454 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



every part of the world were required to join in 

 the folly and madness of their sovereigns ; and 

 to plunge themselves into all the calamities and 

 miseries of their bloody contests. In both these 

 causes there were perpetual sources of war in 

 the colonies ; and there was no rational ground 

 to expect that they could be avoided, while the 

 colonies were extending their settlements into 

 the Indian country ; or while they remained 

 connected with the Europeaa sovereigns or 

 powers. 



Among the dangerous consequences of these 

 Wars, the moral effect was greatly unfavor- 

 able, and corrupting to the human mind : They 

 operated with a certain and constant tendency 

 to destroy the moral virtues of humanity, can- 

 dor, and benevolence ; and to produce the spir- 

 it of bigotry, intolerance, revenge and mutual 

 hatred. It was not possible for the men that 

 were constantly endeavouring to injure and de- 

 stroy, to love and do good to one another ; in- 

 stead of this, they were constantly learning to 

 hate and to abhor each other. The spirit of in- 

 tolerance and bigotry seems to be unavoidably 

 connected with ignorance, and to be incurable 

 by any thing but science and philosophy. Thi* 

 raving, fiery spirit of the partisans, derived new 

 force and inflammation from the perpetual wars 

 in which the colonies were engaged. The peo- 

 ple in the French colonies were trained up to 

 believe that they belonged to a monarch and 

 to a church, which were absolutely infallible ; 

 the different sects and parties in the Englisii 

 colonies did as firmly believe, that they them- 

 selves were never in the wrong. To Carry 



