RETURN TO EUROPE.
The "_City of Berlin_"--The Inman Line--The Service at Roche's
Point--Queenstown Discomforts--A sorry Welcome Home.
_July 2nd._[B]--Up at 5.30. The Duke, Lady Green, Sir Henry, Mr.
Wright, Edward, all engaged in the transport department, with Mr.
Trowbridge in observation; incessant activity. The Queen Anne coach
was in readiness at 7.30, and in half an hour more we were discharged
at the Inman wharf. There was a great flotilla--five large steamers
leaving at the same period for Liverpool, and there was the usual
throng at the landing-places of friends to bid "good-bye" to those who
were about to cross the Atlantic. The steamer we had selected belonged
to the Inman line, and whatever there may have been wanting to the eye
on board, compared to the trimness and paint of the Cunard steamers,
there was nothing to regret in our accommodation or service. There were
so many passengers that the dining-saloon, illuminated by the electric
light--which was also used for the purpose of lighting the engine-room
and the lamps in the corridors--would not contain them all at the same
time, and so there were two messes for dinner. Epergnes filled with the
most beautiful flowers were ranged in order, and a rampant war-steed
composed of white roses was displayed on the table. I am not about to
give a log-book, or to trespass on the patience of my readers by an
account of such an ordinary event as a passage home. The second day
after we left New York was the anniversary of Independence, July 4th,
and the day was duly celebrated by the citizens of the United States,
who constituted the large majority of our fellow-passengers. The "stars
and stripes" were hoisted at the main, and the cabin was draped with
British and American flags. But there was no speechifying, and the
spread-eagle was content with moderate flights; a recitation and a song
or two, and the fire of champagne corks, being the only indications of
an extraordinary festivity.
About this time of the year the Atlantic, in the latitudes which
we traverse, is rather vexed of fogs; and if one be disposed to low
spirits, I know nothing which weighs upon him more than the sound of
the fog-horn. But what must it be for the captain, who is perforce
obliged to go at full speed, or as near to it as he can, with the
expectation every moment of some startled cry from the bow "Sail right
ahead!" Nor is it quite out of the running that an iceberg may be
taking a sail across his course. Fortunately we had no experiences of
the kind; and as night was falling on the 10th July land was in sight.
The lights of the Fastnet were seen through drifting haze, and about 10
o'clock at night the "_City of Berlin_" steamed through a rising sea,
with a strong beam wind, into the roadstead of Roche's Point, burned
her rockets, and laid-to for the steamer to take the mails, and those
passengers who had decided to land, on shore.
It was blowing freshly, and rain fell heavily; and as we looked down
from the lighted decks on the murky water, and made out the tug as
she paddled up to us, rising and falling on the waves, we were seized
with reasonable misgivings as to the propriety of leaving our ship and
taking to such a craft. I am bound to say that our experience more than
amply justified them.
I am writing these lines with a very faint hope that any amendment
will be introduced, in consequence of what I say, into the abominable
service between the American vessels off Roche's Point and Queenstown.
In fine weather and in daylight it is not of much consequence, perhaps,
what discomfort one may be exposed to in a short passage to the
shore; but to affront women and children with the misery which must be
experienced at night time and in bad weather, in the steamers employed
in the service, is little short of barbarous, if it be not indeed
altogether so.
After I had got down upon the deck of the little steamer and surveyed
the scene around me, I thought that it would have been much wiser to
have gone on with my friends to Liverpool; but I had some engagements
in Ireland, and so had the experience I was glad not to share with
my fellow-passengers, on whom I should have liked the old country
to have made a favourable impression. There was the great steamer,
with hundreds of waving hands, and the sound of friendly voices
bidding us "God speed," a blaze of lights, and almost as steady as
the solid earth, as the horrible little tug puffed away, and, getting
from under her lee at once, encountered the swell. If she could have
ridden over the water below, she certainly could not escape that which
came down from above; so that we were all pretty wet and cross and
miserable in the half-hour which elapsed before we reached the shore.
Fortunately, there were not many passengers who availed themselves
of the opportunity; but the deck of the steamer was crowded by poor
people returning to their native country. Accommodation for the
cabin passengers, except seats on the wet and sloppy decks, there was
none. There was a little cabin, stuffy and comfortless, and moreover
occupied by a couple of women who had come out to see friends by way
of a pleasure excursion, and who were suffering the last extremities
of sea-sickness. The spray broke over the luggage and passengers;
it was in such circumstances that the custom-house officers began
their search. One of them, opening my bag, which was unlocked, found
a small revolver. It was unloaded, and there was no ammunition for
it; but, nevertheless, it was seized, for I was "importing arms into
a proclaimed district without licence." A similar mishap occurred to
a Spanish officer, who was not quite so easily appeased as I was by
the assurance that the arm would be given up on proper application
to the police. His revolver, he insisted, was part of his uniform, a
necessity of his existence, and the authorities might as well seize
his epaulettes or spurs. However, my deadly weapon was restored to me
some days afterwards, after a correspondence with the custom-house,
and I dare say the Hidalgo was equally fortunate. These were incidents
to denote that we were in the midst of trouble. There was but a sorry
welcome for us when we landed at Queenstown. Not a car to be found,
that I could see; but there were a few porters, and the agent of the
hotel at the pier; and, commending my luggage to his care, I walked to
the establishment. It surely cannot be quite an unaccustomed event for
a steamer to arrive at Queenstown at that time of night! The last train
for Cork had gone; and it might have been expected that lighted rooms
and some sort of preparation would have awaited the travellers; for
every vessel that touches at Queenstown, coming from America, surely
lands a few people needing rest and refreshment? A demoralised waiter,
who appeared to think that such a thing had never happened in the
whole course of his experience, as the inroad of ten or twelve people
asking for supper and bedrooms, informed us that nothing could be done
until the gentleman who represented the hotel at the landing-place had
arrived; and so we sat on the stairs for half an hour, and were then
shown into a gaunt room, dimly lighted by gas. There was nothing ready.
The hungry people, by dint of patience and perseverance, eventually
succeeded about midnight in obtaining some poor substitute for supper
and scrambled to their beds.
I mention the circumstances in which my fellow-passengers and I were
landed at Queenstown, that those who are interested in promoting
the welfare of the port, and in making the route through Ireland
less thoroughly objectionable, may take steps to obviate the great
inconvenience to which travellers at present are certainly exposed.
Next morning I reached Mallow. I was but a few hours in the
"distressful country," but I found that things had gone from bad to
worse while we were in the States. I heard from my fellow-travellers
in the train that "Boycotting" had attained such a pitch in the South,
that all the relations and conditions of social life were exposed
to peril, if not destruction. And still, with the usual cheerfulness
of Irish landlords, accustomed, as it were, to these excesses of the
popular will, my informants talked of hunting, fishing, and shooting;
and I heard full accounts of the state of the rivers, and of the take
of fish which had made some of them happy. The County Cork, indeed,
had nearly a parallel in the "wild West." But what a contrast between
the state of public feeling, in respect to the outrages which were
perpetrated in each, in the country we had left, and that to which
I had returned! In the United States there was no attempt to justify
the men who were guilty of such deeds. In Ireland it was impossible to
obtain evidence or to convict the offenders. I am not going to close
this narrative of our little excursion with a political disquisition,
indeed I have not the materials for forming any opinion respecting the
breadth and depth of what may be called the Irish national movement in
the United States; but there seems to be a general vague impression
in America that as the British Government was not very wise and
equitable in its dealings with the people of the thirteen colonies
in the reign of King George, it is, somehow or other, at the present
moment, treating with harshness and injustice the whole of the Irish
race in Ireland. It is impossible not to recognise the fact that the
head, perhaps the heart, and certainly the purse of this development of
Irish discontent are in the United States. The arms, the body, and the
legs are in Ireland. During the whole time of our visit, although we
visited towns where eminent orators were lecturing upon Irish subjects,
and where representatives of the League were in session, there was not
a trace brought home to us of the strong sympathy which undoubtedly
exists in many American cities with the movement in Ireland. There
were accounts of the meetings in the newspapers, and now and then a few
leading articles on the subject; but we might have concluded, from what
we saw and heard generally, that the Irish question was of far less
importance to the American people than the religious views of Colonel
Ingersoll, or the discussions between the railway companies respecting
their fares. The recital of wrongs, most of which have been long ago
redressed, still reaches the ear and touches the heart of the American
public, and if the Irish population had not in many ways provoked or
excited the antagonism of the native Americans in the towns, and of
the Teutonic element which exercises such a powerful influence in
the country, there would be far greater sympathy for the supposed
oppression of the Sister Island by England. The fact that emigrants
come from Europe is accepted as a proof that the countries which they
leave are ill-governed; and Americans, in dealing with the emigration
question, are apt to forget the existence and nature of the forces
which induced their own ancestors to seek homes in the New World.
The _New York Times_ declared in an article last June, that there is no
essential difference between the two divisions of the Irish in America
and of the Irish in Ireland. The voyage across the Atlantic works no
transformation in Pat, and he is still as much an Irishman after his
plunge into an alien civilisation and taking out his papers as when
he stood on the old sod in Meath or Tipperary. "He cares no more for
the American eagle than for an owl; but a sprig of shamrock stirs him
to ecstasy. The name of Washington has no meaning for his ear; but
that of St. Patrick is a living and potent reality." That statement,
however, must be taken with qualification. There are to-day 90,000
acres of land in Minnesota as thoroughly Irish as if they were planted
in the centre of Connaught. There are Pats and Pats. Many of the most
wealthy and prosperous merchants, bankers, and landowners whom we met
in the West were not merely of Irish extraction, but born Irishmen,
and the extraordinary spectacle of Irish millionaires who knew how to
keep their money, and to add to it, too, may be seen in San Francisco
and elsewhere in the West. Many, less fortunate, have high positions
either in the army, or as politicians, or in the estimation of all
that is great and good in America--such as Mr. O'Conor--men who have
held aloof from politics, and who could not be tempted, even by the
Presidentship, to enter the arena of party strife. One convicted rebel
of 1840 now occupies a leading place at the American bar. I heard him
denounce the Land Bill in terms he might have used in denouncing the
atrocities of the Saxon in his hot days when O'Connell was king. The
influence which has been acquired in many parts of the Union by the
Irish immigration and by the descendants of immigrants has naturally
excited at various times the opposition and indignation of the American
born, and it has always been more or less opposed by the Teutons of
different nationalities who occupy such a powerful position in all
the great States of the West. But "the Native Party" is now either
dead or sleeping. A very distinguished officer and politician said
to me that he had at one time been a most eager and ardent adherent
of the policy of the Native American Party, but that when he saw how
earnestly and devotedly the Irish had come forward in defence of the
Union, how brilliantly they had fought, and how recklessly they had
sacrificed their lives, in 1861, he felt constrained to abandon his
principles, and to admit their free right to all the privileges of
American citizenship. I could not, however, but recollect that General
Richard Taylor, in his most amusing, able, and graphic work on that
same war, from the Confederate side of the question, bore the strongest
testimony to the services of the Irish in the army which fought under
the banner of the Slave States. In New York and in San Francisco
the Irish element has exercised almost supreme control in municipal
matters, and it may be said, without offence I hope, that, whether
it be owing to the opposition they have encountered or to a radical
deficiency which may be Irish rather than Celtic, their management has
not conduced to the comfort of the cities or to the pecuniary purity
of the Executive. In San Francisco there is a strong anti-Irish press
and much anti-Irish feeling. The 'Argonaut' repudiates the thraldom of
the Irish associations and factions in the Far West as strenuously as
the 'Times' and 'Tribune' do in the East. But notwithstanding all that
may be written and done, it is impossible to resist the influence of
numbers under a system of suffrage so large as that which exists in
the greater number of the American States. It was curious to read in
a Californian paper an appeal to England to suppress Irish agitation.
"We confidently believe," says the _Argonaut_, "that the wisdom of
its public men, the healthful condition of its public opinion, and
the strength of its military power will be sufficient to crush out the
Land League movement, which is but incipient rebellion. That England
will deal justly, firmly, and successfully with this effort of united
ecclesiasticism and Communism is the earnest wish of every intelligent
and independent mind that believes in free government, the guarantees
of property, the rights, and the personal liberty of man." However,
there are American parties, if not statesmen, whose wishes are by no
means directed to such a consummation, and we must take note of the
fact.