article of provision could escape their vigilance. One cannot
but be thankful that Nelson was spared from commanding at this
horrible blockade of Genoa.

"Now, on which side the law of nations should throw the guilt
of most atrocious murder, is of little comparative consequence,
or whether it should attach it to both sides equally; but that
the deliberate starving to death of twenty thousand helpless
persons should be regarded as a crime in one or both of the
parties concerned in it, seems to me self-evident. The simplest
course would seem to be, that all non-combatants should be
allowed to go out of a blockaded town, and that the general who
should refuse to let them pass, should be regarded in the same
light as one who were to murder his prisoners, or who were to
be in the habit of butchering women and children. For it is not
true that war only looks to the speediest and most effectual
way of attaining its object; so that, as the letting the
inhabitants go out would enable the garrison to maintain the
town longer, the laws of war authorize the keeping them in and
starving them. Poisoning wells might be a still quicker method
of reducing a place; but do the laws of war therefore sanction
it? I shall not be supposed for a moment to be placing the
guilt of the individuals concerned in the two cases which I am
going to compare, on an equal footing; it would be most unjust
to do so--for in the one case they acted, as they supposed,
according to a law which made what they did their duty. But,
take the cases themselves, and examine them in all their
circumstances; the degree of suffering inflicted--the innocence
and helplessness of the sufferers--the interests at stake--and
the possibility of otherwise securing them; and if any man can