Alexandria gazette, commercial and political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1812-1817, 1816-06-04
From the Connecticut Courant.
THE BRIEF REMARKER.
/" War is game which, were their sub
ject wise,
Kings should not playat''--

III
! ject wise,
Kings should not playat"--
CowrER.
| The Genius of war may fitly be termed
1.-The Moloch Of the world ; every genera
ltion, for more than five thousand years
|having offered up no inconsiderable par
LOT its children to that, bloody and &C
|cursed idol. Save The general dectruc
ton by the waters Of the food, not al
the walls Of Gods wrath, poured out il
plaques, earthquakes, fiery irruptions, ane
watery foundations, have destroyed near
lily SO many men as have been destroyes
10y men themselves. What nation, Hka
islnsle tribe Of our whole race, but has
6rst Or last, been engaged in the horrible
work OF butchering and Of being butcher
led with the sword ofwar.
Ange,s Of mercy! see world Of erea.
lures bot little lower than yourselves.
members all OF one fanily--apostate from
God, and thence alienated from one ans.
lther-- mortal by nature, and beginning
| to draw toward their end as soon as they
are born-individually weak, and greatly
needing each others aids to soothe the
sorrows and tighten the burdens of their
Ideeting lives :--see their instruments OF
carnage, their eneampments, their death
ibed;ng marches, and all the terrible forms
lot their warfare !; see them with the fury
of the fellest beasts ofthe forest, engage
lin the shock of battle, and, with shouts
|ana yells pour out one anothers blood,
and over spread the enbattled field with
quivering limbs and mangIed corses 1t
lis the regular trade of man it is his no.
mary and boasted profession {! Notwith-
standing that there is in mankind such a
natural horror OF the forms of bleodshed,
yet this species Of man killing has been
the most distinguished and applauded Of
human trade and professions in all ages
fof the world.
Not to attempt an enlarged detail of the
moral and physical evils of war, shall
|but mention In relation to it, two par
|iculars which have not been noticed so
generally and with such marked .atten-
! ton as they deserve the one is the aw
| tul suddenness Of the innumerab|e deaths
| it occasions and the other, the absence OF
lall decent sepulchral rites.
The first of these circumstances is
|strikingly pictured in the following lines
| of " atlaCe.
Those very men who warm in life,
Pant to gin the deadly strife
| Fond haste to-morrow's evening ray
Sail see their glory pass away"
Sudden death, that gives no time at all
| for reflection, nor for even the shortest
ejaculation to heaven, is eve accounted
peculiarly caIamitous. When single in
lli,idua in vigorous health, and especial
|ly one in the early DAYS of life, by a
thunder bolt, or by sca' fatal casualty,
lis made to drop dead il an instant, the
catastrophe is regarded with an unusual
degree of mourning, accompanied with
surprize and considerations. Not very
commonly, however, is life extinguished
thus suddenly, by the mere act OF God.
| it is the act Of man that has produced
three fourths perhaps of all the instanta-
aeous deaths which have ever happen'a iii
the world. Instantaneously are thou
sands in single day, and in some in-
stances tens and scores of thousands cut
|offby the hand OF man. and hurried from
the fury of battle to their dreadful au-
)dit.
Nor the exposed condition of the DO.
dies of the dead upon the field of battle,
a thing of too trivial Importance to be
seriously noticed as one of the horrible
attentions of war. As such, it has been
noticed in the sacred volume, in which!
the beasts OF prey are summoned to ga
Their themselves together to eat the flesh
of the slain. AS such, it has been no.
ticed also by cid Homer, ia the version OF
Pope, thus
sc No father shall his corpse COM
pose,
His dying eyes no tender mother close
But hungry birds shall tear those balls
away,
And lowering vultures scream around
their prey"
Whence, it is net unlikely, was sug-
gested to the living poet. southey, the
matter of the following lines descriptive
of an Asiatic field OF blood, In his poem
The Curse of Kehama.
!" The steam of slaughter from the placs
of blood
Spread Ger the tainted sky.