Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone,
And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own,
Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise
Thy heart-born anguish of a thousand cries:
Could lock, with impious hands, their teeming store,
While famish'd nations died along the shore;
Could mock the groans of fellow men, and bear
The curse of kingdoms, peopled with despair;
Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name,
And barter with their gold eternal shame.
CAMPBELL.
Gold!--gold! for thee, what will man not attempt? for thee, to what
degradation will he not submit?--for thee, what will he not risk in this
world, or prospectively in the next;--Industry is rewarded by thee;
enterprise is supported by thee; crime is cherished, and heaven itself
is bartered for thee, thou powerful auxiliary of the devil! One tempter
was sufficient for the fall of man; but thou wert added, that he ne'er
might rise again.
Survey the empire of India; calculate the millions of acres, the
billions with which it is peopled, and then pause while you ask yourself
the question--how is it that a company of merchants claim it as their
own? By what means did it come into their possession?
Honestly, they will reply. Honestly! you went there as suppliants; you
were received with kindness and hospitality, and your request was
granted, by which you obtained a footing on the soil. Now you are lords
of countless acres, masters of millions, who live or perish as you will;
receivers of enormous tribute.--Why, how is this?
Honestly, again you say; by treaty, by surrender, by taking from those
who would have destroyed us, the means of doing injury. Honestly! say
it again, that heaven may register, and hell may chuckle at your
barefaced, impudent assertion.
No! by every breach of faith which could disgrace an infidel; by every
act of cruelty which could disgrace our nature; by extortion, by rapine,
by injustice, by mockery of all laws or human or divine. The thirst for
gold, and a golden country, led you on; and in these scorching regions
you have raised the devil on his throne, and worshipped him in his proud
pre-eminence as Mammon.
Let us think. Is not the thirst for gold a temptation to which our
natures are doomed to be subjected--part of the ordeal which we have to
pass? or why is it that there never is sufficient?
It appears to be ordained by Providence that this metal, obtained from
the earth to feed the avarice of man, should again return to it. If all
the precious ore which for a series of ages has been raised from the
dark mine were now in tangible existence, how trifling would be its
value! how inadequate as a medium of exchange for the other productions
of nature, or of art! If all the diamonds and other precious stones
which have been collected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they
once were, like all sublunary matter, they too yield to Time), why, if
all were remaining on the earth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep
would shake about those gems, which now are to be found in profusion
only where rank and beauty pay homage to the thrones of kings.--Arts and
manufactures consume a large proportion of the treasures of the mine,
and as the objects fall into decay, so does the metal return to the
earth again. But it is in eastern climes, where it is collected, that
it soonest disappears. Where the despot reigns, and the knowledge of an
individual's wealth is sufficient warranty to seal his doom, it is to
the care of the silent earth alone that the possessor will commit his
treasures; he trusts not to relation or to friend, for gold is too
powerful for human ties. It is but on his death-bed that he imparts the
secret of his deposit to those he leaves behind him; often called away
before he has time to make it known, reserving the fond secret till too
late; still clinging to life, and all that makes life dear to him.
Often does the communication, made from the couch of death, in
half-articulated words, prove so imperfect, that the knowledge of its
existence is of no avail unto his intended heirs; and thus it is, that
millions return again to the earth from which they have been gathered
with such toil. What avarice has dug up, avarice buries again; perhaps
in future ages to be regained by labour, when, from the chemical powers
of eternal and mysterious Nature, they have again been filtered through
the indurated earth, and reassumed the form and the appearance of the
metal which has lain in darkness since the creation of the world.
Is not this part of the grand principle of the universe? the eternal
cycle of reproduction and decay, pervading all and every thing, blindly
contributed to by the folly and the wickedness of man? "So far shalt
thou go, but no further," was the fiat; and, arrived at the prescribed
limit, we must commence again. At this moment intellect has seized upon
the seven-league boots of the fable, which fitted every body who drew
them on, and strides over the universe. How soon, as on the decay of
the Roman empire, may all the piles of learning which human endeavours
would rear as a tower of Babel to scale the heavens, disappear, leaving
but fragments to future generations, as proofs of pre-existent
knowledge! Whether we refer to nature or to art, to knowledge or to
power, to accumulation or destruction, bounds have been prescribed which
man can never pass, guarded as they are by the same unerring and unseen
Power, which threw the planets from his hand, to roll in their appointed
orbits. All appears confused below, but all is clear in heaven.
I have somewhere heard it said, that where heaven may be, those who
reach it will behold the mechanism of the universe in its perfection.
Those stars now studding the firmament in such apparent confusion, will
there appear in all their regularity, as worlds revolving in their
several orbits, round suns that gladden them with light and heat, all in
harmony, all in beauty, rejoicing as they roll their destined course in
obedience to the Almighty fiat; one vast, stupendous, and, to the limits
of our present senses, incomprehensible mechanism, perfect in all its
parts, most wonderful in the whole. Nor do I doubt it: it is but
reasonable to suppose it. He that hath made this world and all upon it,
can have no limits to His power.