ng the vast population within the reach of
Philip's power amounted, probably, to two millions every year; and if
he destroyed ten thousand every year, it was only adding one death by
violence to _two hundred_ produced by accidents, disasters, or age.
Dreadful as are the atrocities of persecution and war, and vast and
incalculable as are the encroachments on human happiness which they
produce, we are often led to overrate their relative importance,
compared with the aggregate value of the interests and pursuits which
are left unharmed by them, by not sufficiently appreciating the enormous
extent and magnitude of these interests and pursuits in such communities
as England, France, and Spain.

Sometimes, it is true, the operations of military heroes have been on
such a prodigious scale as to make very serious inroads on the
population of the greatest states. Napoleon for instance, on one
occasion took five hundred thousand men out of France for his expedition
to Russia. The campaign destroyed nearly all of them. It was only a very
insignificant fraction of the vast army that ever returned. By this
transaction, Napoleon thus just about doubled the annual mortality in
France at a single blow. Xerxes enjoys the glory of having destroyed
about a million of men--and these, not enemies, but countrymen,
followers, and friends--in the same way, on a single expedition. Such
vast results, however, were not attained in the conflicts which marked
the reigns of Elizabeth and Philip of Spain. Notwithstanding the
long-protracted international wars, and dreadful civil commotions of the
period, the world went on increasing in wealth and population, and all
the arts and improvements of life made very rapid progress. America had
been discovered, and the way to the East Indies had been opened to
European ships, and the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the
English, and the French, had fleets of merchant vessels and ships of war
in every sea. The Spaniards, particularly, had acquired great
possessions in America, which contained very rich mines of gold and
silver, and there was a particular kind of vessels called _galleons_,
which went regularly once a year, under a strong convoy, to bring home
the treasure. They used to call these fleets _armada_, which is the
Spanish word denoting an armed squadron. Nations at war with Spain
always made great efforts to intercept and seize these ships on their
homeward voyages, when, being laden with gol