I had often, and with much pleasure, heard intelligent Americans
describe the restless anxiety with which they approached the shores of
Britain; the almost painful degree of excitement created by the various
associations crowding on the imagination, and jostling each other for
supremacy, as they looked for the first time on their father-land.
The veneration with which they pictured her ivy-clad towers, and the
throb with which they caught the names of places long familiar to memory
and hallowed by historical events, to all of which they felt their claim
inherited from their ancestors, whether from Thames, or Tweed, or
Shannon.
To all of this I have, I say, listened with great pleasure, and with a
full sympathy in feelings at once natural and generous, yet can I hardly
admit them to possess more force, or their nature to be more exciting,
or richer in the material whence Fancy frames her chequered web, than
the recollections awakened in a well-stored imagination by a near
approach to the shores of America. Although differing widely, these are
to every philosophic mind, especially to a subject of Britain, at least
equally stirring.
When it is first remembered, that on all the long line of coast
extending from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico there was not, in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, one European family settled, or
a Christian voice that woke the forest with the name of God,--not a
civilized man from Canada to Florida, who placed his foot upon the soil
to call it home. Yet now, within this immense range may be reckoned the
mightiest States of the Union; and over its wide circumference are
scattered great cities, towns aspiring to be cities, and villages fast
growing into busy towns--possessing a population which for wealth hardly
need yield to the oldest countries of Europe, and in the general
diffusion of intelligence and education offering indeed to most of these
an example worthy of their imitation.
When it is called to mind that the waters of her vast line of coast, now
daily ploughed by thousands of busy prows, were at this same not very
distant day as desert as her swamps and as unfurrowed, except where the
canoe of the scared Indian left its light track behind, when driven from
the shelter of some near river:--silent and shadowless, except when the
sail of the adventurous explorer flitted slowly over the waves, as he
steered his doubtful course filled with the many wonders seen and
fancied by his watchful, credulous crew,--some band of daring spirits
tempted hither in search of gold, or wild adventure, perhaps to perish
suddenly by the arrow of the savage, or slowly to wither beneath the
influence of the climate--God! what wonderful changes have been wrought
here, and what a living marvel is this land! Changes, which it has
required the labour of ages to accomplish elsewhere, have here been
effected by the energy of a few busy generations, whose toil was begun
and carried on amid want, and sickness, and a struggle against ignorance
and neglect without, as well as a war of extermination within; a war
which may be said to exist even to this day, for yet is the ever-growing
frontier from time to time awakened by the night whoop of the savage and
the answering shot of the hardy pioneer.
Then come the recollections connected with the war of the
Revolution,--the noble declaration of independence, for truly noble it
was: no dark compact of a crew of ruffian conspirators, but a generous
bond that their aggrieved country should be freed, given by a band of
citizen gentlemen, husbands, fathers, and brothers, to the fulfilment of
the which they pledged unto each other their lives, their fortunes, and
their sacred honour; and having placed their hands to this bold deed,
they gave it to their people and the world.
Their bond is cancelled, and they are dismissed beyond the hearing of
praise or censure; yet shall these, the names of their country's
fathers, be read and blessed by ages yet to come, and shall stand for
ever, each a synonyme for patriot honour.
Washington, and the long wars he conducted through defeat and disaster
to such a glorious end for his country, together with that large list of
famous names connected with those and later events formed no mean
subject for reverie, and these were the fancies conjured through my
brain by a near approach to the shores of America. I confess I
contemplated her triumphs with a participation in her glory where
England was not a party, with no other feeling than regret when she
was,--with regret that the hands of brothers should ever have been
opposed in deadly enmity.
I give back in love of country to no man, and to no foe under heaven
would I yield up one jot due to Britain's well-won supremacy, but to the
United States we may surely spare without envy the leaf she so hardily
plucked from our thick laurels. The glory of having given her birth,
language, and laws, she cannot rob us of; this will endure until her
mountains crumble: and all else she has acquired at the expense of
Britain, Britain can well spare, and still stand foremost on the roll of
Fame.