rum and gin?" And at the rum and gin the
Mountain and the galleries laughed again.

If Barere had been able to effect his purpose, it is difficult to
estimate the extent of the calamity which he would have brought on the
human race. No government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justice
to its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none.
Retaliation would have been, not merely justifiable, but a sacred duty.
It would have been necessary for Howe and Nelson to make every French
sailor whom they took walk the plank. England has no peculiar reason to
dread the introduction of such a system. On the contrary, the operation
of Barere's new law of war would have been more unfavourable to his
countrymen than to ours; for we believe that, from the beginning to the
end of the war, there never was a time at which the number of French
prisoners in England was not greater than the number of English
prisoners in France; and so, we apprehend, it will be in all wars while
England retains her maritime superiority. Had the murderous decree of
the Convention been in force from 1794 to 1815, we are satisfied that,
for every Englishman slain by the French, at least three Frenchmen would
have been put to the sword by the English. It is, therefore, not as
Englishmen, but as members of the great society of mankind, that we
speak with indignation and horror of the change which Barere attempted
to introduce. The mere slaughter would have been the smallest part of
the evil. The butchering of a single unarmed man in cold blood, under an
act of the legislature, would have produced more evil than the carnage
of ten such fields as Albuera. Public law would have been subverted from
the foundations; national enmities would have been inflamed to a degree
of rage which happily it is not easy for us to conceive; cordial peace
would have been impossible. The moral character of the European nations
would have been rapidly and deeply corrupted; for in all countries those
men whose calling is to put their lives in jeopardy for the defence of
the public weal enjoy high consideration, and are considered as the best
arbitrators on points of honour and manly bearing. With the standard of
morality established in the military profession the general standard
of morality must to a great extent sink or rise. It is, therefore, a
fortunate circumstance that, during a long course of years, respect for
the weak and clemency towards the vanquished have be