Samuel Johnson

“ But it is evident, that of contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and moderation to the proud.
Let us not think our laurels blasted by condescending to inquire, whether we might not possibly grow rather less than greater by attacking Spain. Whether we should have to contend with Spain alone, whatever has been promised by our patriots, may very reasonably be doubted. A war declared for the empty sound of an ancient title to a Magellanick rock, would raise the indignation of the earth against us. ”

“ Through the whole argument of the faction runs the general errour, that our settlement on Falkland's island was not only lawful, but unquestionable; that our right was not only certain, but acknowledged; and that the equity of our conduct was such, that the Spaniards could not blame or obstruct it, without combating their own conviction, and opposing the general opinion of mankind.
If once it be discovered that, in the opinion of the Spaniards, our settlement was usurped, our claim arbitrary, and our conduct insolent, all that has happened will appear to follow by a natural concatenation. ”

“ The French, we are told, are otherwise employed: the contests between the king of France, and his own subjects, are sufficient to withhold him from supporting Spain. But who does not know that a foreign war has often put a stop to civil discords? It withdraws the attention of the publick from domestick grievances, and affords opportunities of dismissing the turbulent and restless to distant employments. The Spaniards have always an argument of irresistible persuasions: if France will not support them against England, they will strengthen England against France. ”

“ Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as obstructors of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats, because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those, who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example. ”

“ Let us abstract from his wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall leave him nothing; the cause that defend, scorns the help of falsehood; but if we leave him only his merit, what shall be his praise?
It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London, and the boors of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They admire him, for virtues like their own, for contempt of order, and violence of outrage ”

“ While he walks, like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much mischief with little strength. Novelty captivates the superficial and thoughtless; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. He that contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that vilifies established authority will always find abettors.
Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him, as a monster makes a show. ”

“ The Spaniards found us resolute, and complied, after a short struggle.
The real crime of the ministry is, that they have found the means of avoiding their own ruin; but the charge against them is multifarious and confused, as will happen, when malice and discontent are ashamed of their complaint. The past and the future are complicated in the censure. We have heard a tumultuous clamour about honour and rights, injuries and insults, the British flag and the Favourite's rudder, Buccarelli's conduct and Grimaldi's declarations, the Manilla ransome, delays and reparation. ”

“ When they found that all were happy, in spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue; they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and confidence without credit. ”

“ It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. ”

“ Spain is not easily vulnerable; her kingdom, by the loss or cession of many fragments of dominion, is become solid and compact. The Spaniards have, indeed, no fleet able to oppose us, but they will not endeavour actual opposition: they will shut themselves up in their own territories, and let us exhaust our seamen in a hopeless siege: they will give commissions to privateers of every nation, who will prey upon our merchants without possibility of reprisal. ”

“ To fancy that our government can be subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels. The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been nothing more than a political phtheriasis, a disease too loathsome for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger. ”

“ Narborough, about a century ago, was of opinion, that no such advantage could be obtained in voyages to the South sea, except by such an armament as, with a sailor's morality, might trade by force. It is well known, that the prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these countries, to the last degree, rigorous, and that no man, not authorized by the king of Spain, can trade there but by force or stealth. Whatever profit is obtained must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of fraud. ”

“ But, at the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations! ”

“ Anson and his companions would have shared the plunder or the ransome; and the Spaniards, finding their southern territories accessible, would, for the future, have guarded them better.
That such a settlement may be of use in war, no man, that considers its situation, will deny. But war is not the whole business of life; it happens but seldom, and every man, either good or wise, wishes that its frequency were still less. That conduct which betrays designs of future hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate malignity ”

“ These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest. ”

“ This, however, is one of those modes of corruption with which mankind ought always to struggle, and which they may, in time, hope to overcome. There is reason to expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality will, at last, be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what they would not suffer.
But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! ”

“ It is considered as an injury to the publick, by those sanguinary statesmen, that though the fleet has been refitted and manned, yet no hostilities have followed; and they, who sat wishing for misery and slaughter, are disappointed of their pleasure. But as peace is the end of war, it is the end, likewise, of preparations for war; and he may be justly hunted down, as the enemy of mankind, that can choose to snatch, by violence and bloodshed, what gentler means can equally obtain. ”

“ When the possession is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure, because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his title?
If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a sovereign through his whole dominions ”

“ Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected; and that renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness, is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was ennobled by the passage of Cæsar, and the time is now come, when Falkland's islands demand their historian. ”

“ But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary and fallacious; that Buccarelli's armament had all the appearance of regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his master.
That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied, affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court. Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere, must always be trusted with power to defend them. ”

“ The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures, waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of Spain ”

“ If the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another. ”

“ The honour of the publick is, indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as ourselves.
When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt, they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be done on either side. ”

“ Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a savage proves nothing but his hunger. ”

“ Every man saw, and every honest man saw with detestation, that they who desired to force their sovereign into war, endeavoured, at the same time, to disable him from action.
The vigour and spirit of the ministry easily broke through all the machinations of these pigmy rebels, and our armament was quickly such as was likely to make our negotiations effectual. ”

“ Not many years have passed, since the cruelties of war were filling the world with terrour and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or strength exhausted, and, to the harassed nations peace was restored with its pleasures and its benefits. ”

“ In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws. The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always that there is strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each other ”

“ They are defended, not by walls mounted with cannons, which by cannons may be battered, but by the storms of the deep, and the vapours of the land, by the flames of calenture and blasts of pestilence. ”

“ Some, indeed, must perish in the most successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death."
The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy ”