Another day I got my fellow passenger started on American history. He
said: “The greatest crime of England against the United States was the
introduction of African slavery into the colonies. There were fortunes
to be made in kidnapping the people of Africa and transporting them to
the colonies.
“Queen Elizabeth lent her own ship, the ‘Jesus,’ to Sir John Hawkins,
for the African slave-trade, and also owned shares in the African
Company. By these investments she made more than the Dutchman’s one per
cent to supply herself with pin-money and to provide those innumerable
court dresses we read of.
“When the ship ‘Jesus’ was near the equator the water gave out and the
four hundred slaves came very near perishing from thirst. The pious
Hawkins wrote in his log, ‘The Almighty God would not suffer his elect
to perish.’
“What a combination! The ship ‘Jesus’ named after the Redeemer of
mankind, not the enslaver, carrying kidnapped men and women to slavery;
this pious captain calling himself the ‘elect’ of God and the owner of
the ship ‘Good Queen Bess,’ as she is styled!
“If there was a meaner or more damnable business than capturing people
to sell them as slaves I have not heard of it. The horrors of the whole
business from beginning to end was awful. The details were sickening and
makes one ashamed of humanity. Such things are enough to make men
skeptical, whether God watches over the events of the world. The most
astounding part of it is that Christian people claimed it was for the
Glory of God! ‘O, religion! What crimes have been committed in thy
name!’
“Did you ever think of the power of profits in controlling the tastes,
judgments and consciences of mankind?
“Slavery was confined mainly to the southern states and created a
different kind of people and a different condition of society from that
of the northern states. These owners of their fellow men, traffickers in
human flesh and blood, claimed to be gentlemen, as they did not have to
labor for a livelihood. They assumed to be the aristocracy of the whole
country and so affiliated with the aristocracy of England. They
certainly had much in common. Both despised labor for themselves, but
enjoyed it in others for their sole benefit. These aristocrats of the
South, with plenty of money they never earned, could be educated, travel
abroad and acquired a kind of culture with pride and arrogance, while
they treated the poor whites among them as ‘trash,’ not much better than
their ‘niggers,’ just as the aristocracy in England treat the lower
classes. All was game to them within their reach. Nearly every boy over
fifteen had his wench and the owners of slaves, like a lustful
aristocracy, gave free reign to their fancies and desires, and did not
scruple even to sell their own flesh and blood in the auction slave
marts as they sold their cattle and cotton.
“It is not surprising then, that the aristocracy of the South and of
England should have similar tastes and a liking for each other. The
result was that in our civil war, waged solely on account of slavery,
our worst enemies were the aristocracy of England. They would have
swallowed African slavery, head and tail, with all its abominations for
the sake of aiding their fellow aristocrats. It is to the middle class,
the working people of England, that we are indebted for the
non-recognition of the southern confederacy as an independent
government. As it was, armed vessels were built and fitted out in the
ports of England to destroy our commerce and with the connivance of her
government. This was her way of being neutral.
“Many Englishmen made fortunes by sending blockade runners from England
to furnish supplies for the South. They have told me this, rubbing their
hands with great satisfaction at their skill in outwitting the
‘Yankees.’ Can they expect the ‘Yankees’ to forget these things when
sometime a nation or colony may give their lion’s tail a twist? The bill
for their little fun in being neutral was however settled, and the
bitterest pill probably that John ever swallowed was when he had to pay
fifteen millions of dollars for the destruction caused by his Alabama.
“All this is history and we would not refer to it but for the
over-bearing arrogance and assumption of these islanders. When they ever
treat us civilly it is with a patronizing air. If there is anything
which I think a true man dislikes it is to be patronized, for this
insinuates an inferiority in the one receiving the patronage. With this
spirit the English often refer to their colonizing America. We admit, to
the shame of England, that some of our earliest settlers were obliged to
leave that country to escape persecution and death but their settlement
in America was compulsory. Large numbers, ‘Puritans,’ as they were
styled, were deported, not for any crimes, but for their belief that
they had a right to worship God according to their own consciences. Just
one instance. A cargo of 841 human beings were sent to the West Indies
to be sold as slaves. These, mind you, were not negroes, but white
English people. They were not suffered to go on deck and in the holds
below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease and death. The
Queen of England had an interest in this shipment. The profits which she
shared in the cargo after making a large allowance for those who died of
hunger and fever during the passage cannot be estimated at less than a
thousand guineas. This is the statement of an English historian, not an
American.
“But the fact is that some of our best people were from Holland.
Manhattan Island, now New York, was settled by them, and for many years
there was not an English speaking person in that settlement, and many of
the old wealthy families now in New York are descendants of the
Hollanders. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when fifty
thousand of the best people of France were exiled, many of them went to
the United States. Another large class are the descendants of the
Scotch-Irish who had to flee from the tyranny of England, while the
Irish now in America outnumber those in Ireland itself. The minority of
the people are the descendants of the English.
“At times, in a patronizing way to curry favor with us, the English
claim relationship, but none scarcely admit that we have anything except
what we borrow, that is stolen from her, and even that we do not speak
the English language. I have really been asked by educated Englishmen if
we speak English in America.
“Whatever we have from England we owe nothing to her aristocracy or her
government that should fill her with pride.
“I have lately read a book on the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The writer
claims that they are found in the English, his own people. He goes to
prophesy, which is convincing. There is such a similarity between Israel
and the English that there should not be a doubt hereafter on the
subject. The Jews believed in a God who belonged solely to them, looked
after their interests and fought for them. Their wars were always
righteous while those of their enemies were always wicked. The English
also have their God and believe He is always on their side. The Jews
consider all other people as Gentiles created for their benefit. Do not
the English the same?
“As long as the United States were colonies there was not a factory
allowed in them or the people permitted to make their own hats or shoes
or clothing. The raw products had to be shipped to England for the
profit of her manufacturers and the goods returned at a great cost to
the poor colonists. Here is an interesting note that I made a few days
ago; ‘To help their manufacturers of woolen goods a law was passed in
1678 that all dead bodies should be wrapped in woolen shrouds.’ One of
their writers says of England, ‘It formed colonies that the mother
country might enjoy the monopoly of their trade by compelling them to
resort only to her markets.’ It is only a few years since Ireland was
allowed to spin and weave her own flax or to manufacture anything. It is
not long since India was permitted to establish its first factory, and
is it not true to-day that although India has an abundance of iron,
coal, cotton, timber, everything needful, yet all the government
supplies must be indented for from England for the benefit of her
manufacturers and commission men? Is not England jewing India at every
turn for her own benefit? Did not the Jews believe in subduing the
nations for the glory of God and their own pockets? Do not the English
have the same belief? Moses and his band believed they were to spoil the
Egyptians by ‘borrowing’ from them and then claimed that their God had
taught them this trick of amassing wealth. Do not the English believe
also in spoiling the Egyptians? But they reverse the order and instead
of borrowing, they loan to the dwellers by the Nile at exorbitant rates
of interest like an uncle with brass balls, and then like a Shylock,
demand the pound of flesh and blood nearest the heart of their victims;
but unlike him they take the interest and on the plea of securing their
bonds, seize upon the government of that country with an army of
occupation, and further increase the burdens of poor Egypt by fostering
upon it a horde of English place-hunters to do nothing, at high
salaries, and besides make the wretched natives, groaning under an
intolerable burden of taxation support a theatre for the special
pleasure of the usurpers. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; the
English make merry while the miserable Egyptians are toiling and
starving.
“The Jews believed in their divine right to live off the Gentiles, and
the English follow their example. In short, there is so much of the Jew
in the English nation I wonder that the Ten Lost Tribes were not found
long ago.”
After a pause and some conversation on minor matters, I asked a question
about the Republican form of Government. He said: “We believe in the
rights of man, that as an individual he should be free to act for
himself, for his own good, the only restriction that he should not
interfere with the rights of his neighbor. We believe that all men are
equal, with the same political and social privileges, that each should
govern himself, and all acting together, the majority to rule for the
good of all, or, as President Lincoln tersely put it, ‘a government of
the people, by the people, and for the people.’
“For ages it was supposed that mankind were not capable of
self-government. Thence came into life, chiefs, tyrants, kings, emperors
and monarchs. This was followed by the creed of the divine right of
kings to place their feet on the necks of humanity. Men were enslaved,
in accordance with divine laws, as it was claimed. They were made serfs,
bought and sold with the land, and kept like cattle. A strong-willed man
by intrigue, force and bribery, acquired an ascendency over his fellows,
became the chief of a tribe, or the head of a nation, and his
descendants claimed a right, by the grace of God, to what he had
obtained by the number of scalps he could hang at his belt, or the
number of human skulls over his gate-way; by the amount of cruelties he
had inflicted, by the cities he had burned, or the lands he had
devastated. The farce of it is that civilized, Christian people, appeal
to Heaven, and claim that all this is by divine right and the grace of
God. Is it not contrary to reason and common sense to say that any one
man or family has any right to rule over another against his will? Take
Napoleon? Who was he? How did he obtain his power? By what right did he
acquire a privilege to rule over his fellow men, and lead four millions
of them to destruction? Why should he make other nations food for his
powder?
“It is passing strange that vast numbers of people, many of them very
intelligent, will submit to be used by tyrants for their aggrandizement,
and to gratify their personal and vain ambition! It is also strange that
intelligent men, will like sycophants, toady to these self-made gods,
worship and bow down before them, and consider it one of the greatest
favors to be admitted to their presence and receive but a word or a look
from them. They say that ‘Britons never, never never will be slaves,’
but they are the worst of toadies to those above them. This toadyism to
royalty or aristocracy is one of the conundrums of modern life. Another
is the cheek or impudence with which these royal aristocrats receive the
homage of men, not only of the illiterate, but of those who are far
superior to them in every respect. For almost without exception these
ruler gods have been noted for their immorality and vices, that would
make the lowest peasant blush. But few of them have been men of
intellectual power, or known by their virtues, and history tells us that
few of them came to their thrones like gentlemen, without violence,
plundering of the public treasury, and other such refined acts.
Inheriting their positions, they have been kept in their places by men
of ability, whose interest or vanity it was to surround these state
figureheads with an aureole of kingly glory to dazzle the masses. There
is not a monarch to-day, but is in his place by might, rather than by
right or by the will of the people. With all of them it is always the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon, but the Gideon part of it is always to
the front.”
With this interesting voyager, whatever the others thought of him, he
was so breezy and full of good things, the days were very short to me.
He became so well acquainted with me that he related a little incident
touching that old subject which could not be dropped, though far away
and out of India. He said that when walking alone the morning previous,
one of the English officers accosted him with the remark, “You have
become quite intimate with that Eurasian.” “With whom?” my friend
inquired, not quite understanding the word. “O, that half caste,” said
the gentleman. “Why, what about him?” asked the other. “He seems to be
very much of a gentleman in his manner, thoughts and education, so I
have taken quite a fancy to him and find him very interesting. What have
you against him?” Replied the gentleman, “Nothing against him
personally, but he is an Eurasian, a half caste, you know, and in India
that class of people are not in society, and we never meet them in a
social way, you know.”
This much my friend told me, but he said that they had quite a talk on
the subject, in which he did not butter his words in denouncing such an
unjust social custom and the crime that produced it. He said it was own
brother to the deeds of the slave owners of the southern states of
America, begetting children by their slave women, and then selling their
own offspring as slaves. He remarked that one evening in a hotel at
Calcutta, a planter told him that many of the planters led the freest
kind of a life; that few of them were married, as they did not care to
be bothered with families of their own. He mentioned a number of
prominent planters by name, all of them connected with well known
families in England. The planter said there were a number of titled men
among them, living the most riotous, lustful lives; that nearly all
these men had children by coolie women employed on their plantations;
that it was customary for these planters as they went about during the
day to make their selections and then order their peons to bring the
women selected to their bungalows at night. He said this was so common
that nothing more was thought of it, than if a man had ordered some
grain for his horse. One of them, of a very aristocratic family in
England, who would blush with shame if they knew his manner of life,
when asked if he was married, replied, “Married! No. What the devil do I
want with a wife?” Yet he had a number of children by his coolie women.
When asked what would become of his children, he carelessly answered, “I
have nothing to do with them. When I leave I shall give the mothers a
few rupees and let them scratch for themselves.”
Continued my friend: “A man is a hardened wretch who will treat his own
flesh and blood in that way. And probably all these planters call
themselves gentlemen and Christians. The Turkish or oriental harems are
places of virtue and honor compared with such a system of lust and
injustice carried on, not by heathens, but by educated Englishmen.”
It appeared from this and other remarks, that my American friend had not
traveled through India with blinkers on his eyes or cotton in his ears;
yet who has not heard of such things?
I could have told him the story of my own life, that, alas! I knew too
well; but self respect or prudence or something restrained me.
One day as I was standing beside the captain, looking down upon the
lower deck, he asked me if I noticed a man walking there. Said he, “I
doubt if you can imagine what his business is.” I replied that I had no
idea of it. He said, “It is marrying and selling his wives.” I expressed
surprise at that kind of a trade new to me. He continued, “He and a
number of men like him go to Europe, get acquainted with some innocent,
pretty peasant girl, makes love to her, marries her, and then takes her
to Bombay as his wife, where he goes with her to what he calls a hotel,
and after getting a big fee from the landlord, deserts her and goes back
to marry again and bring out another wife to sell. This is their sole
business.” “But,” I inquired, “why don’t you or your company do
something to prevent this fraud and crime?” “What can I do?” he replied.
“This man buys tickets for himself and wife as passengers, and he
returns alone as a passenger. They conduct themselves very properly, so
how can I interfere?” “But,” said I, “why don’t the English government
in India prevent such outrages on innocent women and punish these
degraded wretches of men?” He turned quickly towards me with an
inquisitive look, as if he thought me a simpleton, and asked, “Were you
born yesterday? Hadn’t you better go home to your mother?” These
questions were so abrupt that they nearly knocked me off my pins, and I
could only wait in silence for his explanation. He asked, “For whom are
these brought out? Not for natives, but for Europeans. Who are the
Europeans? Mostly officers of government. Do you suppose they are going
to interfere and break up a business that is for their sole pleasure?”
The captain was an old, grey-headed man, and knew the ways of the world
and of wicked men, and well acquainted with the seamy sides of life,
while I was fresh, very fresh, on my first voyage away from home. I
could say nothing, and beside was afraid that he might again suggest
that I go back to my mother. I kept silent, except to utter a few
denunciative adjectives. I several times noticed the betrayer of
innocence and wife-seller along with his companions, from my place on
the upper deck. Did I not recall the infamous betrayer of the governess,
and did not I remember how I felt when I found that she was mine and not
somebody else’s sister, and alas, seduced by my father and by her
father? Yet these betrayed innocent women are some mother’s daughters,
and may be some one’s sisters. Ye gods! How I hated those men and wished
that in some way they could be thrown into the sea, and thus their
despicable, villainous traffic be ended with their corrupt lives.
Then my reflections came. What a sin-cursed world this is, I thought.
When there is so much sublime beauty in the heavens above us, and in the
pure sea around us, and on land, so much in nature to charm the eye and
delight the ear, yet one cannot go anywhere, even far away at sea, from
the wretched abodes of mankind, without being afflicted with the
knowledge of the filthy deeds of men. The earth may be cursed with
briars and thorns, and man may have to toil and live by the sweat of his
brow, but what is all this compared with the degrading sins of men? What
a virtue is the chastity of brutes in comparison to the lusts of those
who are said to have been created in the image of God? Blessed is the
innocent, ignorant man who knoweth none of these things. Surely, it is
folly to be wise when ignorance is bliss. Far better and happier for my
heathen villagers to live, and toil, and die in their ignorant
simplicity, than to have their souls scarred by the vices and knowledge
of a corrupt world and of society.
“And bitter shame hath spoiled the sweet world’s taste, That it yields
nought but shame and bitterness.”
As everything comes to an end some time, so did my voyage. The only
regret of it was in parting from my American friend, for without him I
would have been alone and my trip most monotonous.