tal, _as_
more fundamental.' Adopting the opinion of the writers upon the laws of
Nations, you treat of _conquest_ as if _conquest_ could in itself,
nakedly and abstractedly considered, confer rights. If we once admit
this proposition, all morality is driven out of the world. We conquer
Italy--that is, we raise the British standard in Italy,--and, by the aid
of the inhabitants, we expel the French from the country, and have a
right to keep it for ourselves. This, if I am not mistaken, is not only
implied, but explicitly maintained in your book. Undoubtedly, if it be
clear that the possession of Italy is necessary for our security, we
have a right to keep possession of it, if we should ever be able to
master it by the sword. But not because we have gained it by conquest,
therefore may we keep it; no; the sword, as the sword, can give no
rights; but because a great and noble Nation, like ours, cannot prosper
or exist without such possession. If the fact _were_ so, we should then
have a right to keep possession of what by our valour we had
acquired--not otherwise. If these things were matter of mere
speculation, they would not be worth talking about; but they are not so.
The spirit of conquest, and the ambition of the sword, never can confer
true glory and happiness upon a nation that has attained power
sufficient to protect itself. Your favourites, the Romans, though no
doubt having the fear of the Carthaginians before their eyes, yet were
impelled to carry their arms out of Italy by ambition far more than by a
rational apprehension of the danger of their condition. And how did they
enter upon their career? By an act of atrocious injustice. You are too
well read in history for me to remind you what that act was. The same
disregard of morality followed too closely their steps everywhere. Their
ruling passion, and sole steady guide, was the glory of the Roman name,
and the wish to spread the Roman power. No wonder, then, if their armies
and military leaders, as soon as they had destroyed all foreign enemies
from whom anything was to be dreaded, turned their swords upon each
other. The ferocious cruelties of Sylla and Marius, of Catiline, and of
Antony and Octavius, and the despotism of the empire, were the necessary
consequences of a long course of action pursued upon such blind and
selfish principles. Therefore, admiring as I do your scheme of martial
policy, and agreeing with you that a British military power may, and
that