The New Hampshire Gazette

Extrait of a letter from a gentleman at Leipzig, to his Friend in Holland.

O my friend, how happy is your lot! Providence has placed you in a port where you may with ease and safety enjoy the sweets of your labour; here all is in confusion; no man can call what he has his own; Surrounded by numerous armies, exposed to the fury of a licentious soldiery; unable to assist our friends, and having every thing to dread from our enemies, our case is truly deplorable; taxed by friends and foes beyond our abilities; threatened with military execution for not doing impossible things; friends, relations, and countrymen, butchered daily before our eyes; no safety at home, and no security in flight if that were practicable. How long, Great GOD! wilt thou please to punish this infatuated country with the dreadful scourge of war? Fathers armed against their sons, sons against their fathers, and brothers against brothers; unanimous but in one thing, the destruction of their country. If the description is shocking to you, what must it be to me, who have the reality hourly before my eyes? What a dreadful tale must we tell children yet unborn, how paint the miseries of a civil war: See, my friend, the mischiefs arising from the ambition of a few men, ministers sporting with their masters whims, and the repose of millions sacrificed to the caprices of a few; a few inches of territory the object of debate, and millions laid waste to obtain that end: the shadow pursued, but the substance neglected.

"Whoever conquers, a few only can be made happy, and thousands miserable; detested fruit of conquest, that cannot be obtained without the ruin of thousands. Was it for this that God gave understanding beyond the brute? Do they wage destructive war against each other, destroy their fellow creatures without provocation; when hunger or lust assails, then indeed they spill blood: but man, without this wretched excuse, destroys his kind. Take warning, my friend, by our calamities. I can no more.---Heaven give us Peace!"