52 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



honour with the American. The odds of ten to 

 one are necessary to warrant an attack on a person 

 who is armed and prepared to resist ; and even 

 then each is afraid of being the first to advance.* 

 The great object of the most renowned warrior 

 is by every art of cunning and deceit, by every 

 mode of stratagem and surprise that his invention 

 can suggest, to weaken and destroy the tribes of 

 his enemies with the least possible loss to his 

 own. To meet an enemy on equal terms is re- 

 garded as extreme folly. To fall in battle, instead 

 of being reckoned an honourable death,f is a mis- 

 fortune, which subjects the memory of a warrior 

 to the imputation of rashness and imprudence. 

 But to lie in wait day after day, till he can rush 

 upon his prey when most secure, and least able 

 to resist him ; to steal in the dead of night upon 

 his enemies, set fire to their huts, and massacre 

 the inhabitants, as they fly naked and defenceless 

 from the flames,^ are deeds of glory, which will 

 be of deathless memory in the breasts of his grate- 

 ful countrymen. 



This mode of warfare is evidently produced by 

 a consciousness of the difficulties attending the 

 rearing of new citizens under the hardships and 

 dangers of savage life. And these powerful causes 

 of destruction may in some instances be so great 

 as to keep down the population even considerably 

 below the means of subsistence ; but the fear that 



* Lettres Edif. torn. vi. p. 3G0. 



■{■ Charlevoix, No. Fr. torn. iii. p. 376. 



J Robertson, b. iv. p. 155. Lettres Edif. torn. vi. p. 182, 3G0. 



