[Speech of George Augustus Sala at a banquet given in his honor by
the Lotos Club, January 10, 1885. The President, Whitelaw Reid, sat
at the centre table, having on his right hand the guest of the
evening. He said, in welcoming Mr. Sala: "The last time we met here
it was my pleasant duty to give your welcome to an old friend. Now
you make it my duty--still a pleasant one--to give your welcome to
an old enemy. ["Hear! Hear!"] Yes; an old enemy! We shall get on
better with the facts by admitting them at the outset. Our guest
was more or less against us in the great struggle twenty years ago
in which everybody now wishes to be thought to have been with us.
He did not believe this nation would down the slaveholders'
rebellion and he did not want it to; and he wrote frankly as he
believed and wished. [Laughter.] He never made any disguise about
it then or since; and for that, at least, we think the better of
him! [Applause.] He came of a slaveholding family; many personal
and social influences drew him toward those of our countrymen who
were on the wrong side; and now that it is all over, we bear no
malice! [Applause.] More than that; we are heartily glad to see
him. The statute of limitations runs in his favor; and his old
opinions are outlawed. He revisited the country long after the
war--and he changed his mind about it. He thought a great deal
better of us; and we in turn found his letters a great deal
pleasanter reading. We like a man who can change his mind
[applause]; and if a bit of international frankness may be
permitted in the good-fellowship of this board, perhaps I may
venture to add that we particularly like to discover that trait in
an Englishman! [Applause and laughter.] We've changed our minds--at
least about some things. We've not only forgiven our countrymen;
whom our guest used to sympathize with; but we have put--and are
getting ready to put--the most of them into office! What we are
most anxious about just now is, whether they are going to forgive
us! Seriously, gentlemen, we are very glad to see Mr. Sala here
again. He was a veteran in the profession in which so many of you
are interested, worthily wearing the laurels won in many fields,
and enjoying the association, esteem, and trust of a great master
whose fame the world holds precious, when the most of us were
fledglings. We all know him as a wit, a man of letters, and a man
of the world. Some of us have known him also in that pleasanter
character of all clubmen described in the old phrase, 'a jolly
good fellow.' On the other side of the Atlantic the grasp he gives
an American hand is a warm one; and we do not mean that in New York
he shall feel away from home. I give you, gentlemen, 'The health
and prosperity of George Augustus Sala.'"]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE LOTOS CLUB: I am under the
deepest feeling of gratitude to Mr. Whitelaw Reid for having torn the
mask from the face of the stealthy conspirator, for having exposed the
wily plotter and insidious libeller, and defied the malignant
Copperhead. [Applause.] I thought that I had long ago been choked with
that venom; but no, it rises still and poisons all that belongs to his
otherwise happy condition. Gentlemen, I am indeed an enemy of the United
States. I am he who has come here to requite your hospitalities with
unfounded calumny and to bite the hand that has fed me. Unfortunately
there are so many hands that have fed me that it will take me from this
time until to-morrow morning to bite all the friendly hands.
With regard to events that took place twenty years ago and of which I
was an interested spectator, I may say that albeit I was mistaken; but
the mistake was partaken of by many hundred thousands of my
fellow-countrymen, who had not the courage subsequently to avow that
they had been mistaken, but yet set to curry favor with the North by
saying that they had always been their friends. The only apology--if
apology I should choose to make--would be this: that that which I had to
say against you I said while I was in your midst, when I was living at
the Brevoort House; and when my letters came weekly back from England;
and when it was quite in your power to have ridden me out on a rail or
to have inflicted on me any of the ordinary visitations which a
malignant Copperhead was supposed to deserve. But you did not do so, and
I remember that when I left New York, I had quite as many good, kind,
cordial friends on the Union League side as I had on the Democratic
side. I would say further that when I came to publish my letters I found
that there were many statements which I had made, which seemed to me to
have been hasty and inconsiderate, and I did my best to modify them; and
I did not wait until I got home to malign the people from whom I had
received hospitality.
But I have been indeed an enemy to the United States; so much so that
when I came here again in 1879-80 with my wife, the enemy was received
on all sides with the greatest kindness and cordiality. So much am I an
enemy to the United States, that for years while I was connected with
the weekly paper called "The Echo" there was hardly a week when I did
not receive scores of letters from Americans from every part of the
Union--from down South, from the West, the North, and the East--full of
kindly matter and expressions bearing out the idea that I am a friend
rather than an enemy to the United States. And I know perfectly well
that there is no American who comes to London, be he lawyer,
diplomatist, actor, artist, or man of letters, but I am always glad to
see him, and always glad to show him, that, although an enemy, I still
retain some feelings of gratitude toward my friends in the United
States.
I have seen it stated in one of your remarkably versatile and "Graphic"
journals that I have boasted of having come here with the idea of making
some money in the United States. But bless your hearts and souls,
gentlemen of the Lotos Club, I assure you that I have no such idea!
[Laughter.] I am really speaking to you seriously when I say that it was
by merest accident that upon taking my ticket for Australia, I was told
by my energetic manager that I might see a most interesting and
picturesque country by crossing the Rocky Mountains and embarking at San
Francisco, instead of going by way of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. I
had seen your Rocky Mountains, it is true, but I had seen them in March;
and now I shall see them at the end of January, and that is really one
of the main purposes of my journey. If from time to time in my passage I
do deliver a few incoherent utterances, these utterances will not be
prompted by any desire for pelf. That is far from my thoughts, but still
if anyone wants to pay two dollars, or seventy-five cents, to hear those
incoherent utterances you may be assured that my managers and myself
will do our utmost to devote the funds accruing therefrom to purposes of
mercy and of charity. [Applause.] I am sure you believe every word that
I say; and that Australia is my objective. [Laughter.]
But, seriously, I only conclude by saying that I do not believe a word
of what your President has said. He does not believe now that for the
past twenty years I have been and am an enemy of the United States. We
were blinded, many of us, for the time being; we took a wrong lane for
the time, just as many of your tourists and many of your Radicals have
taken the wrong lane in England; but I think that differences of opinion
should never alter friendships. And when we consider the number of years
that have elapsed; when we consider that the wounds which I saw red and
gaping and bleeding are now healed, scarcely leaving a scar, I think
that the enemy might now be regarded as a friend; and that whatever
unkind feelings were begotten in that terrible time should be now buried
in the Red Sea of oblivion. [Applause.] There never before was a time
when it was so expedient for England to say to America: "Don't quarrel!"
England is surrounded by enemies--by real enemies who hate her. Why?
Because she tries to be honest; and she tries to be free. She is hated
by Germans; and Germany equally hates the institutions of this country,
because she sees the blood and the bone of intelligent Germany coming to
the United States and becoming capable citizens, instead of carrying the
needle-musket at home. She is hated by France, because France has got a
Republic which she calls democratic and social, but which is still a
tyranny--and the worst of all tyrannies, because the tyrant is a mob. I
do not disguise the fact that we are surrounded by foes of every
description; and for that reason and because blood is thicker than
water, I say to Americans that, inasmuch as we have atoned for past
offences (the Alabama and all other difficulties having been settled),
no other difficulty should be permitted to rise; and if there be a place
in all the world where real peace may be secured and perfect freedom
reign, England and America should there join hands as against all the
world in arms. [Applause.]
I have nothing more to say, except to entreat you to pardon my somewhat
serious utterances because of the many painful reminiscences which your
good-natured sarcasm has brought to my lips, although softened by the
kindly and genial terms in which you have received me, and I beg you to
accept the grateful expression of my heartfelt gratitude for this
glorious reception. [Applause.]