THE SENATOR'S SECOND LETTER.
In the mean time our friend the Senator, up in London, was much
distracted in his mind, finding no one to sympathise with him in his
efforts, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, always brave
against others, and yet with a sad doubt in his own mind whether it
could be possible that he should always be right and everybody around
him wrong.
Coming away from Mr. Mainwaring's dinner he had almost quarrelled
with John Morton, or rather John Morton had altogether quarrelled
with him. On their way back from Dillsborough to Bragton the minister
elect to Patagonia had told him, in so many words, that he had
misbehaved himself at the clergyman's house. "Did I say anything that
was untrue?" asked the Senator--"Was I inaccurate in my statements?
If so no man alive will be more ready to recall what he has said and
to ask for pardon." Mr. Morton endeavoured to explain to him that it
was not his statements which were at fault so much as the opinions
based on them and the language in which those opinions were given.
But the Senator could not be made to understand that a man had not
a right to his opinions, and a right also to the use of forcible
language as long as he abstained from personalities. "It was
extremely personal,--all that you said about the purchase of
livings," said Morton. "How was I to know that?" rejoined the
Senator. "When in private society I inveigh against pickpockets
I cannot imagine, sir, that there should be a pickpocket in the
company." As the Senator said this he was grieving in his heart at
the trouble he had occasioned, and was almost repenting the duties
he had imposed on himself; but, yet, his voice was bellicose and
antagonistic. The conversation was carried on till Morton found
himself constrained to say that though he entertained great personal
respect for his guest he could not go with him again into society.
He was ill at the time,--though neither he himself knew it nor the
Senator. On the next morning Mr. Gotobed returned to London without
seeing his host, and before the day was over Mr. Nupper was at
Morton's bedside. He was already suffering from gastric fever.
The Senator was in truth unhappy as he returned to town. The intimacy
between him and the late Secretary of Legation at his capital had
arisen from a mutual understanding between them that each was to be
allowed to see the faults and to admire the virtues of their two
countries, and that conversation between them was to be based on
the mutual system. But nobody can, in truth, endure to be told of
shortcomings,--either on his own part or on that of his country. He
himself can abuse himself, or his country; but he cannot endure it
from alien lips. Mr. Gotobed had hardly said a word about England
which Morton himself might not have said,--but such words coming
from an American had been too much even for the guarded temper of an
unprejudiced and phlegmatic Englishman. The Senator as he returned
alone to London understood something of this,--and when a few days
later he heard that the friend who had quarrelled with him was ill,
he was discontented with himself and sore at heart.
But he had his task to perform, and he meant to perform it to the
best of his ability. In his own country he had heard vehement abuse
of the old land from the lips of politicians, and had found at the
same time almost on all sides great social admiration for the people
so abused. He had observed that every Englishman of distinction was
received in the States as a demigod, and that some who were not
very great in their own land had been converted into heroes in his.
English books were read there; English laws were obeyed there;
English habits were cultivated, often at the expense of American
comfort. And yet it was the fashion among orators to speak of
the English as a worn-out, stupid and enslaved people. He was a
thoughtful man and all this had perplexed him;--so that he had
obtained leave from his State and from Congress to be absent during
a part of a short Session, and had come over determined to learn as
much as he could. Everything he heard and almost everything he saw
offended him at some point. And, yet in the midst of it all, he was
conscious that he was surrounded by people who claimed and made good
their claims to superiority. What was a lord, let him be ever so rich
and have ever so many titles? And yet, even with such a popinjay as
Lord Rufford, he himself felt the lordship. When that old farmer at
the hunt breakfast had removed himself and his belongings to the
other side of the table the Senator, though aware of the justice of
his cause, had been keenly alive to the rebuke. He had expressed
himself very boldly at the rector's house at Dillsborough, and had
been certain that not a word of real argument had been possible
in answer to him. But yet he left the house with a feeling almost
of shame, which had grown into real penitence before he reached
Bragton. He knew that he had already been condemned by Englishmen as
ill-mannered, ill-conditioned and absurd. He was as much alive as any
man to the inward distress of heart which such a conviction brings
with it to all sensitive minds. And yet he had his purpose and would
follow it out. He was already hard at work on the lecture which he
meant to deliver somewhere in London before he went back to his home
duties, and had made it known to the world at large that he meant to
say some sharp things of the country he was visiting.
Soon after his return to town he was present at the opening of
Parliament, Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office having seen
that he was properly accommodated with a seat. Then he went down
to the election of a member of Parliament in the little borough of
Quinborough. It was unfortunate for Great Britain, which was on its
trial, and unpleasant also for the poor Senator who had appointed
himself judge, that such a seat should have fallen vacant at that
moment. Quinborough was a little town of 3,000 inhabitants clustering
round the gates of a great Whig Marquis, which had been spared,--who
can say why?--at the first Reform Bill, and having but one member
had come out scatheless from the second. Quinborough still returned
its one member with something less than 500 constituents, and in
spite of household suffrage and the ballot had always returned the
member favoured by the Marquis. This nobleman, driven no doubt by
his conscience to make some return to the country for the favour
shown to his family, had always sent to Parliament some useful and
distinguished man who without such patronage might have been unable
to serve his country. On the present occasion a friend of the
people,--so called,--an unlettered demagogue such as is in England
in truth distasteful to all classes, had taken himself down to
Quinborough as a candidate in opposition to the nobleman's nominee.
He had been backed by all the sympathies of the American Senator who
knew nothing of him or his unfitness, and nothing whatever of the
patriotism of the Marquis. But he did know what was the population
and what the constituency of Liverpool, and also what were those
of Quinborough. He supposed that he knew what was the theory of
representation in England, and he understood correctly that hitherto
the member for Quinborough had been the nominee of that great
lord. These things were horrid to him. There was to his thinking a
fiction,--more than fiction, a falseness,--about all this which not
only would but ought to bring the country prostrate to the dust. When
the working-man's candidate, whose political programme consisted of a
general disbelief in all religions, received--by ballot!--only nine
votes from those 500 voters, the Senator declared to himself that the
country must be rotten to the core. It was not only that Britons were
slaves,--but that they "hugged their chains." To the gentleman who
assured him that the Right Honble. ---- ---- would make a much better
member of Parliament than Tom Bobster the plasterer from Shoreditch
he in vain tried to prove that the respective merits of the two men
had nothing to do with the question. It had been the duty of those
500 voters to show to the world that in the exercise of a privilege
entrusted to them for the public service they had not been under the
dictation of their rich neighbour. Instead of doing so they had,
almost unanimously, grovelled in the dust at their rich neighbour's
feet. "There are but one or two such places left in all England,"
said the gentleman. "But those one or two," answered the Senator,
"were wilfully left there by the Parliament which represented the
whole nation."
Then, quite early in the Session, immediately after the voting of
the address, a motion had been made by the Government of the day for
introducing household suffrage into the counties. No one knew the
labour to which the Senator subjected himself in order that he might
master all these peculiarities,--that he might learn how men became
members of Parliament, and how they ceased to be so, in what degree
the House of Commons was made up of different elements, how it came
to pass, that though there was a House of Lords, so many lords sat
in the lower chamber. All those matters which to ordinary educated
Englishmen are almost as common as the breath of their nostrils,
had been to him matter of long and serious study. And as the
intent student, who has zealously buried himself for a week among
commentaries and notes, feels himself qualified to question Porson
and to Be-Bentley Bentley, so did our Senator believe, while still
he was groping among the rudiments, that he had all our political
intricacies at his fingers' ends. When he heard the arguments
used for a difference of suffrage in the towns and counties,
and found that even they who were proposing the change were not
ready absolutely to assimilate the two and still held that rural
ascendancy,--feudalism as he called it,--should maintain itself by
barring a fraction of the House of Commons from the votes of the
majority, he pronounced the whole thing to be a sham. The intention
was, he said, to delude the people. "It is all coming," said the
gentleman who was accustomed to argue with him in those days. He
spoke in a sad vein, which was in itself distressing to the Senator.
"Why should you be in such a hurry?" The Senator suggested that if
the country delayed much longer this imperative task of putting its
house in order, the roof would have fallen in before the repairs were
done. Then he found that this gentleman too, avoided his company,
and declined to sit with him any more in the Gallery of the House of
Commons.
Added to all this was a private rankling sore in regard to Goarly
and Bearside. He had now learned nearly all the truth about Goarly,
and had learned also that Bearside had known the whole when he had
last visited that eminent lawyer's office. Goarly had deserted his
supporters and had turned evidence against Scrobby, his partner in
iniquity. That Goarly was a rascal the Senator had acknowledged.
So far the general opinion down in Rufford had been correct. But
he could get nobody to see,--or at any rate could get nobody to
acknowledge,--that the rascality of Goarly had had nothing to do
with the question as he had taken it up. The man's right to his own
land,--his right to be protected from pheasants and foxes, from
horses and hounds,--was not lessened by the fact that he was a poor
ignorant squalid dishonest wretch. Mr. Gotobed had now received a
bill from Bearside for £42 7_s._ 9_d._ for costs in the case, leaving
after the deduction of £15 already paid a sum of £27 7_s._ 9_d._
stated to be still due. And this was accompanied by an intimation
that as he, Mr. Gotobed, was a foreigner soon about to leave the
country, Mr. Bearside must request that his claim might be settled
quite at once. No one could be less likely than our Senator to leave
a foreign country without paying his bills. He had quarrelled with
Morton,--who also at this time was too ill to have given him much
assistance. Though he had become acquainted with half Dillsborough,
there was nobody there to whom he could apply. Thus he was driven to
employ a London attorney, and the London attorney told him that he
had better pay Bearside;--the Senator remembering at the time that
he would also have to pay the London attorney for his advice. He
gave this second lawyer authority to conclude the matter, and at
last Bearside accepted £20. When the London attorney refused to take
anything for his trouble, the Senator felt such conduct almost as an
additional grievance. In his existing frame of mind he would sooner
have expended a few more dollars than be driven to think well of
anything connected with English law.
It was immediately after he had handed over the money in liquidation
of Bearside's claim that he sat down to write a further letter to his
friend and correspondent Josiah Scroome. His letter was not written
in the best of tempers; but still, through it all, there was a desire
to be just, and an anxiety to abstain from the use of hard phrases.
The letter was as follows;--
Fenton's Hotel, St. James' Street, London,
Feb. 12, 187--.
MY DEAR SIR,
Since I last wrote I have had much to trouble me and
little perhaps to compensate me for my trouble. I told
you, I think, in one of my former letters that wherever I
went I found myself able to say what I pleased as to the
peculiarities of this very peculiar people. I am not now
going to contradict what I said then. Wherever I go I do
speak out, and my eyes are still in my head and my head
is on my shoulders. But I have to acknowledge to myself
that I give offence. Mr. Morton, whom you knew at the
British Embassy in Washington,--and who I fear is now
very ill,--parted from me, when last I saw him, in
anger because of certain opinions I had expressed in a
clergyman's house, not as being ill-founded but as being
antagonistic to the clergyman himself. This I feel to be
unreasonable. And in the neighbourhood of Mr. Morton's
house, I have encountered the ill will of a great
many,--not for having spoken untruth, for that I have
never heard alleged,--but because I have not been reticent
in describing the things which I have seen.
I told you, I think, that I had returned to Mr. Morton's
neighbourhood with the view of defending an oppressed
man against the power of the lord who was oppressing him.
Unfortunately for me the lord, though a scapegrace, spends
his money freely and is a hospitable kindly-hearted honest
fellow; whereas the injured victim has turned out to be a
wretched scoundrel. Scoundrel though he is, he has still
been ill used; and the lord, though good-natured, has
been a tyrant. But the poor wretch has thrown me over and
sold himself to the other side and I have been held up to
ignominy by all the provincial newspapers. I have also had
to pay through the nose $175 for my quixotism--a sum which
I cannot very well afford. This money I have lost solely
with the view of defending the weak, but nobody with whom
I have discussed the matter seems to recognise the purity
of my object. I am only reminded that I have put myself
into the same boat with a rascal.
I feel from day to day how thoroughly I could have enjoyed
a sojourn in this country if I had come here without any
line of duty laid down for myself. Could I have swum with
the stream and have said yes or no as yes or no were
expected, I might have revelled in generous hospitality.
Nothing can be pleasanter than the houses here if you will
only be as idle as the owners of them. But when once you
show them that you have an object, they become afraid
of you. And industry,--in such houses as I now speak
of,--is a crime. You are there to glide through the
day luxuriously in the house,--or to rush through it
impetuously on horseback or with a gun if you be a
sportsman. Sometimes, when I have asked questions about
the most material institutions of the country, I have felt
that I was looked upon with absolute loathing. This is
disagreeable.
And yet I find it more easy in this country to sympathise
with the rich than with the poor. I do not here describe
my own actual sympathies, but only the easiness with which
they might be evoked. The rich are at any rate pleasant.
The poor are very much the reverse. There is no backbone
of mutiny in them against the oppression to which they are
subjected; but only the whining of a dog that knows itself
to be a slave and pleads with his soft paw for tenderness
from his master;--or the futile growlings of the caged
tiger who paces up and down before his bars and has
long ago forgotten to attempt to break them. They are a
long-suffering race, who only now and then feel themselves
stirred up to contest a point against their masters on the
basis of starvation. "We won't work but on such and such
terms, and, if we cannot get them, we will lie down and
die." That I take it is the real argument of a strike. But
they never do lie down and die. If one in every parish,
one in every county, would do so, then the agricultural
labourers of the country might live almost as well as the
farmers' pigs.
I was present the other day at the opening of Parliament.
It was a very grand ceremony,--though the Queen did not
find herself well enough to do her duty in person. But the
grandeur was everything. A royal programme was read from
the foot of the throne, of which even I knew all the
details beforehand, having read them in the newspapers.
Two opening speeches were then made by two young
lords,--not after all so very young,--which sounded like
lessons recited by schoolboys. There was no touch of
eloquence,--no approach to it. It was clear that either of
them would have been afraid to attempt the idiosyncrasy of
passionate expression. But they were exquisitely dressed
and had learned their lessons to a marvel. The flutter of
the ladies' dresses, and the presence of the peers, and
the historic ornamentation of the house were all very
pleasant;--but they reminded me of a last year's nut,
of which the outside appearance has been mellowed and
improved by time,--but the fruit inside has withered away
and become tasteless.
Since that I have been much interested with an attempt,--a
further morsel of cobbling,--which is being done to
improve the representation of the people. Though it be
but cobbling, if it be in the right direction one is glad
of it. I do not know how far you may have studied the
theories and system of the British House of Commons, but,
for myself, I must own that it was not till the other day
that I was aware that, though it acts together as one
whole, it is formed of two distinct parts. The one part
is sent thither from the towns by household suffrage; and,
this, which may be said to be the healthier of the two
as coming more directly from the people, is nevertheless
disfigured by a multitude of anomalies. Population hardly
bears upon the question. A town with 15,000 inhabitants
has two members,--whereas another with 400,000 has only
three, and another with 50,000 has one. But there is
worse disorder than this. In the happy little village
of Portarlington 200 constituents choose a member among
them, or have one chosen for them by their careful
lord;--whereas in the great city of London something like
25,000 registered electors only send four to Parliament.
With this the country is presumed to be satisfied. But
in the counties, which by a different system send up
the other part of the House, there exists still a heavy
property qualification for voting. There is, apparent to
all, a necessity for change here;--but the change proposed
is simply a reduction of the qualification, so that
the rural labourer,--whose class is probably the
largest, as it is the poorest, in the country,--is still
disfranchised, and will remain so, unless it be his chance
to live within the arbitrary line of some so-called
borough. For these boroughs, you must know, are sometimes
strictly confined to the aggregations of houses which
constitute the town, but sometimes stretch out their arms
so as to include rural districts. The divisions I am
assured were made to suit the aspirations of political
magnates when the first Reform Bill was passed! What is
to be expected of a country in which such absurdities are
loved and sheltered?
I am still determined to express my views on these matters
before I leave England, and am with great labour preparing
a lecture on the subject. I am assured that I shall not
be debarred from my utterances because that which I say
is unpopular. I am told that as long as I do not touch
Her Majesty or Her Majesty's family, or the Christian
religion,--which is only the second Holy of Holies,--I may
say anything. Good taste would save me from the former
offence, and my own convictions from the latter. But my
friend who so informs me doubts whether many will come
to hear me. He tells me that the serious American is not
popular here, whereas the joker is much run after. Of
that I must take my chance. In all this I am endeavouring
to do a duty,--feeling every day more strongly my own
inadequacy. Were I to follow my own wishes I should return
by the next steamer to my duties at home.
Believe me to be,
Dear Sir,
With much sincerity,
Yours truly,
ELIAS GOTOBED.
The Honble. Josiah Scroome,
125 Q Street,
Minnesota Avenue,
Washington.