a "mode of life, profession, or employment," is praiseworthy, or "consistent with the practice of every duty we owe to our Maker, our Redeemer, our fellow men, and ourselves;" but I think that no unprejudiced mind can deny, that princes and pirates generally make war with the same spirit, and on the same principles-and that both classes are justly entitled to the same name, whether it should be ROBBERS OF CHRISTIANS. By order of the Chiefs of the Ocean Confederacy,

All Saints, July 8th. 1836.

SAMPSON FEARNOUGHT, Sec. of State.

N. B. To the Printers of newspapers in all nations: Gentlemen, as the object of the Memorial of our Chiefs, and also of my Reasonings, is truly humane, I am instructed to request, that you would give them an extensive circulation in your respective countries. S. FEARNOUGHT.

EXPENDITURES FOR WAR IN TIME OF PEACE.

"The way of transgressors is hard." In nothing is this proverb more clearly verified than in the train of evils which warring nations bring upon themselves in pursuit of the "phantom, military glory." The pecuniary expenses of war are not the greatest of its evils; but these, if duly considered, would be sufficient to deter a reflecting man from rashly proposing a national conflict. In the following statement of the annual expenditures of Great Britain reliance is placed on the sixty-ninth number of the Quarterly Review. In that number we are furnished with an account of the expenditures for 1825. As the national debt of Great Britain is properly a war debt, the annual interest of that may properly be placed at the head of the expenditures for war in that year.

"The annual interest and expenditure incident to the national

£39,801,031 or $176,893,4714.

4,672,690

4,255,490

2,702,122

1,193,604

Ordnance

Army half pay and pensions
Navy half pay and pensions

£12,823,906. or $56,995,137.

2,906,941

1,593,629

Miscellaneous and superannuation

pensions and allowances,

Ordnance half pay and pensions

373,483

£4,950,943. or $22,004,191.

Total war expenses of Great Britain for 1825, $255,892,800.

The salaries of civil officers in Britain are great compared with salaries in our country, yet the Quarterly Review states the expenditure of the civil list at £1,057,000. or $4.697,7773. The half pay, the pensions, and the superannuation allowances of the British warriors, who have retired from service, amount to between four and five times the sum of the whole civil list; and the whole expenditure for the civil list multiplied by 54 is not equal to the sum of the war tax for the same year, and that, too, a year of peace! If, for the last thousand years, the people of Britain had been Christians in deed, as well as in profession, how happy might have been their present condition! But for a great part of that period they have been engaged in sanguinary wars; and now, as a counterpoise to their military glory, they are annually oppressed with taxes and imposts to the enormous amount of two hundred and fifty-five millions of dollars! Of this mammoth sum, one hundred and seventy-six millions go to pay the mere interest of the national debt. What, then, must be the principal! and when or how can that people be delivered from the burden which war has brought on the nation! If there were neither crime nor misery in war, aside from its pecuniary burdens, the present condition of Britain might well be regarded as admonitory to the people of our country.

War Expenditures of the United States.

Prom the Documents of the War Department we obtain sever al items.

On the 4th of September, 1826, our revolutionary pensioners then supposed to be living were no less than

Invalid pensioners .

Half pay pensioners

Whole number reported as having died within a year

Whole number of pensioners September 4, 1825,

12,685

. 3,865

45

636

17,171

Seventeen thousand war pensioners is not a small number for a nation but fifty years of age; and should we advance in the same ratio for a thousand years, we may be the rival of Britain in more respects than one. Could our 3,865 mutilated invalids be exhibited in one company or regiment, what a picture of the horrors of war would be presented!

In the year ending Sept. 4, 1826, there had been advanced for the several classes of war pensioners,

Our national debt at the close of 1825 was
At the close of 1826 it is supposed to have been

reduced to about

$1,606,296 80,985,537

74,000,000

The war appropriations of Congress for 1827 are as follows:

For the support of the

Gradual increase of the navy
navy

Support of the army

For fortifications, barracks, stores, hospitals, &c.
For revolutionary and invalid pensioners

To the above items we may add the interest of the national debt for 1827, not exactly known, but supposed to be about

Probable expense of time and money for training, and musters, including officers, soldiers, and spectators, not less than

$3,185,748

500,000

2,971,361

550,352

1,573,240

$8,780,701

3,700,000

10,000,000

Total of war expenses, $22,480,701

For civil government and foreign intercourse, $1,718,987.

By comparing the foregoing items it will be seen that the amount to be paid to our revolutionary and invalid pensioners is estimated at but little less than the expense of supporting the federal government and its foreign intercourse.

It will also appear that the whole amount of our war expenditure for 1827, including the ten millions of dollars for trainings and musters, is less than the British expenditures in 1825, for half pay, pensions, and superannuation allowances to men who have retired from military and naval service.

Again it will appear that the annual interest of the British national debt is over a hundred millions of dollars greater than the principal of the debt of the United States.

Thus the war policy has brought on Great Britain a mass of oppression which must descend from one generation to another perhaps for thousands of years. It seems impossible that the load should ever be removed while the same policy is pursued. It is probable that the national debt must be abolished by some violent and tremendous revolution, or by an almost total change of policy, or that the accumulated and enormous "price of blood" must hang to the neck of that people for fifty successive generations. Let our countrymen be thankful that such is not our alarming condition; let us pity our British brethren-take warning by their example, and study the things which tend to peace. Military and naval fame, properly estimated, is of no more value than a "whistle," yet for this fascinating and pernicious bauble Great Britain has doomed herself to pay an annual tribute of nearly two hundred and fifty-six millions of dollars till she can learn that "wisdom is better than weapons of war." Vol. IV. No. 12.

48

PROGRESS OF DEBT BY WAR.

SINCE the preceding article was sent to the press, our newspapers have given the following account of the progress of the war debt in Great Britain from Bell's Weekly Messenger.

The British debt in 1689, was only

£1,854,925

21,515,742

At the peace of Amiens, 1802

Amount of the debt, 1813

Estimated amount January, 1827

Nine hundred millions of pounds are equal to $4,000,000,000

Annual interest of the debt at one per cent.

40,000,000 80,000,000

240,000,000

The interest of the British debt at two per cent. is greater than the principal of the debt of the United States. Such is the burden which war, ambition, and antichristian principles have brought on the country of our ancestors.

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

CHANGES OF OPINION ON THE MILITIA SYSTEM.

ABOUT thirty years ago, I heard a conversation on the militia trainings and musters, between a Minister of the Gospel and a Colonel of a regiment. Neither of them were thoroughly enlightened in regard to the principles of peace; yet they were both men of a pacific character. They agreed in the opinion, that preparations for war were necessary as a means of preserving peace. The Minister, however, gave the following as his opinions; that the militia trainings and musters are of no advantage, and worse than merely useless; that the more virtue and good morals abound in the land, the less likely we are to become engaged in war; that the trainings and musters tend to demoralize the people, and promote vice and dissipation; that there is no danger of invasion without as much as a month's notice; that in less than a month, under well-informed officers,

the soldiers will acquire more military knowledge and discipline than they now obtain by training four or five days annually from eighteen to forty-five years of age. He therefore proposed that arms should be provided in every town; that officers should be chosen, and meet for mutual instruction, and that all other trainings and musters should be abolished.

At that period, in the region where the conversation occurred, the officers were in the babit of distributing large quantities of rum to the soldiers. The soldiers, on their part, were in the habit of wasting much powder to honor the officers who treated them so liberally. The Colonel readily acceded to most of the opinions of the Minister, but said he did not see how such a reform could be effected. In speaking of treating the soldiers with ardent spirits, and honoring officers by the discharge of muskets near their heads or their feet, he said he had thought his life in about as much danger on a muster day, as it would be in a field of battle; especially so after the soldiers had become inflamed by rum.

In 1820 General Jones of North Carolina published a Resignation of his Commission as Major General, accompanied with judicious remarks on the inutility of militia trainings and musters, and their deleterious influence on society. As he had long been in office, his remarks doubtless led many of our countrymen to reflect on the subject

In 1826, the Secretary of War published a Circular Letter to obtain the opinions of distinguished men in all the states, relating to the militia system, with a view to aid a Board of Officers, who had been appointed to meet and give their advice on the subject. The 15th question in the Circular was stated in the following words:

"From your experience, are frequent musters advantageous to the great body of the militia?"

More than thirty individuals of the different states, high in rank as well as experience, wrote answers to the 15th question; and two thirds of the answers were in the negative. The Board of Officers, in their Report, say-"By far the greater number of letters submitted to the Board, represent the ordinary militia musters, &c. as useless, or worse than useless." The majority of the Board of Officers were unquestionably of the same opinion; and in this opinion the Secretary of War obviously concurs.

Admitting that these distinguished men may properly be regarded as representing the nation, it will follow that a considerable majority of our countrymen have become convinced, that the time and money which have been expended in trainings and musters, have been entirely wasted if not worse than merely thrown away. The aggregate amount of this loss or waste for forty years, if it should be accurately stated, would probably startle almost every man in the country.