Plunderers of
the earth these, who in their universal devastations finding countries to
fail them, investigate and rob even the sea. If the enemy be wealthy, he
inflames their avarice; if poor, their ambition. They are general
spoilers, such as neither the eastern world nor the western can satiate.
They only of all men thirst after acquisitions both poor and rich, with
equal avidity and passion. To spoil, to butcher, and to commit every kind
of violence, they style by a lying name, _Government_; and when they have
spread a general desolation, they call it _Peace_. [Footnote: "Ubi
solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."]
"Dearest to every man are his children and kindred, by the contrivance and
designation of nature. These are snatched from us for recruits, and doomed
to bondage in other parts of the earth. Our wives and sisters, however
they escape rapes and violence as from open enemies, are debauched under
the appearance and privilege of friendship and hospitality. Our fortunes
and possessions they exhaust for tribute, our grain for their provisions.
Even our bodies and limbs are extenuated and wasted, while we are doomed
to the drudgery of making cuts through woods, and drains in bogs, under
continual blows and outrages.
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