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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

happy and calamitous contest with the American colonies, which broke out in 1775. After a struggle of seven or eight years, in which England lost 200,000 lives, and expended £139,171,876 sterling, peace was signed between the contending powers at Paris on the 3d of September 1783, by which Great Britain acknowledged the thirteen provinces of North America free, sovereign, and independent states.

Next came the war levied first against the French republic, and afterwards against Napoleon Bonaparte. In the early part of the century, it had been the great object of England to humble the French monarchy, and now that it was sufficiently humbled, the object was to reinstate it in power. The war began in 1793, and lasted till 1801; and recommencing in 1803, it continued till 1816. The expense incurred for this protracted, and, as it is now believed to have been, useless struggle, amounted to the enormous sum of seventeen hundred millions of pounds, which was raised partly by taxes, and partly by borrowed money! Without borrowing money, none of the wars could have been carried on. The debt thus incurred by the nation has consequently increased in exact proportion to the number and extent of the wars. At the revolution of 1688, the debt amounted to only £664,263; and at the peace of 1816, it was £864,822,461; the interest of which, to be paid annually out of the taxes, was £28,341,416. What embarrassments to trade, what privations and inconveniences, are caused by this inheritance of debt and taxation, need not be particularised; nor is it any consolation to remember that the greater number of the wars which led to so unpleasant an infliction were far from being unpopular at the time of their occurrence.

It would almost seem, from recent events, that war is no longer desired or maintained by governments, but by the people. No sovereign of any civilised state now seeks to promote war for the mere sake of conquest, or from any other vulgar motive. Knowing the fearful cost at which war is conducted, governments appear to be more anxious to allay than to foment differences. In many instances, however-as, for example, 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 intelligence 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 common 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.

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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

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poverty in which I found you and your wife; and now that I am better acquainted with you, I am still more astonished at it. At first I believed you to be indolent, or destitute of ability; but I find you intelligent, quick, willing, a good gardener, and an excellent groom. I have even perceived that you are not without industry; that you are ready to supply exigencies which often occur in a country place. Besides, you are not a bad mechanic, and you even know how to read and write. How comes it, then, that in a country like this, where there are rich proprietors, manufactures of all kinds, marble quarries, and forges, in which any one who has hands may get employmenthow comes it, then, that at your age you were destitute?"

The embarrassment of Jacque Denoyer visibly increased; he twisted and twirled his hat in his hands, without daring to raise his eyes; and it might have easily been guessed that he would have preferred being anywhere else than in M. Grandville's breakfast parlour.

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Jacque Denoyer," said he, in a tone full of kindness, "it is not as a master, it is as a friend I ask you these questions-it is as a man well convinced that it is never too late to endeavour at least to correct a defect or a vice which compromises both our own well-being and that of those who depend on us. Yes, my friend, let us have but the will, and we may at any age eradicate evil inclinations or pernicious habits. Come, speak openly. Tell me how you, who seem to be so clever a man, should be so very poor a one?"

Thus encouraged and spoken to by his master-a thing not unusual in France-Jacque commenced his story.

“I am the son of a decent, well-doing man, who followed the profession of a stone-carver in the town of Troyes. When still young, my father taught me a few things, and was quite pleased with my quickness of learning. M. Imbert, who was acquainted with my family, and who was the best architect in the town of Troyes, desired to see me on my father's report of me; and he said to him before me, 'You must put this child to school; he will learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and drawing; when he is thoroughly instructed in them, I will take him to my office, and if he continues to show talent, we will make a distinguished master mason of him, or else an architect, as I am.'

"You may suppose, sir, how delighted my father was and my mother also. I was the only one spared to them of ten children, and they caught eagerly at the thought of making a gentleman of me, like M. Imbert.

"After I had attended school for about a month, the master began to take notice of me. No sooner did I wish, than I learned. But I never gave myself any trouble, and I did as much business in ten minutes as the others did for the four hours of school. But when I knew that I was a genius, it was then indeed I took matters easy. Yes, sir, the master, the neighbours,

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