NOTES, &C.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS OF THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIAN MODE OF WARFARE, AND ITS ADOPTION BY THE WHITE PEOPLE. . . .

This is a subject which presents human nature in its most revolting features, as subject to a vindicative spirit of revenge, and a thirst of human blood, leading to an indiscriminate slaughter of all ranks, ages and sexes, by the weapons of war, or by torture.

The history of man is, for the most part, one continued detail of bloodshed, battles and devastations. War has been, from the earliest periods of history, the almost constant employment of individuals, clans, tribes and nations. Fame, one of the most potent objects of human ambition, has at all times been the delusive, but costly reward of military achievement. The triumph of conquest, the epithet of greatness, the throne and the sceptre, have uniformly been purchased by the conflict of battle and garments rolled in blood.

If the modern European laws of warfare {typo corrected} have softened in some degree the horrid features of national conflicts, by respecting the rights of private property, and extending humanity to the sick, wounded and prisoners; we ought to reflect that this amelioration ameliorqtion: something that causes an improvement; abstracted from amelioration. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amelioration (accessed: September 09, 2008) is the effect of civilization only. The natural state of war knows no such mixture of mercy with cruelty. In his primitive state, man knows no object in his wars, but that of the extermination of his enemies, either by death or captivity.

The wars of the Jews were exterminatory in their object. The destruction of a whole nation was often the result of a single campaign. Even the beasts themselves were sometimes included in the general massacre.