Kentucky Gazette

VOLUNTEERS—AND MILITIA.

Ever since the Cossack devastation at Washington, but more especially since the monstrously humiliating surrender of Alexandria, the eyes of our fellow-citizens seems to be opened; there is but one sentiment in society at large, and that is to resist to the last gasp the plunderers of our cottages and the despoilers of our edifices. When the gallant and ever-to-be-lamented Pike took the capitol of Upper Canada, his soldiers found a scalp suspended with the mace near the speaker's chair in the house of assembly: that emblem of barbarity, that evidence of the savage murder of some fellow citizen, which was calculated to make our soldiers for a moment forget their duty; but no attempt was made to destroy the edifice, the officers had too much pride to be incendiaries, and the soldiers were too well acquainted with the character of their country to become ruffians. In Europe wars are not conducted even by the Cossacks of the Don in the barbarous way in which the present war is waged against us by the 'bulwark of our religion'—there, regular battle is given and received, a town is besieged and given up, not to plunder, but to protection; here, on the contrary, we are warred against as if we were ferocious cannibals! our wounded are massacred in cool blood! our officers asking quarter are denied it! and our towns when taken are burnt or sacked! Is there a man of any pride, of any honor, or of any feeling, that ought not to blot from memory all recollections that we sprung from such a nation? Is there a man that can hesitate to raise his arm in defence of his country, against such a merciless foe? Is there a man, that can now sit down coolly to decide who made war first, or why it was made? Is there a man that can withhold his aid, in person or in money, merely because the people thought proper, two years ago, to prefer A. to B.