Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/24

 lated, is their mutual Destruction. All antient History is dark and uncertain. One thing however is clear. There were Conquerors, and Conquests, in those Days; and consequently, all that Devastation, by which they are formed, and all that Oppression by which they are maintained. We know little of Sesostris, but that he led out of Egypt an Army of above 700,000 Men; that he overran the Mediterranean Coast as far as Colchis, that in some Places, he met but little Resistance, and of course shed not a great deal of Blood; but that he found in others, a People who knew the Value of their Liberties, and sold them dear. Whoever considers the Army this Conqueror headed, the Space he traversed, and the Opposition he frequently met; with the natural Accidents of Sickness, and the Dearth and Badness of Provision he must have been subject to in the Variety of Climates and Countries his March lay through, if he knows any thing, he must know, that even the Conqueror's