It would appear, at a superficial view, that the adoption of cannon and gunpow der in war had rendered it more bloody and destructive than the method of fight ing and the arms formerly in use ; but the reverse of this will be found in reality to have taken place. The chief contest in modern warfare is for posts and stations, where artillery can have such command of the adjoining ground, as to give a ma terial superiority ; and as the chief com bat is carried on from a distance, on a re verse of fortune the defeated have more opportunities of safe retreat. Hence mere extermination of an enemy ceases to he the ultimate design of war : when a post is seized, those under its influence no longer think of contending ; the odds, against their success, are so excessive, that it ceases to be any disgrace to yield, and those become prisoners of war, who, in the ancient warfare, must have been devoted to massacre. In the history of remote periods, we often read of 200,000 or more men entering the field of battle, and not more than a dozen or two escap ing alive, and in a few instances not even so many. Such sanguinary terminations to engagements never now occur, and it often happens, that in a long campaign not more lives are lost than formerly have perished in a single battle.
The following observations of Dr. Smith on the subject shew still more the advan tage to mankind in general of the use of cannon, and other modern instruments of war.
" In modern war, the great expense of fire-arms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford that ex pense ; and consequently to an opulent and civilized over a poor and barbarous nation. In ancient times, the opulent and civilized found it difficult to defend them selves against the poor and barbarous na tions. In modern times, the poor and bar barous find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and civilized. The in vention of fire-arms, an invention which at first sight appears so be so pernicious, is certainly favourable both to the permanen cy and to the extension of civilization.
This circumstance alone reduces the Tartar hordes to comparative insignifi cance, who in ancient times were so formidable to the civilized world : who more than once have reduced it to pri mitive ignorance and barbarity, by the in discriminate destruction of men of science and artists ; and whose numbers, which have procured that part of the world they inhabit the name of the officina pentium, might be still an object of terror, but for the use of cannon.