rious, and, from the Circumstances, it must have been this at the leaft; the Vanquished must have had a much heavier Lofs, as the greatest Slaughter is always in the Flight, and great Carnage did in those Times and Countries ever attend the first Rage of Conqueft. It will, therefore, be very reafonable to allow on their account as much as, added to the Loffes of the Conqueror, may amount to a Million of Deaths, and then we fhall fee this Conqueror, the oldeft we have on the Records of Hiftory (though, as we have obferved before, the Chronology of these remote Times is extremely uncertain) opening the Scene by a Destruction of at leaft one Million of his Species, unprovoked but by his Ambition, without any Motives but Pride, Cruelty and Madness, and without any Benefit to himfelf (for Justin exprefsly tells us, he did not maintain his Conquefts) but folely to make fo many People, in fo diftant Countries, feel experimentally, how fevere a Scourge Providence intends for the human Race, when he gives one Man the Power over many, and arms his naturally impotent and feeble Rage, with the Hands of Millions, who know no common Principle of Action, but a blind Obedience to the Paffions of their Ruler.

The next Perfonage, who figures in the Tragedies of this ancient Theatre, is Semiramis: For we have no particulars of Ninus, but that he made immense and rapid Conquests, which doubtless were not compaffed without the ufual Carnage. We fee an Army of above three Millions employed by this martial

Queen

Queen in a War against the Indians. We fee the Indians arming a yet greater; and we behold a War continued with much Fury, and in various Succefs. This ends with the Retreat of the Queen, with scarce a third of the Troops employed in the Expedition; an Expedition, which at this rate must have coft two Millions of Souls on her part; and it is not unreasonable to judge that the Country which was the Seat of War must have been an equal Sufferer. But I am content to detract from this, and to fuppofe that the Indians loft only half fo much, and then the Account ftands thus: In this War alone (for Semiramis had other Wars) in this fingle Reign, and in this one Spot of the Globe, did three Millions of Souls expire, with all the horrid and shocking Circumstances which attend all Wars, and in a Quarrel, in which none of the Sufferers could have the least rational Concern.

The Babylonian, Affyrian, Median, and Perfian Monarchies must have poured out Seas of Blood in their Formation, and in their Deftruction. The Armies and Fleets of Xerxes, their Numbers, the glorious Stand made against them, and the unfortunate Event of all his mighty Preparations, are known to every Body. In this Expedition, draining half Asia of its Inhabitants, he led an Army of about two Millions to be flaughtered, and wafted, by a thousand fatal Accidents, in the fame Place where his Predeceffors had before, by a fimilar Madness, confumed the Flower of fo many Kingdoms, and wafted

C 3

wafted the Force of fo extenfive an Empire. It is a cheap Calculation to say, that the Perfian Empire, in its Wars against the Greeks and Scythians, threw away at least four Millions of its Subjects, to fay nothing of its other Wars, and the Loffes fuftained in them. These were their Loffes abroad; but the War was brought home to them, firft by Agefilaus, and afterwards by Alexander. I have not, in this Retreat, the Books neceffary to make very exact Calculations; nor is it necessary to give more than Hints to one of your Lordship's Erudition. You will recollect his uninterrupted Series of Succefs. You will run over his Battles. You will call to mind the Carnage which was made. You will give a Glance of the Whole, and you will agree with me; that to form this Hero no less than twelve hundred thoufand Lives must have been facrificed; but no fooner had he fallen himself a Sacrifice to his Vices, than a thousand Breaches were made for Ruin to enter, and give the last hand to this Scene of Misery and Destruction. His Kingdom was rent and divided; weich ferved to employ the more diftinct Parts to tear each other to Pieces, and bury the whole in Blood and Slaughter, The Kings of Syria and of Egypt, the Kings of Pergamus and Macedon, without Intermiffion, worried each other for above two hundred Years; until at last a strong Power, arifing in the Weft, rushed in upon them and filenced their Tumults, by involving all the contending Parties in the fame Deftruction. It is little to fay, that the Contentions between the Succeffors of Alexander

depopulated

depopulated that Part of the World of at least two Millions.

The Struggle between the Macedonians and Greeks, and before that, the Disputes of the Greek Commonwealths among themselves, for an unprofitable Superiority, form one of the bloodiest Scenes in Hiftory. One is aftonished how fuch a small Spot could furnish -Men fufficient to facrifife to the pitiful Ambition of poffeffing five or fix thousand more Acres, or two or three more Villages: Yet to fee the Acrimony and Bitterness with which this was difputed between the Athenians and Lacedemonians; what Armies cut off; what Fleets funk, and burnt; what a Number of Cities facked, and their Inhabitants flaughtered and captivated; one would be induced to believe the Decifion of the Fate of Mankind, at leaft, depended upon it! But thefe Difputes ended, as all fuch ever have done, and ever will do, in a real Weakness of all Parties; a momentary Shadow, and Dream of Power in fome one; and the Subjection of all to the Yoke of a Stranger, who knows how to profit of their Divifions. This at least was the Cafe of the Greeks; and fure, from the earliest Accounts of them, to their Abforption in the Roman Empire, we cannot judge that their inteftine Divifions and their foreign Wars confumed lefs than three Millions of their Inhabitants.

What an Aceldama, what a Field of Blood, Sicily has been in antient Times, whilft the Mode of its Government was controverted between the republi

can and tyrannical Parties, and the Poffeffion ftruggled for by the Natives, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, your Lordship will eafily recollect. You will remember the total Deftruction of fuch Bodies as an Army of 300,000 Men. You will find every Page of its Hiftory dyed in Blood, and blotted and confounded by Tumults, Rebellions, Maffacres, Affaffinations, Profcriptions, and a Series of Horror beyond the Hiftories perhaps of any other Nation in the World; though the Hiftories of all Nations are made up of fimilar Matter. I once more excufe myself in point of Exactnefs for want of Books. But I fhall eftimate the Slaughters in this Ifland but at two Millions; which your Lordfhip will find much short of Reality.

Let us pafs by the Wars, and the Confequences of them, which wasted Gracia-Magna, before the Roman Power prevailed in that Part of Italy. They are perhaps exaggerated; therefore I fhall only rate them at one Million. Let us haften to open that great Scene which establishes the Roman Empire, and forms the grand Catastrophe of the antient Drama. This Empire, whilft in its Infancy, began by an Effufion of human Blood scarcely credible. The neighbouring little States teemed for new Destruction: The Sabines, the Samnites, the Æqui, the Volfci, the Hetrurians, were broken by a Series of Slaughters which had no Interruption, for fome Hundreds of Years; Slaughters which upon all fides confumed more than two Millions of the wretched People. The Gauls, rufhing into Italy about this Time, added the total Deftruction of their own Armies to thofe of the an

tient