, it would offend her
financial system, and she would fight us; did we presume to offer
her ten millions to say no more about the matter, it would offend her
dignity by intimating that she was to be bought off from her rights,
and she would fight us; did we presume to adopt the system of new
negotiations, it would mortally offend her honor, by intimating that she
would not respect her old negotiations, and she would fight us. He saw
war in all four of the categories. He was for a peace category, and he
thought he held in his hand a proposition, that by proper management,
using the most tender delicacy, and otherwise respecting the
sensibilities of the high and honorable nation in question, we might
possibly get out of this embarrassing dilemma without actually coming to
blows--he said to blows, for he wished to impress on honorable members
the penalties of war. He invited gentlemen to recollect that a conflict
between two great nations was a serious affair. If Leapthrough were a
little nation, it would be a different matter, and the contest might be
conducted in a corner; our honor was intimately connected with all we
did with great nations. What was war? Did gentlemen know? He would tell
them.

Here the orator drew a picture of war that caused suffering monikinity
to shudder. He viewed it in its four leading points: its religious, its
pecuniary, its political, and its domestic penalties. He described war
to be the demon state of the monikin mind; as opposed to worship,
to charity, brotherly love, and all the virtues. On its pecuniary
penalties, he touched by exhibiting a tax-sheet. Buttons which cost
sixpence a gross, he assured the house, would shortly cost sevenpence a
gross.--Here he was reminded that monikins no longer wore buttons.--No
matter, they bought and sold buttons, and the effects on trade were
just the same. The political penalties of war he fairly showed to be
frightful; but when he came to speak of the domestic penalties, there
was not a dry eye in the house. Captain Poke blubbered so loud that I
was in an agony lest he should be called to order.

"Regard that pure spirit," he cried, "crushed as it has been in the
whirlwind of war. Behold her standing over the sod that covers the hero
of his country, the husband of her virgin affections. In vain the orphan
at her side turns its tearful eye upwards, and asks for the plumes that
so lately pleased its infant fancy; in vain its gentle voice inquires
when