ready enfeebled by famine, it was necessary to make forced marches in order to fly from it, and reach the enemy. At night when they halted, the soldiers thronged into the houses, where, worn out with fatigue and want, they threw themselves on the first dirty straw they met with"-a luxury which gold could not buy on their retreat.-Hore many soldiers perished with hunger and fatigue: and from being unable to escape from the houses and villages, to which their comrades had set fire.

These were but the beginning of sorrows. As the victorious army advanced, its distresses increased. "It only subsisted by its exertions; and from day to day it had not provisions for four and twenty hours.” *** "The army had advanced but a hundred leagues from the Wiemen and already it was completely altered. The officers who travelled post, from the interior of France, to join it, arrived dismayed. They could not conceive how it happened, that a victorious army without fighting should leave behind it more wrecks than a defeated one."

"From these sufferings, physical and mor

al: from these privations, from these continual bivouacs, as dangerous near the pole as under the equator, and from the infection of the air, by putrefied carcases of men and horses, that strewed the roads, sprang two dreadful epidemics-the dysentery and the typhus fever. *** Out of 22,000 Bavarians, who had crossed the Oder, 11,000 only, reached the Duna, and yet they had never been in action. This military march cost the French one fourth, and the allies one half of their armies."

"Every morning, the regiments started in order from their bivouacs; but scarcely had they proceeded a few steps before their widening ranks became lengthened out into small and broken files; the weakest, being unable to follow, dropped behind. These unfortunate wretches beheld their comrades and their eagles getting farther and farther from them: they still strove to overtake, but, at length, lost sight of them, and sunk disheartened. *** Great numbers perished."

"At Wilna, it was not possible to establish hospitals for more than 6000 sick; convents, churches, synagogues, and barns, ser

ved to receive this suffering multitude. In these dismal places, sometimes unhealthy, but still too few and too crowded, the sick were frequently without food, without beds, without covering, and, even without medicines.'

But I forbear: pages might be filled with the sufferings of the victorious grand army in its pursuit of the enemy, and some worse than the above; and yet these were hut roseleaves to what they suffered when they in turn had to fly, and all the horrors of a northern winter and continued defeat and flight were added to the usual horrors of war, pestilence and famine-then they felt the thorn. Nor are these miseries 'unusual accompaniments to "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war."-In the late atrocious invasion of the Burman empire, the British army lost half its number by sickness, and almost without a battle-so true is Dr. Johnson's remark, that, "War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword."

NO. 20.

OPINIONS OF THE LATE PRESIDENT JEFFERSON ON PEACE AND WAR.

It has been frequently observed, that the enrolment of Mr. Jefferson's name in the list of the members of the Massachusetts Peace Society, was without his consent. In order to correct this error, and to shew the opinions of this able statesman and philosopher, on this important subject, I send you the whole of Mr. Jefferson's letter to the Secretary of the above named society, dated NOV. 26, 1817.

SIR-You have not been mistaken, in supposing my views and feelings to be in favour of the abolition of war. Of my disposition to maintain peace, until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more perhaps than it has approved. I hope it is practicable by improving the minds and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair. Still, on the axiom that a less degree of evil is preferable to a greater, no means should be neglected, which

may add weight to the better scale. The enrolment you propose, of my name in the records of your society, cannot be unacceptable to me. It will be a true testimony of my principles and persuasion, that the state of peace is that, which most improves the manners and morals, the prosperity and happiness of mankind; and, although I dare not promise myself that it can be perpetually maintained, yet, if, by the inculcations of reason or religion, the perversities of our nature can be so far corrected, as sometimes to prevent the necessity, either supposed or real, of an appeal to the blinder scourges of war, murder, and devastation, the benevolent endeavours of the friends of peace will not be entirely without. remuneration.

I pray you to accept the assurance of my respect and consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.

It may be necessary to observe, that Mr. Jefferson was perfectly aware of the aim and objects of the Massachusetts Peace Society, having had its constitution and the several numbers of the Friend of Peace sent to him for his perusal. Had this society entertain