Chapter XV · THE DECLARATION OF WAR.

I think we have already distinct evidence that the Fecial Law was something more than our Treaty and Diplomatic Law. Let us examine it more particularly in action. If the law of nations ever was appealed to, and, if over and above, there was a tradition of a Divine revelation, or even of a prescriptive law founded on natural right, and having reference to war, which was ever invoked, it would have been in the first instance of aggression, supposing, as is implied in the term, that it was without fair cause and without fair warning. The declaration of war, therefore, is manifestly the hinge upon which the whole system of the law of nations turns.[324] Accordingly, the further we go back the more solemn and formal do we find the declaration of war to be.

“In every instance the declaration of war was accompanied by religious formalities. When the Senate believed that it had cause of complaint against a nation, it sent a Fecial to his frontier. There the pontiff, his head bound with a woollen veil,[325] exposed the griefs of the Romans and demanded satisfaction. If it was not granted, he went back to render an account of his mission to the Senate, ... and after a delay of thirty or thirty-three days they voted a declaration of war. Then the Fecial returned to the frontier, and, casting a javelin into the enemy’s country, he pronounced the following formula—‘Quod populus Hermundulus,’ &c.... Every war which had not been declared in this manner was considered as unjust, and certain to incur the displeasure of the gods. In the course of time this solemn declaration was replaced by a vain formality.”[326]

Montfauçon (“L’Antiquité Expliquée,” ii. 1, p. iv., p. 35) says:—

“Lorsqu’ils alloient parlementer, ils avoient sur la tête un voile tissu de laine,[327] et ils étoient couronnéz de vervaine: leur office étoit d’impêcher que les Romains n’entreprissent point de guerre injuste: d’aller comme legats vers les nations qui violoient les traitez, etc.... ils prenoient aussi connaissance faits au legats de part et d’autre. Quand la paix ne se trouvoit pas faite selon les loix, ils la declaroient nulle. Si les commandans avoient fait quelque chose contre la justice et contre le droit des gens, ils reparoient leur faute et expioient leur crime, ... à cause du violement des traites faits devant Numance, dit Ciceron par un décret du Senat le Patrapatratus livra, C. Mancinus aux Numantins.”[328]

We must content ourselves, of course, with what evidence we may get of similar institutions elsewhere; but what strikes me as strange in the contrast of modern civilisation with barbarism, is, that whereas our advances, whether in the sense of peace and war (whenever they are formally made), are commonly understood, the corresponding demonstrations on the side of barbarism are invariably misconstrued.

When, for instance, Captain Cook approached the shores of Bolabola, he describes the following scene, which reads to me very like the account we have just been reading of the Roman herald:—

“Soon after a single man ran along the shore armed with his lance, and when he came abreast of the boat he began to dance, brandish his weapon, and call out in a very shrill tone, which Tupia [a native of an adjacent island who was on board] said was a defiance from the people.... As the boat rowed slowly along the shore back again, another champion came down, shouting defiance, and brandishing his lance. His appearance was more formidable than that of the other, for he wore a large cap made of the tail feathers of the topia bird, and his body was covered with stripes of different coloured cloth, yellow, red, and brown.... Soon after a more grave and elderly man came down to the beach, and hailing the people in the boat, inquired who they were, and from whence they came.[329]... After a short conference they all began to pray very loud. Tupia made his responses, but continued to tell us they were not our friends” (i. 119).

Let this be taken in connection with the following narrative:—[330]

“The large canoes came close round the ship, some of the Indians playing on a kind of flute, others singing, and the rest blowing on a sort of shells. Soon after, a large canoe advanced, in which was an awning, on the top of which sat one of the natives holding some yellow and red feathers in his hand. The captain having consented to his coming alongside, he delivered the feathers, and while a present was preparing for him, he put back from the ship, and threw the branch of a cocoa-tree in the air. This was doubtless the signal for an onset, for there was an instant shout from all the canoes, which, approaching the ship, threw volleys of stones into every part of her.”

Here the question appears to me to be whether this act of throwing the branch, so analogous to the throwing the javelin, which was the final act in the Roman declaration of war (and to which our throwing down the glove or the gauntlet has analogy), was merely the signal to themselves, or whether it was not also the notice of attack to the enemy. Upon this will depend whether we are to consider it a treacherous “ruse” (and the presentation of the feathers has that aspect), or whether it was their traditional mode of declaration of war, and construed to be a treacherous attack, because the gallant navigator belonged to a nation more ignorant of the laws of nations than the savages they encountered.

From the very fact of their having enacted this comedy or ceremonial, it must be inferred either that they attached some superstitious importance to its performance, and expected some good effects from it to themselves, or that they thought that it would be understood by their adversaries, in which case they must implicitly have believed it to be common to all nations.

In either case it is just possible that after the manner of savages, they may have confused the symbols of peace and war, and ran into one what the Romans had carefully distinguished—the “caduceatores”,[331] who went to demand peace, and the “fecials,” who were sent to denounce war.

The red and yellow colours of the feathers in the above account may afford a clue, when it is remembered (vide note), that they coincide with the colour used by the Otaheitans to testify fidelity and friendliness; but, to appreciate this in its full significance, it will be necessary to show how commonly the traditional symbols of peace among the ancients had reference to the diluvian traditions, more especially the Dove and the Rainbow.

Assuming for the moment that Bryant is right in his derivation of the names of Juno and Venus from Jönah (Hebrew), and Οινας (Greek) = Dove,[332] I ask attention to the following, in connection with the red and yellow feathers of the Polynesians, and the tail feathers of the topia bird mentioned by Cook (supra, p. 388).[333] (Bryant, ii. 345), “As the peacock, in the full expansion of his plumes, displays all the beautiful colours of the Iris (the rainbow), it was probably for that reason made the bird of Juno, instead of the dove, which was appropriated to Venus. The same history was variously depicted in different places, and consequently as variously interpreted.” (Compare p. 279.)

If this is true, if the rainbow is the symbol of peace, and the peacock is the symbol of the rainbow, will it absolutely surprise us to find feathers of various colours presented as tokens of peace? I am prepared for the reply, that Bryant’s etymology is now considered obsolete; but I shall fall back upon the argument which I have urged elsewhere, that in cases where tradition renders the transmission of certain words probable, there is a presumption which overrides the ordinary canons of philological criticism. Philologers very properly lay down, e.g. Mr Max Müller’s “Chapter of Accidents in Comparative Theology,” Contemp. Rev., April 1870, p. 8:—

“Comparative philology has taught us again and again that when we find a word exactly the same in Greek and Sanscrit, we may be certain that it cannot be the same word; and the same applies to comparative mythology ... for the simple reason that Sanscrit and Greek have deviated from each other, have both followed their own way, have both suffered their own phonetic corruptions, and hence, if they do possess the same word, they can only possess it either in its Greek or in its Sanscrit disguise.”

This is of course only upon the assumption that the languages have gone their own way, have followed their own corruptions; but if it can be shown that certain words, &c. &c., were preserved in tradition, and so guarded as not to come under the laws of deviation which philology traces out, or to come under them on different conditions, then, on the contrary, it is exceedingly probable that we should find them identical, or at least recognisable; in any case, this is a point which must be decided according to the evidences of tradition, and not according to the laws of philology. This will be better understood from a case in point. I append the evidence respecting the traditions of the Dove and the Rainbow—which are just the incidents which are likely to have impressed the imagination and memory of mankind.[334]

The digression we have just made involves some risk of distracting attention from the point it was intended to enforce—viz. the traditionary character of the mode, and, by implication, the traditionary recognition of the obligation, of the declaration of war. We have already seen in Ozanam (supra, p. 371) indications of the probability of similar traditions among the primitive tribes of Germany. Will it clench the argument if we find Romans and Gauls on a common understanding in these matters, when brought for the first time into contact since their original separation?—

“The great misfortunes which befel the city from the Gauls, are said to have proceeded from the violation of these sacred rites. For when the barbarians were besieging Clusium, Fabius Ambustus was sent ambassador to their camp with proposals of peace, in favour of the besieged. But receiving a harsh answer, he thought himself released from his character of ambassador, and rashly taking up arms for the Clusians, challenged the bravest man in the Gaulish army. He proved victorious, ... but the Gauls having discovered who he was, sent a herald to Rome to accuse Fabius of bearing arms against them, contrary to treaties and good faith, and without a declaration of war. Upon this the Feciales exhorted the Senate to deliver him up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and, being a favourite with them, was screened from the sentence. Soon after this, the Gauls marched to Rome, and sacked the whole city except the Capitol, as we have related at large in the life of Camillus.”—Plutarch’s Numa.

I venture further to think that the traditionary modes of the declaration of war may be detected among the Gauls in Cæsar’s time, in the manner of their challenge. E.g. it so came about that Cæsar wished to draw the enemy (the Nervii) to his side of the valley and to engage them at a disadvantage before his camp. To this end he simulated fear. “Our men meanwhile retiring from the rampart, they approached still nearer, cast their darts on all sides within the trenches and sent heralds round the camp to proclaim,” &c. (Duncan’s Cæsar, B. v. xlii.)

We will now turn to the Greek tradition. I quote from an old author who has examined the matter more fully than I find it treated elsewhere. Rous. (“Archæologiæ Atticæ,” lib. 6, s. 3, civ.) says:—“As careful and cunning as they were in warlike affairs, I cannot find but that they did ‘propere signi quæ piget inchoare,’ bear a great affection to peace; as may appear in their honourable receiving of ambassadors, to whom they gave hearing in no worse place than a temple.... The usual ensign carried by Greek ambassadours was κηρυκεον, caduceus,[335] a right staff of wood with snakes twisted about it and looking one another in the face.... If the peace could not be kept, but they must needs have war, yet they would be sure to give warning and fair play, and make proclamations of their intentions before they marcht. The manner in proclaiming war was to send a fellow of purpose either to cast a spear or let loose a lamb into the borders of the country, or into the city itself whither they were marching (which Hesychius rather thinks to have been the signal before a battel), thereby showing them, that what was then a habitation for men, should shortly be a pasture for sheep.”[336] I should rather have thought that it had analogy with the Jewish scapegoat; but, whatever the idea, it was apparently symbolled and commemorated in the woollen veil prescribed to the Roman pontiff in the declaration of war. It would seem, however, that the signal for battle (chap. v.) was “instead of sounding a trumpet, they had fellows whom they called πυρφορους, that went before with torches, and throwing them down in the midst between the two armies, gave the sign.... Now, this business they might do safely and without any danger, ... for the torch-bearers were peculiarly protected by Mars, and accounted sacred.”[337]

The sense of national responsibility in war, and the reluctance of kings to involve themselves without the consent of their people would appear from Œschylos’ “Supplicants” (v. 393, 363).

I have referred (p. 326) to the Peruvian traditions of Manco Capac’s laws of war, and that “in every stage of the war the Peruvian was open to propositions for peace.”

From the Hindoo tradition, apparently, Manu’s code was conceived in an identical spirit. (Vide “Hist. of India,” “The Hindu and Mahometan Periods,” by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone; Murray, 1866, ch. ii. p. 26.) “The laws of war (Manu’s code) are honourable and humane. Poisoned arrows and mischievously barbed arrows and fire arrows are all prohibited.” [Dr Hooker, in his “Himalayan Journal,” mentions a similar tradition among the Limboos, I think, or Lepchas.[338]] “There are many situations in which it is by no means allowable to destroy the enemy. Among those who must always be spared are unarmed or wounded men, and those who have broken their weapons, and one who says, ‘I am thy captive.’ Other prohibitions are still more generous.... The settlement of a conquered country is conducted on equally liberal principles. Immediate security is to be assured to all by proclamation. The religion and laws of the country are to be maintained and respected.” And I have fancied (vide 395) that the recognition at least of such a tradition, if it be only the “homage which vice pays to virtue,” is to be read in the devices carried by the Babylonians.[339]

There was, moreover, a law at Athens which forbade them to declare war until after a deliberation of three days—“Bellum vero antequam decerneretur, triduo deliberare lex jubebat” (Apsines, Marcell. in Hermog. ap. J. Meursii Them. Att., l. i. c. xi.); and we have seen that the Senate at Rome postponed the declaration of war for thirty days. I cannot help thinking, though it is the merest surmise, that it is in the dim recollection of some such tradition that we must account for the meaningless and superstitious delays which we occasionally read of in the warfare of barbarous nations; e.g. Cæsar (De Bello Gallico, i. xl. c.) had drawn up his troops and offered the enemy battle, but Ariovistus thought proper to sound a retreat. “Cæsar inquiring of the prisoners why Ariovistus so obstinately refused an engagement, found that it was the custom among the Germans for the women to decide by lots and divination when it was proper to decide a battle; and that these had declared the army would not be victorious if they fought before the new moon.”[340] [There was also a law at Athens that it was not lawful to lead forth an army before the seventh day of the month. “Vetitum Athenis erat, exercitum educere ante diem septimum.”] J. Muersii, id.

I have discussed the ancient mode of declaration of war at some length as an instance of tradition. There are some, I am afraid, to whom the discussion will appear ineffably trifling; and I may even be misconstrued to say that everything would be set right in Europe, if only a herald were sent in proper form to declare war. There are men of a certain cast of mind to whom forms are repugnant; there are others to whom they are unintelligible. It has been observed, however, that the rejection of forms is one thing, the neglect of them another. The rejection of forms may be, on some principle, good, though misapplied, often does unconscious homage when it means to spurn, and may be compensated for in other ways. The neglect of them is simply evidence of laxity. Cromwell perfectly well knew the divinity which attached to forms when he said, “Take away that bauble;” and, on the other hand, no one better than he would have judged the state of an army (not his own) in which he was told that it was the custom of soldiers not to salute their officers. The declaration of war without any solemnity, still more the commencement of hostilities without any declaration at all,[341] seems to me closely analogous—as a sign of disorganisation—to the absence of any form of salute at a parade. I am far from contending that old forms, when they have become obsolete, can be resuscitated; but I do contend for the resuscitation of ancient maxims and ideas. In any age fully imbued with the responsibility of war, in which it was considered unseemly to declare it until after a three days’ deliberation in solemn conclave, and which even then protracted the declaration till the seventh or the thirtieth day, would it have been possible for two great nations to have gone to war because there had been “a breach of etiquette,” if indeed there was a breach of etiquette, “at a German watering-place?”[342] Allowing that this was merely the ostensible pretext, and that the real grounds remained behind—if these long deliberations had been necessarily interposed, would there not have been a thousand chances in favour of such a European intervention as saved the peace of Europe three years before in the affair of Luxembourg? Yet, so far as we know at present, the following is the history of the commencement of the most horrible, the most destructive, and the most barbarous war[343] of modern times.

“A private letter from Paris relates that the Duc de Grammont, who has taken to spend his evenings at the Jockey Club, was lately asked there, ‘How he came to blunder into such a fatal war?’[344] He replied, ‘I asked the Minister of War, Lebœuf, if he was ready, and he answered, “Ready! ay, and doubly ready;” otherwise,’ added the Duc, ‘I should have taken care not to have counselled a war which there were twenty modes of averting.’”—Times, Sept. 1, 1870.[345]

The extent of the disorganisation and the laxity into which we have fallen, appears perhaps as strikingly as in any anything else in the frequency of the complaints of the little regard paid to “parlémentaires” and officers bearing flags of truce. But what startles us more than all is the light manner in which this transgression of the law of nations is referred to even by the parties aggrieved.

I will here place two extracts which I have made in juxtaposition:—

Carver (“Travels in North America,” p. 358) says, that when a deputation sets out together for their enemy’s country with propositions of peace, “They bear before them the pipe of peace, which, I need not inform my readers, is of the same nature as a flag of truce among the Europeans, and is treated with the greatest respect and veneration even by the most barbarous nations. I never heard of an instance wherein the bearers of this sacred badge of friendship were ever treated disrespectfully, or its rights violated. The Indians believe that the Great Spirit never suffers an infraction of this kind to go unpunished.”

Count Chandordy, in his reply to Count Bismarck, dated Bordeaux, Jan. 25, 1871, says:—“Count Bismarck reproaches the French armies with having fired on parlémentaires.” An accusation of this nature had already been brought to the knowledge of the Paris Government, and we may quote the following words of M. Jules Favre in his circular of 12th January—“I have the satisfaction to acquaint your excellency that the Governor of Paris has hastened to order an inquiry into the facts alleged by Count Bismarck, and in announcing this to him he has brought much more numerous facts of the same nature to his own cognizance which are imputed to Prussian sentinels, but which he never would have allowed to interrupt ordinary relations.”

I do not know whether this contrast between barbarism, such as it existed in the last century, and modern civilisation, will astonish those partisans of success whom in truth nothing in all the multiform atrocities of this dreadful war seems to have astonished or shocked, so that it was at times almost ludicrous to hear these introuvables declare such things as the bombardment of hospitals and churches, as at Strasburg and Paris, quite right, which even the German commanders, when the matter was brought to their attention, admitted to be wrong.

This perhaps is the worst symptom of corruption we have yet seen, and yet there was a time, and that quite recent, when a different sentiment prevailed. I have just referred[346] to the declaration in the Treaty of Paris, which thought to inaugurate a new era by bringing all causes of conflict in Europe to a settlement of arbitration. But let no one be discouraged or cease to believe in the possibility of such a consummation because of the result. There never was a stronger instance of the intellect of the world vainly striving to create an international code and system for itself which was to be distinct from the law of nations; for at the same moment that the diplomatists who were collected in Paris set to work upon their tower, which was to erect itself above the waters of any future inundation, they one and all agreed to demolish, and as a first step to pull down, the cornerstone from the temple of the past. How this was brought about will best be told in an extract from the Count de Montalembert’s “Pie IX. et la France en 1849 et 1859,” p. 10:—

“Let us go back to the origin of the evil, ... it dates back more especially from the Congress of Paris in 1856, from that diplomatic reunion which, after having solemnly declared that none of the contracting powers had the right to interfere either collectively or individually in the relations of a sovereign with his subjects (Protocol of 18th March), after having proclaimed the principle of the absolute independence of the sovereigns, for the benefit of the Turkish Sultan against his Christian subjects, thought it within its competency, in its protocol of the 8th of April, and in the absence of any representative of the august accused, to proclaim that the situation of the Pontifical States was ‘abnormal’ and ‘irregular.’ This accusation developed and exaggerated at the Tribune, and elsewhere by Lord Palmerston and Count Cavour, was equally formulated under the Presidency and upon the initiative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, and it is consequently France which must bear the principal responsibility before the Church and Europe. We can recall the grief and surprise which this strange proceeding created in the Catholic world.”

Thus was the game set rolling; and the policy thus indicated was pursued with the eager and unrelenting pertinacity of some, and with the tacit approval of the rest of the co-signatories.

The war declared by France against Austria, which was the precipitating cause of the storm which broke upon the Papal States, can, it is true, only be regarded as evidence of the conspiracy—inasmuch as it was declared by one of the conspirators at the instigation of another, whose ultimate aim was the seizure of the States of the Church and of the other independent Italian sovereignties to the profit of Piedmont. So soon as the victory of the French arms was decided, the Emperor’s proclamation from Milan appeared, inciting the populations to insurrection. All then followed in sequence—the revolt of the Romagnas four days after the Milan manifesto, their annexation along with the other independent states of Central Italy by Piedmont, this annexation being effected with the connivance, if not the consent, of France, and for which payment was eventually made in the cession of Nice and Savoy (all this being in contravention of the treaties of Villafranca and Zurich). But what mattered the contravention of treaties in comparison with the scenes which followed? The programme of the congress, or, if that is denied, the programme of two (if not three, for it is difficult to acquit Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell of participation by consent) of the powers who had entered into the conspiracy against European order, and these, at that time, the powers in the highest state of military efficiency, was to be carried out per fas et nefas. Naples and the patrimony of St Peter had to be secured, and as they morally presented no vulnerable side, they were seized by the hand of the marauder in defiance of “all law, human and divine.”[347] Garibaldi’s descent on Sicily, effected under the cover of the English navy, was simply a brusque and flagrant act of piracy, for which no plea of justification has ever been set up. The usurpation of the Papal States, though not less ruthlessly accomplished in the end, was carried through with more regard to form in its preliminary stages; yet at the last the diplomatic mask was torn off, and the invasion was made without any pretext or justification known to the law of nations, and without even a declaration of war.

Here, again, the Imperial diplomacy and Italian intrigue went hand in hand. Lamoriciere, in reliance upon the honour of France, had made all his dispositions against Garibaldi, and had received a letter from the French ambassador as late as the 7th September (bearing the same date as the so-called ultimatum of Cavour, although the Piedmontese troops had crossed the frontier before it was delivered), which I shall here reproduce, seeing that it is not on record in the Annuaire des Deux Mondes (1860)—“I inform you by the Emperor’s orders that the Piedmontese will not enter the Roman States, and that 20,000 French are about to occupy the different places of those states. Make, then, all your dispositions against Garibaldi.—Le Duc de Grammont.”[348] (This letter was dated September 7, 1860, the battle of Castelgidardo was fought on the 18th September 1860.) It is needless to add that no reinforcements from France appeared, and that the assurance served no other purpose than to mislead, and to throw Lamoriciere off his guard. Indeed, in spite of various protestations and the subsequent withdrawal of the French ambassador from Turin, the Catholic world settled down into the belief, not only that the Emperor of the French had never had the intention of sending troops to the rescue, but that the whole scheme of the invasion had been deliberately devised at the ominous interview which took place on the 28th of August previous, between the Emperor, Farini, and General Cialdini. It was even said that the words used by the Emperor on the occasion transpired, “frappez fort et frappez vite,”—a terse and striking phrase, which will fitly perpetuate in the human memory the most flagrant violation of the law of nations which history affords.[349]

All this was done with the undisguised satisfaction of several veteran English statesmen, who were, moreover, directly or indirectly represented at the same congress which sought to bind the European powers to call in the arbitration of a friendly power, in case of disagreement, before making an appeal to arms.

Now there is no reason why this rule, good in itself, and congruous to the spirit and maxims of the law of nations, should not have been embodied as a fundamental article in the code; for the law of nations is not a dead-letter, but, like everything that is of tradition, easily lending itself to adaptation and development according to the changing circumstances of the world.

Can we be surprised that this principle, good and according to reason, but which nevertheless presupposes certain sentiments in the world in correspondence with it, should in the actual circumstances have been barren of results? Is it wonderful that it should have miscarried in the hands of men who were parties to the invasion, without even the form of a declaration of war, of the State predestined by divine Providence to be the cornerstone of Christendom? Would it have been befitting that this beneficent arrangement should have been destined to be the work of men who, either by participation or as accessories after the fact, had set their hands to a deed which shocked every principle of morality, and made the very notion of public law in Europe ridiculous?

The early commencements of this policy cannot be studied at a more appropriate moment than now, when we are witnessing its denouement.

What has been the result to France of its Italian policy? To Austria? To England? To Europe?

Has any power prospered that had a hand in setting the ball rolling, or, for that matter, any power that had the responsibility of staying the parricidal hand, and held back? If Austria, the first victim, had firmly and strenuously resisted the early instigations of evil, would she ever, according to human calculations, have had to fight at Magenta and Solferino? and, in another way, was there not something dramatic in the sudden reverse and displacement of Count Buol, who had been the Austrian representative at the Congress, immediately after he had hurled the fatal ultimatum? The retort will be triumphant. Did not France, the great culprit of all, who both cast its own responsibility to the winds and sowed the hurricane, conquer at Solferino? Truly she did; but respice finem, or rather, we may say, we have lived to see the end. Did not Solferino, after some ten years of delusive prosperity, lead up to Sedan? Of England I do not wish to say more than that since that date she has unaccountably fallen in the esteem of men; has, in her turn, met with injustice, and no longer maintains the same relative position which she held during the fifty years preceding the Congress.

Everything, in fine, since that date, seems to have gone in favour of that European power which remained in the background, and which, if it did no good act at the Congress, at least had the worldly wisdom to fold its arms and refrain from sacrilege. Yes, Prussia has had her victory; but by all accounts there never was a victory which has made a nation so sad and mournful, and which was greeted with fewer manifestations of joy. It was peace rather than victory which was welcomed home. Here, too, we seem to see the subtle and nicely-measured retaliation. Again, was there no significance in the unlooked-for disasters at Forbach and Woerth, occurring coincidently with the final abandonment of Rome by France?

These are things which strike the eye, but which are difficult of demonstration, and it would appear a hopeless errand to convince a generation which has witnessed the burning of Paris, if not without emotion, at any rate without serious reflection, and, in spite of manifest prediction, has refused to see in it “the finger of retribution and the hand of God.”

And yet belief in this retribution of heaven is at the foundation of the law of nations. Previously to the astounding experiences of the recent war, during those years so fruitful “in pledges and perjuries,” it was a common phrase, and most frequently used with reference to France, that war was no longer an affair of divine Providence, but that Providence was always on the side of the big battalions.

With one word as to the significance of this phrase, which is tantamount to a negation of the law of nations, I shall conclude.

It may certainly happen, that in a contest one party may be consciously hypocrite, whilst the other is conscious of its rectitude; but presumedly, and until the contrary is manifested, both parties must be supposed to believe themselves in the right, and to run the tilt like knights in the mediæval tournament. Nevertheless, as Dr Johnson said, there are arguments for a “plenum” and for a “vacuum,” but one conclusion only can be true; and in some way in every conflict, which is true and which is just is known only to the inscrutable judgment of the Most High. We do not know all the secrets of courts, neither could we exactly determine the point if we had before us all the deliberations of councils, it is sufficient for us to know that victory is not always on the side of the big battalions, as witness, inter alia, Marathon, Morgarten, Bannockburn, Lepanto, Mentana. Will any Englishman maintain the proposition that victory is always on the side of the big battalions? Then, beginning with Cressy and Poictiers, and following Marlborough through the fields of Blenheim, Ramilies, and Malplaquet, and the Duke of Wellington through the Peninsular War, we must renounce that which gives “the éclat to all our victories.” Doubtless, then, the quality of troops will in some instances weigh far more than numbers. You allow it? We now introduce an element of great uncertainty, and about which there will always be much dispute, and moreover it will always be a matter concerning which religion and morality will have much to say. It is no longer an affair of big battalions, it is no longer reduced to a matter of calculation, on which side the victory is to be. Let me further remark, that whilst there is one set of writers who will be ready to say that Providence is on the side of the big battalions, there is another set of writers, and these the men who are more conversant with the details, who will with great acuteness undertake to prove to you that it is so much an affair of Providence that in each case the victory was scarcely a victory, and only such because some casualty on the other side intervened to convert what would otherwise have been a victory into a defeat. It is unfortunately true that this latter class of historians and strategists do not, as a rule, trace in the turn of events the retribution of Providence. Still, the presumption will always be that victory favours the righteous cause, although it may be only pro hac vice, and ultimate success may not crown the career of the victorious nation, because its virtues may not have merited more than a signal and single success;—or it may even be that its merits may be of a kind such as to gain it a reward which transcends the rewards of earthly victory; or, again, the career of victory must be explained and measured by the depths of the final catastrophe and discomfiture.

In any case, it is a great thing for a nation to have won a victory in a rightful cause. The reward of virtue remains and gladdens the heart in the day of disaster and distress. Whatever may chance to us, there will always lie in store for us the consolation of reading the history of the battle of Waterloo; not, let us say, as the victory of one nation over another nation, but as the great and final triumph of a righteous over an unrighteous cause, gained by England. It is, thank God! impossible alike for the conqueror and the revolutionary multitude to destroy the Past.