absent. Feeling ripened into virtue, embraces the interests of the whole human race, and constantly proposes to itself the production of the greatest quantity of happiness. But, while it anxiously adjusts the balance of interests, and yields to no case, however urgent, to the prejudice of the whole, it keeps aloof from the unmeaning rant of romance, and imiformly recollects that happiness, in order to be real, must necessarily be individual.
The love of our country, has often been found to be a deceitful principle, as its direct tendency, is to set the interests of one division of mankind in opposition to another, and to establish a preference, built upon accidental relations, and not upon reason. Much of what has been understood by the appellation, is excel- lent, but perhaps nothing that can be brought within the strict OP THE CAUSES OP WAR. 71 interpretation of the phrase. A wise and well informed man will not fail to be the votary of liberty and justice. He will be ready to exert himself in their defence, wherever they exist. It cannot be a matter of indifference to him, when his own liberty and that of other men with whose merits and capacities he has the best opportunity of being acquainted, are involved in the event of the struggle to be made. But his attachment will be to the cause, as the cause of man, and not to the country. Wherever there are individuals, who imderstand the value of political justice, and are prepared to assert it, that is his country. Wherever he can most contribute to the diffusion of these principles and the real happi- ness of mankind, that is his country. Nor does he desire, for any country, any other benefit than justice.
To apply these principles to the subject of war. — And, before that application can be adequately made, it is necessary to recol- lect, for a moment, the force of the term.
Because individuals were liable to error, and suffered their ap- prehensions of justice to be perverted by a bias in favour of themselves, government was instituted. Because nations were susceptible of a similar weakness, and could find no sufficient umpire to whom to appeal, war was introduced. Men were in- duced deliberately to seek each other's lives, and to adjudge the controversies between them, not according to the dictates of rea- son and justice, but as either should prove most successful in devastation and murder. This was no doubt in the first instance the extremity of exasperation and rage. But it has since been converted into a trade. One part of the nation pays another part, to murder and be murdered in their stead; and the most trivial causes, a supposed insult, or a sally of youthful ambition, have sufficed to deluge provinces with blood.
We can have no adequate idea of this evil, unless we visit, at least in imagination, a field of battle. Here men deliberately destroy each other by thousands, without resentment against, or even knowledge of, each other. The plain is strewed with death in all its forms. Anguish and wounds display the diversified modes in which they can torment the human frame. Towns are burned; ships are blown up in the air, while the mangled limbs descend on every side; the fields are laid desolate; the wives of the inhabitants exposed to brutal insult; and their children driven forth to hunger and nakedness. It is an inferior circumstance, though by no means unattended with the widest and most deplor- able effects, when we add, to these scenes of horror, and the subversion of all ideas of moral justice they must occasion in the auditors and spectators, the immense treasures which are wning, in the form of taxes, from those inhabitants whose residence is removed from the seat of war.
After this enumeration, we may venture to enquire what are the justifiable causes and rules of war.
It is not a justifiable reason, " that we imagine our own people vould be rendered more cordial and orderly, if we could find a 72 OF THE CAUSES OF WAR.
neighbour mth whom to quarrel, and who might serve as a touch- stone to try the characters and dispositions of individuals among ourselves."* We are not at liberty to have recourse to the most complicated and atrocious of all miscliiels, in the way of an ex- periment.
It is not a justifiable reason, " that we have been exposed to certain insults, and that tyrants, perhaps, have delighted in treat- ing with contempt, the citizens of our happy state who have visited their dominions." Government ought to protect the tran- quillity of those who reside within the sphere of its functions j but, if individuals think proper to visit other countries, they must be delivered over to the protection of general reason. Some proportion must be observed, between the evil of which we com- plain, and the evil which the nature of the proposed remedy inevitably includes.
It is not a justifiable reason, "that our neighbour is preparing, or menacing hostilities." If we be obliged to prepare in our turn, the inconvenience is only equal; and it is not to be believed, that a despotic country is capable of more exertion than a free one, when the task incumbent on the latter is indispensible precaution.
It has sometimes been held to be sound reasoning upon this subject, " that we ought not to yield little things, which may not, in themselves, be sufficiently valuable to authorise this tremendous appeal, because a disposition to yield, only invites further experi- ments." Much otherwise; at least when the character of such a nation is sufficiently understood. A people that will not con- tend for nominal and trivial objects, that adheres to the precise line of unalterable justice, and that does not fail to be moved at the moment that it ought to be moved, is not the people that its neighbours will delight to urge to extremities.
" The vindication of national honour," is a very insufficient reason for hostilities. True honour is to be found only in in- tegrity and justice. It has been doubted, how far a view to reputation, ought, in matters of inferior moment, to be permitted to influence the conduct of individuals; but, let the case of indi- viduals be decided as it may, reputation, considered as a separate motive in the instance of nations, can perhaps never be justifiable. In individuals, it seems as if I might, consistently with the ut- most real integrity, be so misconstrued and misrepresented by * The reader will easily perceive that the pretences, by which the people of France were instigated to a declaration of Avar, in April, 1792, were in the author's mind in this and the two following articles. Nor will a few lines be misspent in this note, in stating the feelings of a dispassionate observer, upon the wantonness with which they have appeared ready, upon different occasions, to proceed to extremities. If policy were in question, it might be doubted, whether the confederacy of kings would ever have been brought into action against them, had it not been for their precipitation; and it might be asked, what impression they must expect to find produced upon the minds of other states, by their intemperate commission of hostility? But that equal humanity, which prescribes to us, never, by a hasty interference, to determine the doubtful balance in favour of murder, is a superior con- sideration, iu comparison witli which policy is scarcely worthy to be named.
OF THE OBJECT OP WAR. 73 others, as to render my efforts at usefulness almost necessarily abortive. But tliis reason does not apply to tlie case of nations. Their real story cannot easily be suppressed. Usefulness and public spu-it, in relation to them, chiefly belong to the transactions of their members among themselves; and their influence in the transactions of neighbouruig nations, is a consideration evidently subordinate. — The question which respects the justifiable causes of war, -would be liable to few difficulties, if we were accustomed, along with the word, strongly to call up to our minds the thing which that word is intended to represent.
Accurately considered, there can probably be but two causes of war that can maintain any plausible claim to justice; and one of them, is among those which the logic of sovereigns, and the law of nations, as it has been termed, have been thought to proscribe: these are the defence of our o^vn liberty, and of the liberty of others. The well known objection to the latter of these cases, is, " that one nation ought not to interfere in the internal trans- actions of another." But certainly every people is fit for the possession of any immunity, as soon as they imderstand the natiire of that immunity, and desire to possess it; and it is pro- bable that this condition may be sufficiently realised, in cases, where, from the subtlety of intrigue, and the tyrannical jealousy of neighbouring kingdoms, they may be rendered incapable of effectually asserting their rights. This principle is capable of being abused by men of ambition and intrigue; but, accurately considered, the very same argument that should induce me to exert myself for the liberties of my own country, is equally cogent, so far as my opportunities and ability extend, with respect to the liberties of any other country. But what is my duty in this case, is the duty of all; and the exertion must be collective, where collective exertion only can be effectual.
CHAP. XVII.
OF THE OBJECT OF WAR.
The repelling an invader. — Not reformation — not restraint — not indem' nijication. — Nothing can be a sufficient object of tvar, that is not a sufficient cause for beginning it. — Rejiections on the balance of power.
Let us pass, from the causes, to the objects of war. As defence is the only legitimate cause, the object pursued, reasoning from this principle. Will be circumscribed within very narrow limits. It can extend no further, than tlie repelling the enemy from our bordei-s. It is perhaps desirable that, in addition to this, he should afford some proof that he does not propose immediately to 74 OP THE OBJECT OP WAR.
renew his invasion; but this, though desirable, affords no suffi- cient apology for the continuance of hostilities. Declarations of war, and treaties of peace, were the inventions of a barbarous age, and would probably never have grown into established usages, if war had customarily gone no further than to the limits of defence.
The criminal justice, as it has been termed, of nations within themselves, has only three objects that it can be imagined to have in view, the reformation of the criminal, the restraining him from future excesses, and example. But none of these objects, whatever may be thought of them while confined to their original province, can sufficiently apply to the case of war between inde- pendent states. War, as we have already seen, perhaps never originates, on the offending side, in the sentiments of a nation, but of a comparatively small number of individuals: and, were it otherwise, there is something so monstrous, in the idea of chang- ing the principles of a whole country by the mode of military execution, that every man not lost to sobriety and common sense, may be expected to shrink from it with horror.
Restraint appears to be sometimes necessary, with respect to the offenders that exist in the midst of a community, because it is customary for such offenders to assail us with unexpected violence; but nations cannot move with such secrecy, as to make an uiiforseen attack an object of considerable apprehension. The only effectual means of restraint, in this case, is by disabling, impoverishing, and depopulating the country of our adversaries; and, if we recollected that they are men as well as ourselves, and the great mass of them innocent of the quarrel against us, we should be little likely to consider these expedients with compla- cency. The idea of making an example of an offending nation, is reserved for that God, whom the church, as by law established, instructs us to adore.
Indemnification is another object of war, which the same mode of reasoning will not fail to condemn. The true culprits can never be discovered, and the attempt would only serve to con- found the innocent and the guilty: not to mention, that nations having no common lunpire, the reverting, in the conclusion of every war, to the justice of the original quarrel, and the indemnifi- cation to which the parties were entitled, would be a means of rendering the controversy endless. The question respecting the justifiable objects of war would be liable to few difficulties, if we laid it down as a maxim, that, as often as the principle or object of a war already in existence was changed, it was to be con- sidered as equivalent to the commencement of a new war. This maxim, impartially applied, would not fail to condemn objects of prevention, indemnification, and restraint.
The celebrated topic of the balance of power, is a mixed con- sideration, having sometimes been proposed as the cause for beginning a war, and sometimes as an object to be pursued in a war already begun. A war, undertaken to maintain the balance OF THE OBJECT OP WAH. 75 of power, may be either of defence, as to protect a people "who are oppressed, or of prevention, to counteract new acquisitions, or to reduce the magnitude of old possessions. We shall be in little danger of error however, if we pronounce wars imdertaken to maintain the balance of power to be universally unjust. If any people be oppressed, it is our duty, as has been already said, as far as a favourable opportunity may invite us, to fly to their succour. But it would be well if, in such cases, we called our interference by the name which justice prescribes, and fought against the oppression, and not the power. All hostilities against a neighbouring people, because they are powerful, or because we impute to them evil designs which they have not begun to carry into execution, are incompatible with every principle of morality. If one nation choose to be governed by the monarch, or an individual allied to the monarch, of another, as seems to have been the case in Spain, upon the extinction of the elder branch of the house of Austria, we may endeavour, as individuals, to enlighten them on the subject of government, and imbue them with principles of liberty; but it is an execrable piece of tjrranny, to tell them, " You shall exchange the despot you love, for the despot you hate, on account of certain remote consequences we apprehend from tlie accession of the former." The pretence of the balance of power, has, in a multitude of instances, served as a veil to the intrigue of courts; but it would be easy to show, that the present independence of the different states of Europe, has, in no instance, been materially assisted, by the wars under- taken for that purpose. The fascination of a people desiring to become the appendage of a splendid despotism, will rarely occur; and when it does, can justly be counteracted only by peaceable means. The succouring a people in their struggle against oppres- sion must always be just, with this limitation, that to attempt it without an urgent need on their part, may uselessly extend tlie calamities of war, and has a tendency to diminish those energies among themselves, tlie exertion of which might contribute to their virtue and happiness. Add to this, that the object itself, the independence of the different states of Europe, is of an equivocal nature. The despotism, which at present prevails in the majority of them, is certainly not so excellent, as to make us very anxious for its preservation. The press is an engine of so admirable a nature for the destruction of despotism, as to elude the sagacity perhaps of the most vigilant police; and the internal checks upon freedom in a mighty empire and distant provinces, can scarcely be expected to be equally active with those of a petty tyrant. The reasoning will surely be good with respect to war, which has already been employed upon the subject of government, that an instrument, evil in its own nature, ought never to be selected as the means of promoting our purpose, in any case in which selection can be practised.
76 OP THE CONDUCT OF WAR.
CHAP. XVIII.
OF THE CONDUCT OF WAR.
Offensive operations. — Fortifications. — General action. — Stratagem.-— Military contributions. — Capture of mercantile vessels. — Naval war, — Humanity. — Military obedience. — Foreign possessions.
Another topic respecting war, which it is of importance to con- sider in this place, relates to the mode of conducting it. Upon this article, our judgment will be greatly facilitated, by a re- collection of the principles already established, first, that no war is justifiable but a war purely defensive; and, secondly, that a war already begun, is liable to change its character in this respect, the moment the object pm-sued in it becomes in any degree varied. From these principles it follows as a direct corollary, that it is never allowable to make an expedition into the provinces of the enemy, unless for the purpose of assisting its oppressed inhabitants. It is scarcely necessary to add that all false casuistry respecting the application of this exception, would be particularly odious; and that it is better undisguisedly to avow the corrupt principles of policy by which we conduct oui-selves, than hypo- critically to claim the praise of better principles, which we fail not to wrest to tlie justification of whatever we desire. The case of relieving the inhabitants of our enemy's territory, and their desire of obtaining relief, ought to be unequivocal; we shall be in great danger of misapprehension on the subject, when the question comes under the form of immediate benefit to ourselves; and, above all, we must recollect that human blood is not to be shed upon a precarious experiment.
The occasional advantages of war, that might be gained by ofi'ensive operations, might be abundantly compensated, by the character of magnanimous forbearance that a rigid adherence to defence would exliibit, and the effects that character would pro- duce, both upon foreign nations, and upon our own people. Great unanimity at home, can scarcely fail to be tlie efiect of a direct and clear conformity to political justice. The enemy who penetrates into our country, wherever he meets a man, will meet a foe. Every obstacle will oppose itself to his progress, while every- thing will be friendly and assisting to our owti forces. He will scarcely be able to procure the slightest intelligence, or under- stand in any case his relative situation. The principles of defen- siye war are so simple, as to procure an almost infallible success. Fortifications are a very equivocal species of protection, and will perhaps oftener be of advantage to the enemy, by being first taken, and tlien converted into magazines for liis armies. A moving force on the contrary, if it only hovered about his march, and avoided general action, would always preserve the real superiority. The great engine of military success or miscarriage, is the article OP THE CONDUCT OF WAR. 77 of provisions; and the farther the enemy advanced into our country, the more easy would it be to cut off his supply; at the same time that, so long as we avoided general action, any decisive success on his part would be impossible. These principles, if rigidly practised, would soon be so well understood, that the entering in a hostile manner the country of a neighbouring nation, would come to be regarded as the infallible destruction of the invading army. Perhaps no people were ever conquered at their own doors, unless tliey were first betrayed, either by divisions among themselves, or by the abject degeneracy of their character. The more we come to understand the nature of justice, the more it will show itself to be stronger than a host of foes. Men, whose bosoms are tnily pervaded with this principle, cannot perhaps be other than invincible. Among the various examples of excellence, in almost every department, that ancient Greece has bequeathed us, the most conspicuous, is her resistance with a handful of men against three millions of invaders.* One branch of the art of war, as well as of every other human art, has hitherto consisted in deceit. If the principles of this work be built upon a sufficiently solid basis, the practice of deceit ought, in almost all instances, to be condemned, whether it proceed from false tenderness to our friends, or from a desire to hasten the downfall of injustice. Vice is neither tlie most allowable nor effectual weapon with which to contend against vice. Deceit is certainly not less deceit, whether the falsehood be formed into words, or be conveyed through the medium of fictitious appear- ances. A virtuous and upright nation, would be scarcely more willing to mislead the enemy by false intelligence, or treacherous ambuscade, than by the breach of their engagements, or by feigned demonstrations of friendship. There seems to be no essential difference between throwing open our arms to embrace them, and advancing towards them with neutral colours, or covering ourselves with a defile or a wood. By the practice of surprise and deceit, we shall oftencSt cut off their straggling parties, and shed most blood; By an open display of our force, we shall prevent detachments from being made, and intercept the possibility of supply without unnecessary bloodshed; and there seems no reason to believe that our ultimate success will be less secure. Why should war be made the science of disingenuous- ness and mystery, when the plain dictates of good sense would answer all its legitimate purposes? The first principle of defence is finuness and vigilance. The second, perhaps, which is not less immediately connected with the end to be obtained, is frankness, and the open disclosm-e of our purpose, even to our enemies. What astonishment, admiration, and terror, might tliis conduct excite in those -vnth whom we had to contend? What confidence • These chapters were written duiing the month of September, 1792, before the intelligence of Dumouriez's success, and while the heait of every lover of liberty ached for the e\\u% of the campaign.
78 OF THE CONDUCT OF WAR.
and magnanimity would accompany it in our own bosoms? Why should not war, as a step towards its complete abolition, be brought to such perfection, as that the purposes of the enemy might be baffled, without firing a musket, or drawing a sword?
Another corollary, not less inevitable from the principles which have been delivered, is, that the operations of war should be limited, as accurately as possible, to the generating no further evils, than defence inevitably requires. Ferocity ought carefully to be banished from it. Calamity should, as entirely as possible, be prevented, to every individual who is not actually in arms, and whose fate has no immediate reference to the event of the ■war. This principle condemns the levying military contributions, and the capture of mercantile vessels. Each of these atrocities "would be in another way precluded, by the doctrine of simple defence. We should scarcely think of levying such contribu- tions, if we never attempted to pass the limits of our own territory; and every species of naval war would probably be proscribed.
The utmost benevolence ought to be practised towards our enemies. We should refrain from the unnecessary destruction of a single life, ahd afford every humane accommodation to the un- fortunate. The bulk of those against whom we have to contend, are, comparatively speaking, innocent of the projected injustice. Those by whom it has been most assiduously fostered, are enti- tled to our kindness as men, and to our compassion as mistaken. It has already appeared, that all the ends of punishment are foreign to the transactions of war. It has appeared, that the genuine melioration of war, in consequence of which it may be expected absolutely to cease, is by gradually disarming it of its ferocity. The horrors of war have sometimes been attempted to be vindicated, by a supposition, that the more intolerable it was made, the more quickly would it cease to infest the "world. But the direct contrary of this is the truth. Severi- ties beget severities. It is a most mistaken way of teach- ing men to feel that they are brothers, by imbuing their minds with unrelenting hatred. The truly just man cannot feel ani- mosity, and is therefore little likely to act as if he did.
Having examined the conduct of war, as it respects our ene- mies, let us next consider it, in relation to the various descriptions of persons by whom it is to be supported. We have seen how little a just and upright war stands in need of secrecy. The plans for conducting a campaign, instead of being, as artifice and ambition have hitherto made them inextricably complicated, ■will probably be reduced to two or three variations suited to the difi'erent circumstances, that can possibly occur in a war of simple defence. The better these plans are known to the enemy, the more advantageous will it be to the resisting party. Hence it follows that the principles of implicit faith and military obedience, as they are now understood, will be no longer necessary. Sol- diers will cease to be machines. The circumstance that con- stitutes men machines, in this sense of the word^ is not the OF THE CONDUCT OP WAR. 79 uniformity of their motions, ^vhen they see the reasonableness of that uniformity: it is their performing any motion, or engaging in any action, the object and utility of which they do not clearly understand. It is true that, in every state of human society, there -will be men of an intellectual capacity much superior to their neighbours. But defensive war, and every other species of operation, in which it will be necessary that many individuals should act in concert, wUl perhaps be found so simple in their operations, as not to exceed the apprehension of the most com- mon capacities. It is ardently to be desired that the time should arrive, when no man should lend his assistance to any operation, without, in some degree exercising his judgment, respecting the honesty, and the expected event, of that operation.