APHORISMS ON THE WAR.*

II.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER :

IN the war of the American Revolution, we were defeated at Bunker Hill, at Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown, Camden, Guilford, and various other places. Yet our brave fathers fought manfully for seven years, and in the end conquered a glorious peace.

In the war of the Revolution, we had generals of various abilities and fortunes, mostly without education or experience, among whom no one was defeated so many times as General Washington. Yet our brave fathers persevered manfully until they conquered a glorious peace.

In the present century, all the great nations of Europe France, England, Prussia, and Russiahave encountered many defeats more extensive, disastrous, and humiliating than any which we have suffered. Yet these nations are now the most powerful and prosperous in Europe. The last of

* From the Boston Daily Advertiser, May 18, 1862.

them is at present, like ourselves, engaged in the struggle of emancipation, a labor which the others have fortunately brought to a termination years ago.

In the common acceptation of the terms, an army is said to conquer which retains possession of the field of battle, while the party which leaves it is said to be defeated. Yet it often happens that the results in slaughter and starvation preponderate greatly against the victors. The battles of Bunker Hill, Eylau, and Borodino left the victorious party worse than it found them. A dozen victories. like that of Chancellorsville would destroy the rebel army and the rebel cause.

The capital of a nation consists of its men and its property. In an active war, if every battle were a drawn battle or a barren victory, the weaker party and not the stronger would perish from inanition.

At the beginning of the present war, there were about thirteen slave States, properly so called. Of these we now hold four, if not five, through conquest or loyal adhesion. We also hold a large number of their most important cities and seaports, including Baltimore, Norfolk, and New Orleans. Considering the magnitude of the war, this is pretty good success for two years. Another two years of proportionate success will annihilate the rebellion.

It is probably necessary that the war should continue two years longer, to cause the world to supply itself with cotton from other sources, and to open the eyes of the South to the insignificance and ruin brought on by their suicidal labors.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN NAPOLEON THE FIRST, AND JEREMIAH, A LATE CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES.*

NAPOLEON. Well, citizen Jeremiah, glad to see you established at the Court of Rhadamanthus. What news do you bring from the outer crust?

JEREMIAH. Dismal enough, please your majesty; all going to destruction,- Union split, rebels not beaten nor like to be, business quashed, manufactures and commerce annihilated, crops short, stocks down, amusements done for ever, and people groaning and starving from one end of the continent to the other. I had just made up my mind to emigrate to France or Kamschatka, when I found myself suddenly drafted and marched into Pluto's army.

N. Why, man, I thought you called your country the model of creation, overflowing with men and money, food and raiment, and nothing to do but squat where you please, and enjoy yourselves as long as you please!

J. So it was, till the outbreak of this accursed

* From the Boston Daily Advertiser, Aug. 11, 1862.

rebellion; but now a quarter of the people have gone off, and are going to cut the throats of the other three-quarters.

N. It did not use to be so in my time. I generally thought that such questions were settled in favor of the most men, the most guns, and the most money. If it were not that my jailor Pluto is more inexorable even than Sir Hudson Lowe, I should like to contract to put your "gigantic rebellion," in one year, into a quart measure.

J. Alas, sir! haven't they got a million of men in arms, and four million of niggers to keep them supplied with food, fodder, and clothing, all without expense, and all of them inhabiting the most delightful and salubrious country in the world?

N. And haven't you three or four millions of men to their one, and fifty ships to their one, and five hundred gold eagles to their one? Why, man! you must fight till you have killed off a million on each side, and then you will have two millions left, and they will have nothing. Or, what is equivalent, you must let them see that you mean to do it, and have set about it.

J. Ah, sir! think of the tremendous bloodshed and slaughter of going to war in that style.

N. Tut, man! I left twelve thousand of my brave fellows on the field at Austerlitz, and fourteen thousand at Jena, and thirty thousand at Eylau. A most humane policy it was, too, on my part; for,