"Pray do not be good-natured about Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty imprisoned; it is absolutely necessary to give the multitude a severe blow, for their conduct at Bristol has been most atrocious. You will save lives by it in the end. There is no plea of want, as there was in the agricultural riots."
You will save lives by it in the end. There spoke the truly humanitarian spirit which does not shrink from drawing the sword at the bidding of real necessity, but asks itself once and again whether any proposed effusion of blood is really demanded by the exigencies of the moral law.
On questions of peace and war, Sydney Smith was always on the right side.[157] He saw as clearly as the most clamorous patriot that England was morally bound to defend her existence and her freedom. He exhorted her to rally all her forces and strive with agonies and energies against the anti-human ambition of Napoleon. And, when once the great deliverance was achieved, he turned again to the enjoyment and the glorification of Peace.—
"Let fools praise conquerors, and say the great Napoleon pulled down this kingdom and destroyed that army: we will thank God for a King[158] who has derived his quiet glory from the peace of his realm."
"The atrocities, and horrors, and disgusts of war have never been half enough insisted upon by the teachers of the people; but the worst of evils and the greatest of follies have been varnished over with specious names, and the gigantic robbers and murderers of the world have been holden up for imitation to the weak eyes of youth."
No wars, except the very few which we really required for national self-defence, could attract his sympathy. Wars of intervention in the affairs of other nations, even when undertaken for excellent objects, he regarded with profound mistrust.
When in 1823, the nascent liberties of Spain were threatened, he wrote:—
"I am afraid we shall go to war; I am sorry for it. I see every day in the world a thousand acts of oppression which I should like to resent, but I cannot afford to play the Quixote. Why are the English to be the sole vindicators of the human race?"
And again:—
"For God's sake, do not drag me into another war! I am worn down, and worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protecting mankind; I must think a little of myself. I am sorry for the Spaniards—I am sorry for the Greeks—I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny; Bagdad is oppressed—I do not like the present state of the Delta—Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people? The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the consequence will be, that we shall cut each other's throats."