sincere wish to preserve the connection and to put an end to the
disputes between the two countries. In Virginia the revolutionary
movement was preceded and prepared by a democratic movement of the
yeomanry of the province, led by Patrick Henry, against the planter
aristocracy, and Washington was a conspicuous member of the latter. In
tastes, manners, instincts, and sympathies he might have been taken as
an admirable specimen of the better type of English country gentleman,
and he had a great deal of the strong conservative feeling which is
natural to the class. From the first promulgation of the Stamp Act,
however, he adopted a conviction that a recognition of the sole right of
the colonies to tax themselves was essential to their freedom, and as
soon as it became evident that Parliament was resolved at all hazards to
assert and exercise its authority of taxing America, he no longer
hesitated. An interesting letter to his wife, however, shows clearly
that he accepted the proffered command of the American forces with
extreme diffidence and reluctance, and solely because he believed that
it was impossible for him honorably to refuse it. He declined to accept
from Congress any emoluments for his service beyond the simple payment
of his expenses, of which he was accustomed to draw up most exact and
methodical accounts.
MIRABEAU.
BY THOMAS CARLYLE.
[Count Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, born 1749, died 1791; distinguished
as statesman and orator in the days preceding the French
Revolution. The heir of a noble name, his early life was one of
wild excess and eccentric adventure, but already marked by the
intellectual daring and brilliancy which afterward made his name
famous. In 1789 he was elected to the States-General from Aix as
representative, however, of the Third Estate (the Commons), not of
the nobility to which he belonged. Already strongly infected by
liberal theories, his energy, intellectual power and eloquence soon
made him the foremost figure in the great legislative body. At
first antagonistic to royal pretension, he finally recognized the
dangers of the coming revolution at an early stage, and attempted
to stem the current. His efforts to reconcile clashing interests
from 1789 to 1791 were characterized by the most splendid powers
of the orator and statesman. His premature death removed the only
barrier to the rising revolutionary tide. He was the idol of the
populace, and it is believed by many historians that, had he lived,
the French Revolution would have flowed in a different channel.]
Which of these six hundred individuals, in plain white cravat, that have
come up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their _king_?
For a king or leader they, as all bodies of men, must have; be their
work what it may, there is one man there who, by character, faculty,
position, is fittest of all to do it; that man, as future not yet
elected king, walks there among the rest. He with the thick black locks,
will it be? With the _hure_, as himself calls it, or black
_boar’s-head_, fit to be “shaken” as a senatorial portent? Through whose
shaggy beetle-brows, and rough-hewed, seamed, carbuncled face, there
look natural ugliness, small-pox, incontinence, bankruptcy--and burning
fire of genius; like comet-fire glaring fuliginous through murkiest
confusions? It is _Gabriel Honoré Riquetti Mirabeau_, the
world-compeller; man-ruling deputy of Aix! According to the Baroness de
Staël, he steps proudly along, though looked at askance here; and shakes
his black _chevelure_, or lion’s-mane, as if prophetic of great deeds.
Yes, reader, that is the type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was
of the last. He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his
virtues, in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man--and
intrinsically such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well. The National
Assembly were all different without that one; nay, he might say with the
old despot: “The National Assembly? I am that.”
Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood; for the Riquettis, or
Arrighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries
ago, and settled in Provence, where from generation to generation they
have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred; irascible,
indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an
intensity and activity that sometimes verged toward madness, yet did
not reach it. One ancient Riquetti, in mad fulfillment of a mad vow,
chains two mountains together; and the chain, with its “iron star of
five rays,” is still to be seen. May not a modern Riquetti _un_chain so
much, and set it drifting--which also shall be seen?
Destiny has work for that swart burly-headed Mirabeau; Destiny has
watched over him, prepared him from afar. Did not his grandfather, stout
_Col-d’Argent_ (Silver-Stock, so they named him), shattered and slashed
by seven-and-twenty wounds in one fell day, lie sunk together on the
bridge at Casano; while Prince Eugene’s cavalry galloped and regalloped
over him--only the flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle over that
loved head; and Vendôme, dropping his spy-glass, moaned out, “Mirabeau
is _dead_, then!” Nevertheless he was not dead: he awoke to breath, and
miraculous surgery--for Gabriel was yet to be. With his _silver-stock_
he kept his scarred head erect, through long years; and wedded; and
produced tough Marquis Victor, the _Friend of Men_. Whereby at last in
the appointed year, 1749, this long-expected rough-hewed Gabriel Honoré
did likewise see the light; roughest lion’s whelp ever littered of that
rough breed. How the old lion (for our old marquis too was lion-like,
most unconquerable, kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wondering on his
offspring; and determined to train him as no lion had yet been! It is in
vain, oh Marquis! This cub, though thou slay him and flay him, will not
learn to draw in dogcart of political economy, and be a _Friend of Men_;
he will not be thou, but must and will be himself, another than thou.
Divorce lawsuits, “whole family save one in prison, and three-score
_Lettres-de-Cachet_” for thy own sole use, do but astonish the world.
Our luckless Gabriel, sinned against and sinning, has been in the Isle
of Rhé and heard the Atlantic from his tower; in the castle of If, and
heard the Mediterranean at Marseilles. He has been in the fortress of
Joux, and forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the
dungeon of Vincennes--all by _Lettre-de-Cachet_ from his lion father. He
has been in Pontarlier jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed
fording estuaries of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of
men. He has pleaded before Aix parliaments (to get back his wife); the
public gathering on roofs, to see since they could not hear; “the
clatter-teeth (_claque-dents_)!” snarls singular old Mirabeau,
discerning in such admired forensic eloquence nothing but two clattering
jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.
But as for Gabriel Honoré, in these strange wayfarings, what has he not
seen and tried! From drill-sergeants to prime-ministers, to foreign and
domestic booksellers, all manner of men he has seen. All manner of men
he has gained; for, at bottom, it is a social, loving heart, that wild,
unconquerable one--more especially all manner of women. From the
archer’s daughter at Saintes to that fair young Sophie Madame Monnier,
whom he could not but “steal,” and be beheaded for--in effigy! For,
indeed, hardly since the Arabian prophet lay dead to Ali’s admiration
was there seen such a love-hero, with the strength of thirty men. In
war, again, he has helped to conquer Corsica; fought duels, irregular
brawls; horsewhipped calumnious barons. In literature, he has written on
“Despotism,” on “Lettres-de-Cachet”; Erotics Sapphic-Werterean,
Obscenities, Profanities; books on the “Prussian Monarchy,” on
“Cagliostro,” on “Calonne,” on “The Water-Companies of Paris”--each book
comparable, we will say, to a bituminous alarm-fire; huge, smoky,
sudden! The fire-pan, the kindling, the bitumen were his own; but the
lumber, of rags, old wood and nameless combustible rubbish (for all is
fuel to him), was gathered from hucksters and ass-panniers of every
description under heaven. Whereby, indeed, hucksters enough have been
heard to exclaim: Out upon it, the fire is _mine_!
Nay, consider it more generally, seldom had man such a talent for
borrowing. The idea, the faculty of another man he can make his; the man
himself he can make his. “All reflex and echo (_tout de reflet et de
réverbère_)!” snarls old Mirabeau, who can see, but will not. Crabbed
old Friend of Men! it is his sociality, his aggregative nature; and will
now be the quality of qualities for him. In that forty years’ “struggle
against despotism” he has gained the glorious faculty of _self-help_,
and yet not lost the glorious natural gift of _fellowship_, of being
helped. Rare union; this man can live self-sufficing--yet lives also in
the life of other men; can make men love him, work with him; a born king
of men!
But consider further how, as the old marquis still snarls, he has “made
away with (_humé_, swallowed, snuffed-up) all _formulas_”--a fact,
which, if we meditate it, will in these days mean much. This is no man
of system, then; he is only a man of instincts and insights. A man,
nevertheless, who will glare fiercely on any object, and see through it
and conquer it; for he has intellect, he has will, force beyond other
men. A man not with _logic-spectacles_, but with an _eye_! Unhappily
without decalogue, moral code, or theorem of any fixed sort, yet not
without a strong living soul in him, and sincerity there; a reality, not
an artificiality, not a sham! And so he, having struggled “forty years
against despotism,” and “made away with all formulas,” shall now become
the spokesman of a nation bent to do the same. For is it not precisely
the struggle of France also to cast off despotism; to make away with
_her_ old formulas--having found them naught, worn out, far from the
reality? She will make away with _such_ formulas--and even go _bare_, if
need be, till she have found new ones.
Toward such work, in such manner, marches he, this singular Riquetti
Mirabeau. In fiery rough figure, with black Samson-locks under the
slouch-hat, he steps along there. A fiery fuliginous mass, which could
not be choked and smothered, but would fill all France with smoke. And
now it has got _air_; it will burn its whole substance, its whole
smoke-atmosphere, too, and fill all France with flame. Strange lot!
Forty years of that smoldering, with foul fire-damp and vapor enough;
then victory over that--and like a burning mountain he blazes
heaven-high; and for twenty-three resplendent months pours out in flame
and molten fire-torrents all that is in him, the Pharos and wonder-sign
of an amazed Europe--and then lies hollow, cold forever! Pass on, thou
questionable Gabriel Honoré, the greatest of them all; in the whole
national deputies, in the whole nation, there is none like and none
second to thee.
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
BY WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY.
[An eminent orator and statesman, born 1749, died 1806. Fox was
noted as being the greatest man of his age in parliamentary debate.
He was the son of Sir Henry Fox, afterward Lord Holland, and was
elected to Parliament while scarcely yet of age. Fox was identified
with the Whig party, and contributed greatly to the success and
firm establishment of liberal and reform principles in politics,
though his private life was careless and dissolute. Though peerless
as a debater, Fox was unsuccessful in commanding public respect and
confidence during his short experiment as premier, and was for the
most of his career a leader of the opposition. The memory of Fox is
endeared to Americans by his sympathy with our revolutionary
struggle, his persistent efforts to prevent the war before it
began, and to secure an early concession of American independence
after the beginning of hostilities.]
Charles James Fox was the third son of the first Lord Holland, the old
rival of Pitt. He had entered Parliament irregularly and illegally in
November, 1768, when he had not yet completed his twentieth year, and in
February, 1770, he had been made a lord of the admiralty in the
Government of Lord North. The last political connection of Lord Holland
had been with Bute, and his son appears to have accepted the heritage of
his Tory principles without inquiry or reluctance. His early life was in
the highest degree discreditable, and gave very little promise of
greatness. His vehement and passionate temperament threw him speedily
into the wildest dissipation, and the almost insane indulgence of his
father gratified his every whim. When he was only fourteen Lord Holland
had brought him to the gambling-table at Spa, and, at a time when he had
hardly reached manhood, he was one of the most desperate gamblers of his
day. Lord Holland died in 1774, but before his death he is said to have
paid no less than one hundred and forty thousand pounds in extricating
his son from gambling debts. The death of his mother and the death of
his elder brother in the same year brought him a considerable fortune,
including an estate in the Isle of Thanet and the sinecure office of
clerk of the pells in Ireland, which was worth two thousand three
hundred pounds a year; but in a short time he was obliged to sell or
mortgage everything he possessed. He himself nicknamed his antechamber
the Jerusalem Chamber from the multitude of Jews who haunted it. Lord
Carlisle was at one time security for him to the extent of fifteen or
sixteen thousand pounds. During one of the most critical debates in 1781
his house was in the occupation of the sheriffs. He was even debtor for
small sums to chairmen and to waiters at Brooks’s; and although in the
latter part of his life he was partly relieved by a large subscription
raised by his friends, he never appears to have wholly emerged from the
money difficulties in which his gambling tastes had involved him. Nor
was this his only vice.
With some men the passion for gambling is an irresistible moral
monomania, the single morbid taint in a nature otherwise faultless and
pure. With Fox it was but one of many forms of an insatiable appetite
for vicious excitement, which continued with little abatement during
many years of his public career. In 1777, during a long visit to Paris,
he lived much in the society of Madame du Deffand, and that very acute
judge of character formed an opinion of him which was, on the whole,
very unfavorable. He has much talent, she said, much goodness of heart
and natural truthfulness, but he is absolutely without principle, he has
a contempt for every one who has principle, he lives in a perpetual
intoxication of excitement, he never gives a thought to the morrow, he
is a man eminently fitted to corrupt youth. In 1779, when he was already
one of the foremost politicians in England, he was one night drinking at
Almack’s with Lord Derby, Major Stanley, and a few other young men of
rank, when they determined at three in the morning to make a tour
through the streets, and amused themselves by instigating a mob to break
the windows of the chief members of the Government.
His profligacy with women during a great part of his life was notorious,
though he appears at last to have confined himself to his connection
with Mrs. Armistead, whom he secretly married in September, 1795. He was
the soul of a group of brilliant and profligate spendthrifts, who did
much to dazzle and corrupt the fashionable youth of the time; and in
judging the intense animosity with which George III always regarded him,
it must not be forgotten that his example and his friendship had
probably a considerable influence in encouraging the Prince of Wales in
those vicious habits and in that undutiful course of conduct which
produced so much misery in the palace and so much evil in the nation.
One of the friends of Charles Fox summed up his whole career in a few
significant sentences. “He had three passions--women, play, and
politics. Yet he never formed a creditable connection with a woman. He
squandered all his means at the gaming-table, and, except for eleven
months, he was invariably in opposition.”
That a man of whom all this can be truly said should have taken a high
and honorable place in English history, and should have won for himself
the perennial love and loyalty of some of the best Englishmen of his
time, is not a little surprising, for a life such as I have described
would with most men have destroyed every fiber of intellectual energy
and of moral worth. But in truth there are some characters which nature
has so happily compounded that even vice is unable wholly to degrade
them, and there is a charm of manner and of temper which sometimes
accompanies the excesses of a strong animal nature that wins more
popularity in the world than the purest and the most self-denying
virtue. Of this truth Fox was an eminent example. With a herculean
frame, with iron nerves, with that happy vividness and buoyancy of
temperament that can ever throw itself passionately into the pursuits
and the impressions of the hour, and can then cast them aside without an
effort, he combined one of the sweetest of human tempers, one of the
warmest of human hearts.
Nothing in his career is more remarkable than the spell which he cast
over men who in character and principles were as unlike as possible to
himself. “He is a man,” said Burke, “made to be loved, of the most
artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the
extreme, of a temper mild and placable to a fault, without one drop of
gall in his whole constitution.” “The power of a superior man,” said
Gibbon, “was blended in his attractive character with the softness and
simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly
exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.” “He
possessed,” said Erskine, “above all men I ever knew, the most gentle,
and yet the most ardent spirit.” He retained amid all his vices a
capacity for warm and steady friendship, a capacity for struggling
passionately and persistently in opposition, for an unpopular cause; a
purity of taste and a love of literature which made him, with the
exception of Burke, the foremost scholar among the leading members of
the House of Commons; an earnestness, disinterestedness, and simplicity
of character which was admitted and admired even by his political
opponents.
He resembled Bolingbroke in his power of passing at once from scenes of
dissipation into the House of Commons, and in retaining in public
affairs during the most disorderly periods of his private life all his
soundness of judgment and all his force of eloquence and of decision.
Gibbon described how he “prepared himself” for one important debate by
spending twenty-two previous hours at the hazard table and losing eleven
thousand pounds. Walpole extols the extraordinary brilliancy of the
speech which he made on another occasion, when he had but just arrived
from Newmarket and had been sitting up drinking the whole of the
preceding night, and he states that in the early period of his brilliant
opposition to the American policy of North he was rarely in bed before
five in the morning, or out of it before two in the afternoon. Yet, like
Bolingbroke, he never lost the taste and passion for study even at the
time when he was most immersed in a life of pleasure.
At Eton and Oxford he had been a very earnest student, and few of his
contemporaries can have had a wider knowledge of the imaginative
literatures of Greece, Italy, or France. He was passionately fond of
poetry, and a singularly delicate and discriminating critic; but he
always looked upon literature chiefly from its ornamental and
imaginative side. Incomparably the most important book relating to the
art of government which appeared during his lifetime was the “Wealth of
Nations,” but Fox once owned that he had never read it; and the history
which was his one serious composition added nothing to his reputation.
In books, however, he found an unfailing solace in trouble and
disappointment. One morning, when one of his friends having heard that
Fox on the previous night had been completely ruined at the
gaming-table, went to visit and console him, he found him tranquilly
reading Herodotus in the original. “What,” he said, “would you have a
man do who has lost his last shilling?”
His merits as a politician can only he allowed with great deductions and
qualifications. But little stress should indeed be laid on the sudden
and violent change in his political principles, which was faintly
foreshadowed in 1772 and fully accomplished in 1774, though that change
did undoubtedly synchronize with his personal quarrel with Lord North.
Changes of principle and policy, which at forty or fifty would indicate
great instability of character, are very venial at twenty-four or
twenty-five, and from the time when Fox joined the Whig party his career
through long years of adversity and of trial was singularly consistent.
I can not, however, regard a politician either as a great statesman or a
great party leader who left so very little of permanent value behind
him, who offended so frequently and so bitterly the national feelings of
his countrymen, who on two memorable occasions reduced his party to the
lowest stage of depression, and who failed so signally during a long
public life in winning the confidence of the nation.
His failure is the more remarkable as one of the features most
conspicuous both in his speeches and his letters is the general
soundness of his judgment, and his opinions during the greater part of
his life were singularly free from every kind of violence, exaggeration,
and eccentricity. Much of it was due to his private life, much to his
divergence from popular opinion on the American question and on the
question of the French Revolution, and much also to an extraordinary
deficiency in the art of party management, and to the frequent
employment of language which, though eminently adapted to the immediate
purposes of debate, was certain from its injudicious energy to be
afterward quoted against him. Like more than one great master of words,
he was trammeled and injured at every stage of his career by his own
speeches. The extreme shock which the disastrous coalition of 1784 gave
to the public opinion of England was largely, if not mainly, due to the
outrageous violence of the language with which Fox had in the preceding
years denounced Lord North, and a similar violence made his breach with
the court irrevocable, and greatly aggravated his difference with the
nation on the question of the French Revolution.
But if his rank as a statesman and as a party leader is by no means of
the highest order, he stood, by the concurrent testimony of all his
contemporaries, in the very first line, if not in the very first place,
among English parliamentary debaters. He threw the whole energy of his
character into his career, and he practiced it continually till he
attained a dexterity in debate which to his contemporaries appeared
little less than miraculous. “During five whole sessions,” he once said,
“I spoke every night but one, and I regret only that I did not speak on
that night.” With a delivery that in the beginning of his speeches was
somewhat slow and hesitating, with little method, with great repetition,
with no grace of gesture, with an utter indifference to the mere oratory
of display, thinking of nothing but how to convince and persuade the
audience who were immediately before him, never for a moment forgetting
the vital issue, never employing an argument which was not completely
level with the apprehensions of his audience, he possessed to the very
highest degree the debating qualities which an educated political
assembly of Englishmen most highly value.