will be less determined; had he known, not one would have survived. The Gentiles, however, will straightway persecute all the Israelites, expelling them from all their provinces, &c."

The following description somewhat differs :-" After Gog and Magog, a most daring king shall arise, who shall war against Israel for three months, his name is Armillus. These are his marks, he shall be bald-headed, one eye small, the other large, his right arm like a palm-tree, his left two and a half cubits long he will be leprous in his face, his right ear closed, the other open. When any one comes to say to him what is good, he will turn towards him his closed ear, but if what is bad, he will turn his open one. He shall go up to Jerusalem, and shall slay Messiah, son of Joseph, as it is written, 'They shall look on me whom they have pierced.' (Zech. xii. 10.) But afterwards Messiah, son of David, shall come in a cloud, as it is said, Behold one like the son of man come with the clouds of heaven,' (Dan. vii. 13,) and (v. 14.) 'to him was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom,' &c. And he shall slay the impious Armillus, as said, (Isa. xi. 4,) 'With the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked one.""

Abarbanel says, "Our Rabbins have a tradition that first Messiah ben Ephraim shall appear, and make war with the nations who come against Jerusalem, but he will be slain. Then shall arise Messiah ben David, and he will slay his enemies, and Armillus, the prince-general of the Christian armies."-Lex: Chaldee, Talmudic, &c. fol. 221-224.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONQUEST.

Ar a period when the War-spirit appears to be developing itself with more than ordinary intensity-when a country that has expended six hundred millions for war-purposes in times of peace, is just waking up to the knowledge that this vast outlay has left us perfectly defenceless, and that a new and expensive, but inefficient machinery must be brought into play by means of a Militia Bill, it becomes us to enquire a little into the why and wherefore of our wars and fightings, to see how honestly they are begun, continued, and left unfinished; and how, as often in a lawsuit, the gainer and

N

loser obtain equal advantages, by being both ruined in purse and character. In this enquiry we are somewhat assisted by Mr. Hayward's table, contrasting our national income and expenditure in 1687 with those of 1850.* "The National Debt," we are informed by a note appended to this document, "is not less than eight hundred millions, and the annual interest about twenty-eight millions. If we reckon from 1688 to 1815,-for during this period the continental wars were chiefly engaged in-we shall be found to have contracted by fighting, in taxes, loans, subsidies to mercenaries, contracts, &c., &c., a debt exceeding six and a half millions of money for 127 years consecutively; and from 1688 to 1850, the amount will be about five millions of money for 162 years consecutively. A large proportion of this amount, prodigious as it is, has been raised by indirect taxes. A few millions may have been added to the account since the European peace of 1815, some owing to circumstances apart from general legislation, but more frequently within its province. Less than two millions annually was the product of the window-tax, and much difficulty there was in getting it repealed; while fourteen times this sum must be paid year by year to keep faith with the public creditor, leaving the debt as an heir-loom to children's children."

One would think that the hard cash thus squandered, was something widely different from that which we of the middling classes call money. Its real value it would not be easy to compute by merely looking at what it has actually purchased for us. Perhaps we shall better know its worth by calculating what might have been done with part of it, if our honest poor at home had been worth thinking about. Hear Mr. Hayward. "The sum of two and a half millions, if saved from warlike expenditure, by reducing the salaries of useless, but well-paid officials, and diminishing the quantity of military stores, would soon flow into the channels of industry. It would purchase 100,000 acres of improvable land at £25. per acre, and will pay 200,000 agricultural laborers, 12s. 6d. per week all the year round, rendering them contented and comfortable. It would pay 25,000 mercantile clerks £100. a year each; or 50,000 assistants in shops, warehouses, &c., £50. a year each;

Printed by R. Barrett, 13, Mark Lane.

and this sum, productive of such extensive good, may be squandered in a few months by peculation, and the evil extravagance attendant upon war."

It would ill become us to enquire toward what ends this fearful expenditure is directed. We are told that we must fight occasionally-that we have territory to maintain, and foes to keep in abeyance; besides all which, we must walk about with drawn sabres and loaded rifles to show the world how determined we are to be at peace with all men. We know that honesty is the best policy; but as this seems to us about the worst, we are reduced to a very unpleasant alternative. Injustice is always expensive, and if we wish to carry on our quarrels as unfairly as we have begun them, we suppose it cannot be done for nothing. Well! We can only hope the world will grow wiser soon, and find a better use for its wasted millions. Let us see if we can help it forward by anatomizing the philosophy of conquest.

There is a story current of Sheridan, that having had an unsuccessful day's sport in the country, he was returning homewards, when he saw a countryman lounging by a farm-yard gate, where there was abundance of poultry. Determined, if possible, to carry something home, he bargained for a shot, for which, the story says, he paid half-a-crown, and aiming in the midst of the group, managed to kill two geese and a turkey. Putting the silver into the man's hand, and leaping blithely over the gate, he turned round, before bagging his spoil, and said jeeringly to the rustic-"Well, old boy, don't ye think I've got a good half-crown's worth ?"

"May be you have," said the countryman, scratching his head, and looking very knowing. "May be you have; but them birds warn't mine!"'

Poor Sheridan in a few seconds had, indeed, practical proof of the fact; for the real owner, called out by the disturbance in his poultry-yard, proceeded in the most summary way to execute vengeance on the sportsman, but was at length appeased by a liberal promise of that " which answereth all things."

There are probably few persons who do not think the farmer was justified in compelling payment for his poultry. It may well be doubted, indeed, whether any can be found who would deliberately and advisedly have taken part with Sheridan, had

he fired and pillaged the farm, and knocked its owner on the head, on the plea that he had been grossly insulted, and suffered an unwarrantable reprisal. And yet if he could have thrown himself upon the anomalous and ill-understood "Law of Nations," instead of resting on the simple rights of meum and tuum as applicable to individual cases, he could have pleaded precedents innumerable for such a course of proceeding.

We have been led into these remarks by the recent perusal of a life of Robert Cavelier de la Salle, formerly governor of Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. His history is a romantic one, but we can now only glance at it in its bearings on the Philosophy of Conquest.

De la Salle, it appears, went to Canada about 1667, where he trafficked with the Indians for skins, till he took up with the then-prevalent opinion that a shorter route to China was to be found by way of the great American lakes, than round the Cape of Good Hope. Full of these views, he obtained from France the government of a fort and seignory on the eastern confines of Lake Ontario, which he made his head-quarters. His first step was to build three small barks with decks for navigating the lake, and ultimately conveying his materials and stores for ship-building on a larger scale to Niagara. Here, above the Falls, he constructed a vessel of sixty tons burthen, which he named the "Griffin," and with which he proposed to explore the upper lakes. In this vessel, with a company of thirty-four, he penetrated as far as Green Bay on the western side of Lake Michigan, where the ship was freighted back to Niagara; but was lost before reaching the Island of Mackinac, or Michilimackinak, as it is written in most of our modern maps.

Fourteen persons only remained behind when the “Griffin” was thus dispatched, who, after a variety of adventures, in which they appear to have acted with unwonted fairness, and even courtesy and forbearance towards the Indians on the shores of lake Michigan, arrived at the Miamis River at the western extremity of Lake Erie.

Here, with that friendly feeling for which all civilized visitors to an uncivilized country are remarkable, they build a fort, “to divert the thoughts of the men, and employ them in a manner that might prove useful to their designs."

Whether they stole their first footing here, or paid for it,

"this deponent saith not:" but what the designs of the invaders were, may be pretty plainly inferred from what follows:"At the junction of the river with the lake, there was a hill of considerable elevation, and of a triangular form, bounded on two sides by the water, and on the other, by a deep ravine. The top was level, and covered with trees. This position was chosen for the fort. The trees were cut down, and the bushes cleared away, so as to leave the ground open, to the distance of two musket shots on the side towards the ravine. Logs were then cut and hewn, so that they could be laid compactly one upon another, and with those timbers, a breastwork was raised on four sides, enclosing a space eighty feet long and forty broad, which for greater security was to be surrounded with palisades."

After some time spent here, they found their way to the River Kankakee, which flows into the Illinois; and near the site of the present town of Ottawa, came upon a deserted village of the Indians, and appropriated a large supply of corn there laid up, fully intending (unlike most persons in such eircumstances) to pay for it on demand as they best could. It is, indeed, but justice to these worthy men to state that their general conduct in such matters was highly praiseworthy; and that had they not acted "for posterity" by providing for subsequent usurpations of territory, they would deserve all that could be said in their favor.

Arrived at Lake Peoria, on the Illinois, they select a strong position, and build another fort, having this additional recommendation, that it was "about half a league" only, below the Indian camp, and therefore not very likely to find favor in their eyes.

After a variety of adventures but little connected with the main business of this narrative, La Salle resolved on a voyage down the Mississippi. Leaving Fort Frontenac, which he had throughout made his head-quarters, he sent forward a part of his men to Niagara, where it now appears another fort had been built, and occupied by a small garrison. By the way of Lakes Ontario and Erie, he followed them to the Miamis river, and crossing to the Illinois, reached the Mississippi in safety. The Indians had not advanced so far towards civilization as to