544 MILITARY PROJECTILES. 



life, and to arm passion and revenge, the usual animat- 

 ing spirit of war, with their deadliest power. We have 

 not entered upon this subject for the purpose of awaken- 

 ing a military spirit or cherishing a love of war, but 

 simply to give that degree of information which every 

 general reader should possess, in order that he may un- 

 derstand the allusions with which all history is full. 



It is sad to reflect how universally the history of na- 

 tions is a history of war. Almost every page is a de- 

 scription of internal commotions or foreign struggles, in 

 which we are continually presented with the dreadful 

 spectacle of thousands meeting in the field, to mangle 

 and to kill each other, by every means which ingenuity 

 can invent, and expense obtain, and numbers almost 

 countless, apply. From long habit we can read of these 

 things with little emotion, but how few of the readers 

 of this tract, could actually see the bursting shell do its 

 work upon a crowd of his fellow-men, or behold a 

 single individual shot down before his door, by a mus- 

 ket ball, without horror. But what is one shell, or 

 the shriek of one single victim of a musket ball, com- 

 pared with the scenes to which every reader of history 

 must be familiarized. It is better, however, if we are 

 to look at these dreadful exhibitions of human guilt at 

 all, that we should look at them understandjngly ; we 

 can then better estimate their true character, and 

 more correctly judge of their nature and effects. 



