173. remarks on the political progrefs. Ap'il ^. 



Remarks en the above. 



The Editor has admitted the spirited lucubrations 

 of this correspondent with pleasure, because they 

 tend to point out, in strong colours, the mischievous 

 tendency of those warlike operations in which Great 

 Britain, since ever it was a nation, has been eager 

 to engage. But Britain is, in this respect, like all other 

 nations. France, Spain, Portugal, Prufsia, Denmark, 

 Sweden, Rufsia, and all other kingdoms, when they 

 have had the power, have invariably pursued the same 

 plaa ; and the world, in consequence of this savage 

 propensity to war, has exhibited such a scene of ra- 

 pine and devastation, that a superior being, who was 

 a spectator of it, without being actuated by human 

 prejudices, would be at a lofs to say, whether man 

 ihould be most abominated for the atrocity of his 

 actions, or contemned for the folly of his enterprises. 

 Nations for the most part go to war for that, which, 

 if obtained, would prove very prejudicial to them ; 

 and, after expending as much money on each side, as 

 would have purchased the fee simple of the whole 

 object in question, a hundred times over, they are 

 both at last glad to lav hold of any trifling pretext to 

 close the fruitk-fs dispute. The war between Rufsia 

 and the Porte, just now concluded, is a striking in- 

 stance of this ; and, by a careful analysis, it would be 

 found that every other war in modern times had been 

 nearly the same. ■*- 



Kad my ingenious carrespondent thought proper 

 to explain his general position, by illustrations taken 

 from the history of all nations, it would have lefs 



