Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/25

 Army must have suffered greatly; and that, of this immense Number, but a very small Part cou'd have returned to enjoy the Plunder accumulated by the Loss of so many of their Companions, and the Devastation of so considerable a Part of the World. If this was the State of the Victorious, and from the Circumstances, it must have been this at the least; the Conquered, those Nations who lost their Liberty, and those who fought for it together, must have had a much heavier Loss. They must have lost at least double that Number, as the greatest Slaughter is always in the Flight, and great Carnage did in those Times and Countries ever attend the first Rage of Conquest. This Conqueror, the oldest we have on the Records of History, (though, as we have observed before, the Chronology of these remote Times is extremely uncertain), opens the Scene by a Destruction of at least 1,800,000 of his Species, unprovoked but by his Ambition, without any Mo-