soon over.

The garrison dispersed through the streets, and the brave Phillipon escaped to San Christoval, where he surrendered next day. The bugles rung out their notes of triumph from castle and bastion, and Badajoz was conquered.

Alas! the whole is not yet told. "Now," says Colonel Napier, "commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnished the lustre of the soldier's heroism. All, indeed, were not alikefor hundreds risked, and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence; but the madness generally prevailed, and all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz! On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled!" A gallows was erected in the principal square of the town, on which, by Wellington's orders, several soldiers were hanged before order could be restored among the

rest.

Such was the memorable assault of Badajoz on the night between the 6th and 7th of April 1812. In that night fell 3500 men; a number which, added to the losses sustained during the previous days of the siege, made the entire loss at Badajoz amount to 5000. Five generals were wounded in the assault, and an immense number of officers were among the killed. At the breaches alone, upwards of 2000 men were sacrificed. How awful must have been the havoc of that night, may be judged from the fact, that Wellington himself, with all his iron firmness, could not contain himself when the extent of the loss was reported to him, but gave way-we use the words of the narrator-to a burst of passionate grief!

CONCLUSION.

The preceding sketches, impressive in some respects as they are, afford, after all, but a faint idea of the miseries and losses incurred by a state of warfare.. It has been calculated that in fifty battles fought by Cæsar, there were killed, one way and another, two millions of human beings; and if we assign an equal number to Alexander, and double the number to Napoleon, which we are fairly entitled to do, then to three military butchers may be ascribed the untimely and violent death of eight millions of the human family! To the many smaller actors, however, in the drama of war, an infinitely greater amount of slaughter may be ascribed, and with the same fruitless results. The insane love of military glory, thirst for acquiring territory, and vulgar tyranny and ambition, have unitedly destroyed more lives than it would be possible to reckon.

Between the years 1000 and 1815, there were twenty-four different wars between England and France, twelve between England and Scotland, eight between England and Spain, and seven with other countries-in all, fifty-one wars. The utter uselessness of most of these savage encounters, as respects any good end accomplished, and the enormous cost of lives and property at which they were conducted, are melancholy matters of history. During the eight centuries above specified, England did not enjoy one hundred years of peace. It was pretty nearly always fighting with one country or another; and justice compels us to say its wars were more generally caused by its own arrogant assumption of authority than by any aggression on its rights. Scotland, Holland, and France have been successively its butt. Ambitious, irascible, and jealous of power, it has never been long at peace with its neighbours. We are ashamed to mention the reasons for some of its declarations of war; yet it is important that the rising generation should be acquainted with the truth. In 1664, only four years after the restoration of Charles II., that monarch declared war against Holland-the. country which had sheltered him in adversity-on pretences so frivolous, that we must ascribe the real cause of quarrel to a mean jealousy of the Dutch commercial prosperity. Two English ships had been taken by the Dutch; and though they offered to make a proper compensation, Charles would not accept it, but immediately proceeded to hostilities. After three years of war, during which great damage was mutually done, both sides were equally weary of the contest, and a peace was concluded at Breda in July 1667. The next great folly in which England was concerned, was a war got up by William III. against Louis XIV. in 1689, and for no other assignable reason than a wish to humble the pride of the French king. In 1697, after a bloody and expensive war of eight years, a peace was concluded at Ryswick, no object whatever having been gained. The pride of Louis XIV. had not been in the least degree humbled. This idiotic war cost England twenty-one and a half millions of pounds, and one hundred thousand men! The exportation of food to feed the army of William and his allies caused a dearth, which led to fearful sufferings among the people. In Scotland alone eighty thousand poor persons died of want.

When Queen Anne ascended the throne in 1702, she proceeded to prosecute the design which her predecessor had formed-to humble the pride of the Bourbon family, by depriving Philip of the crown of Spain, and compelling the French king to adhere to the second treaty of partition. Accordingly, war was declared against France in May 1702 by England, Holland, and Germany; and after it had been prosecuted eleven years, with various success, a peace was concluded, and signed at Utrecht, on the 11th of April 1713. But the grand object for which the war had been undertaken was finally aban

doned. King Philip was left in quiet possession of the Spanish

crown.

During this war, one of the most complete victories was obtained over the French that ever was recorded in history. Ten thousand French and Bavarians were slain in the field of battle; the greater part of thirty squadrons of dragoons were drowned in the Danube; 30,000 men were made prisoners of war, including 1200 officers; 100 pieces of cannon were taken, together with twenty-four mortars, 129 colours, 171 standards, 3600 tents, thirty-four coaches, 300 laden mules, two bridges of boats, fifteen boxes and eight casks of silver. But notwithstanding these signal acquisitions, the nation was a considerable loser; for the expense of the war, as stated by Sir John Sinclair, amounted to £43,360,003, which made a serious addition to the national debt, and to the taxes that were laid on the people to pay the interest of it.

During the reign of George II. a war was begun, in the latter end of 1739, between England on one side, and France and Spain on the other, which terminated in a peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, after a contest of nine years. The expenses of this war are stated at £46,418,689.

Notwithstanding the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (which concluded a war in which nothing was gained by any party but the experience of each other's strength and resources), peace was not of long continuance. The cessation of hostilities was only an interval of repose, in which the nation might recruit its strength to fight again. In 1754-5, a dispute arising between England and France concerning a tract of land in the back parts of America, each party charging the other as the aggressor, involved the two nations in an eight years' contest; when, as an eloquent writer observes, had the parties interested alone been consulted, a jury of twelve men might have settled the diffe

rence.

At length the resources of England were nearly exhausted; men could not be procured without great difficulty, and the enormous sums required to continue the war became oppressive upon the people. In plain terms, both sides were so weakened with the loss of blood and treasure, that they could fight no longer, and a peace was concluded in February 1763.

This war is said to have been the most fortunate in which England ever engaged; 100 ships of war were destroyed or taken from the enemy, and £12,000,000 sterling acquired in plunder, besides immense acquisitions on the continent of North America. But these victories and successes cost the nation £111,271,996 sterling, and two hundred and fifty thousand lives! Such was the indemnity which England obtained for the past!

England was not long permitted to enjoy the blessings of peace and prosperity. In the course of recovering her natural strength and affluence, she was again interrupted by the un

PASAL DELT IT HAS ME TO IN NIVEL money! WithOLI DISIVURS mangy, Dant a the vas entic have been carried 迎 The dele this mered by the manor has consequently incased in exac Temaat T THE Ther and extent of the AT DE Sa a les the deir amorted to only £864.968; and at the heart of 196 I was £864.822.461; the interest of WHICH IN THE HEDHET DU of the taxes, was 283046 Wen emasmens i rade, what privations and inconvenientes, at caused by the hammance of debt and taxation, need 30G DE TREsed: no azy consolation to remember that the meter fumber of the was which led to so unpleasant an infraal were de from being unpopular at the time of their ocsammen...

It would almost seem from recent evens, that war is no longer desired or maintained by poverumers, but by the people. No sovereign of any crilised stat now seeks to promote war for the mere sake of concnest, of from any other vari motive. Knowing the fearful cost at which war is condured, grverments appear to be more anxious to say than to fument ferences. In many instances, however as, for examine, in the case of the war of the French in Algeria-the ruling power is a puppet in the hands of the people; and unless the people have the intelhgence so to will it, the government cannot, with regard to its own safety, refuse to enter upon and sustain a warlike struggle. Let us hope that, by the progress of intelligence, the nation to which we belong may in future be saved from any acts so outrageous to commor sense and humanity. Let us also soon see the prevalence of correct opinions on what is scarcely less objectionable than war itself-an armed peace, in which nations are kept in agitation through their mutual jealousies and unjustifiable alarms. That the principle of free commercial intercourse will, more than anything else, remove such jealousies and their consequences, is one of the most gratifying discoveries in political science.

32

HE scene of our story opens in a pretty countryhouse near a village in France. The master of the mansion, the venerable M. Grandville, has called in Jacque Denoyer, his gardener, with whom he desired

"Please to sit down, Jacque; take a chair," said M. Grandville. "I want to have a little chat with you. Sit down, I tell you."

Jacque Denoyer seated himself near the door of the parlour where M. Grandville was breakfasting; he had a look of uneasiness, and a sudden blush gave a deeper colour to a face already embrowned by the sun.

"I am quite satisfied with you," continued M. Grandville. "If you go on the rest of the year as you have done this month of trial, I do not think we shall soon part with each other; as far at least as depends upon me. And now, Denoyer, are you quite satisfied here? Have you not too much to do? Can you manage both stable and garden?"

Why not, sir?" replied Jacque Denoyer. "If I had ten times as much to do, I would not complain. Can I ever do enough for you, sir, who have saved from misery myself, my wife, and our three children?"

"One thing astonishes me, Jacque, and that is the extreme