Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2De Quincey, Thomas
History
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays -- 19th century
are pretty nearly the same as on the celebrated massacre at Jaffa,
perpetrated by Napoleon in council. [Footnote 13] In the Saxon, as in
the Syrian massacre, the numbers were between four and five thousand;
not that the numbers or the scale of the transaction can affect its
principle, but it is well to know it, because then to its author, as
now to us who sit as judges upon it, that circumstance cannot be
supposed to have failed in drawing the very keenest attention to its
previous consideration. A butchery, that was in a numerical sense so
vast, cannot be supposed to have escaped its author in a hurry, or to
be open to any of the usual palliations from precipitance or
inattention. Charlemagne and Napoleon must equally be presumed to have
regarded this act on all sides, to have weighed it in and for itself,
and to have traversed by anticipation the whole sum of its consequences.
In the one case we find a general, the leader of a _soi-disant_
Christian army, the representative of the 'most Christian' nation,
and, as amongst infidels, specially charged with the duty of supporting
the sanctity of Christian good faith, unfortunately pledged by his own
most confidential and accredited agents, officers bearing on their
persons the known ensigns of his _aides-de-camp_, to a comprehensive
promise of mercy to a large body of Turkish troops, having arms in
their hands, and otherwise well-disposed and well able to have made
a desperate defence. This promise was peculiarly embarrassing;
provisions ran short, and, to detain them as prisoners, would draw
murmurs from his own troops, now suffering hardships themselves. On
the other hand, to have turned them adrift would have insured their
speedy re-appearance as active enemies to a diminished and debilitated
army; for, as to sending them off by sea, that measure was
impracticable, as well from want of shipping as from the presence of
the English. Such was the dilemma, doubtless perplexing enough, but
not more so than in ten thousand other cases, for which their own
appropriate ten thousand remedies have been found. What was the issue?
The entire body of gallant (many, doubtless, young and innocent)
soldiers, disarmed upon the faith of a solemn guarantee from a Christian
general, standing in the very steps of the noble (and the more noble,
because bigoted) Crusaders, were all mowed down by the musketry of
their thrice accursed enemy; and, by way of crowning treachery with
treachery, some few who had swum off to a point of rock in the sea,
were lured back to destruction under a second series of promises,
violated almost at the very instant when uttered. A larger or more
damnable murder does not stain the memory of any brigand, buccaneer,
or pirate; nor has any army, Huns, Vandals, or Mogul Tartars, ever
polluted itself by so base a perfidy; for, in this memorable tragedy,
the whole army were accomplices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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