he takes the most
efficient guarantees against needless wars.

Captain Jenkins's ears[26] might have been redeemed at a less price; but
still the war taught a lesson, which, if avoidable at that instant, was
certainly blamable; but it had its use in enforcing on other nations the
conviction that England washed out insult with retribution, and for
every drop of blood wantonly spilt demanded an ocean in return. Perhaps
you will say _this_ was no great improvement on the old. No; not in
_appearance_, it may be; but that was because war had to open a field
which mere diplomacy, unsupported by the sword, could not open, and
secured what we may well call a _moral_ result in the eye of the whole
world, which diplomacy could not secure in our guilty Europe. But was
that, you ask, a condition to be contemplated with complete
satisfaction? No; nor is it right that it should. But the dawn of a new
era is approaching, for which that may have done its installment of
preparation. Not that war will cease for many generations, but that it
will continually move more in greater subjection to national laws and
Christian opinion. Nevermore will it be excited by mere court intrigue,
or even by ministerial necessities. No more will a quarrel between two
ladies about a pair of gloves, or a fit of ill-temper in a prince toward
his minister, call forth the dread scourge by way of letting off
personal irritation or redressing the balance of parties.

_Funding_, therefore, was a great step in advance; and even already we
have only to look into the Exchequer in order to read the possibilities,
the ebbs and flows of war beforehand. This consideration of money, it is
true--even as the sinews of war--was not so great in ancient history.
And the reason is evident. Kings did not then go to war _by_ money, but
_for_ money. They did not look into the Exchequer for the means of a
campaign, but they looked into a campaign for the means of an Exchequer.
Yet even in these nations, more of their history, of their doings and
sufferings, lay in their economy than anywhere else. The great Oriental
phantoms, such as the Pharaohs and the Sargons, did, it is true, bring
nations to war without much more care for the commissariat department
than is given in the battles of the Kites and Daws. Yet even there the
political economy made itself felt, obscurely and indirectly it may be,
but really and effectively, acting by laws that varied their force
rather to the eye t