you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say
what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is
not in America,--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot
be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or
hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I
thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has
never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that, that
there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,' he
sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal
fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after
such a life as mine! But tell me,--tell me something,--tell me
everything, Danforth, before I die!'
"Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told
him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who
was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this
dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole
manhood's life, the madness of a boy's treason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I
will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'
"O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my
hand and said, 'God bless you!' 'Tell me their names,' he said, and he
pointed to the stars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. My father
lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and
Mississippi,--that was where Fort Adams is,--they make twenty. But where
are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I
hope?'
"Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good
order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw
them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about
Texas, told me how his brother died there; he had marked a gold cross
where he supposed his brother's grave was; and he had guessed at Texas.
Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;--that, he said,
he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on
that shore, though the ships were there so much. 'And the men,' said he,
laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then he went
back--heavens, how far!--to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done
to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever
tried again,--and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed.
But in a moment that was over, and he said, 'God forgive me, for I am
sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,--told me the true
story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java,--asked about dear
old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly,
and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.
"How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well
as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and
the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told
him all I could think about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas,
and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked, who was in
command of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him it was a very gallant
officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to
establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?' I
worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less,
above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now.
'It must be at old Vick's plantation,' said he; 'well, that is a
change!'
"I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half
a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I
told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats,
and railroads, and telegraphs,--of inventions, and books, and
literature,--of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School,--but
with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was
Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years!
"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I
told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He
said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at
some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like
himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from
the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have
brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those
regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my
visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman,
Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring
Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the
pediment, and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington. Ingham, I
told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his
country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him
a word about this infernal Rebellion!
"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more
and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a
glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away.
Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,'
which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right
place,--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and
I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, 'For ourselves and our
country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that notwithstanding our
manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy
marvellous kindness,'--and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he
turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar
to me,--'Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and
bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in
authority,'--and the rest of the Episcopal Collect. 'Danforth,' said he,
'I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five
years.' And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him
and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am
gone.' And I went away.
"But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would
sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.
"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had
breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to
his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of Cincinnati.
"We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper, at the place
where he had marked the text,--
"'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.'
"On this slip of paper he had written,--
"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not
some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that
my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it,--
"'IN MEMORY OF
"'PHILIP NOLAN,
"'LIEUTENANT IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES.
"'He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man
deserved less at her hands.'"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE.
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
There is no great event in modern history, or, perhaps it may be said
more broadly, none in all history, from its earliest records, less
generally known, or more striking to the imagination, than the flight
eastward of a principal Tartar nation across the boundless _steppes_ of
Asia in the latter half of the last century. The _terminus a quo_ of
this flight and the _terminus ad quem_ are equally magnificent,--the
mightiest of Christian thrones being the one, the mightiest of pagan the
other; and the grandeur of these two terminal objects is harmoniously
supported by the romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness
of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execution we read an
expression of the wild, barbaric character of the agents. In the unity
of purpose connecting this myriad of wills, and in the blind but
unerring aim at a mark so remote, there is something which recalls to
the mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations of the
swallow or the life-withering marches of the locust. Then, again, in the
gloomy vengeance of Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the
rear and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of
Miltonic images,--such, for instance, as that of the solitary hand
pursuing through desert spaces and through ancient chaos a rebellious
host, and overtaking with volleying thunders those who believed
themselves already within the security of darkness and of distance.
We shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this event with other
great national catastrophes as to the magnitude of the suffering; but it
may also challenge a comparison with similar events under another
relation, viz. as to its dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in
romance or history, can sustain a close collation with this as to the
complexity of its separate interests. The great outline of the
enterprise, taken in connection with the operative motives, hidden or
avowed, and the religious sanctions under which it was pursued, give to
the case a triple character: 1st. That of a conspiracy, with as close a
unity in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest in the moving
characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as belongs to Venice Preserved
or to the Fiesco of Schiller. 2dly. That of a great military expedition,
offering the same romantic features of vast distances to be traversed,
vast reverses to be sustained, untried routes, enemies obscurely
ascertained, and hardships too vaguely prefigured, which mark the
Egyptian expedition of Cambyses; the anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and
the subsequent retreat of the ten thousand to the Black Sea; the
Parthian expeditions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus and
Julian; or (as more disastrous than any of them, and in point of space,
as well as in amount of forces, more extensive) the Russian anabasis
and katabasis of Napoleon. 3dly. That of a religious exodus, authorized
by an oracle venerated throughout many nations of Asia,--an exodus
therefore, in so far resembling the great scriptural exodus of the
Israelites under Moses and Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar
distinction of carrying along with them their entire families, women,
children, slaves, their herds of cattle and of sheep, their horses and
their camels.
This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests it with a more
comprehensive interest; but the dramatic interest which we ascribed to
it, or its fitness for a stage representation, depends partly upon the
marked variety and the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and
partly upon the succession of scenical situations. Even the _steppes_,
the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy deserts, are not beyond
the scale of our modern representative powers, as often called into
action in the theatres both of Paris and London; and the series of
situations unfolded, beginning with the general conflagration on the
Wolga; passing thence to the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it
literally was in its commencement); to the Tartar siege of the Russian
fortress Koulagina; the bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the
mountain passes at Ouchim; the surprisal by the Bashkirs and the
advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau; the private conspiracy at
this point against the khan; the long succession of running fights; the
parting massacres at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes of the Chinese;
and, finally, the tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at the hunting
lodge of the Chinese emperor,--all these situations communicate a
_scenical_ animation to the wild romance, if treated dramatically;
whilst a higher and a philosophic interest belongs to it as a case of
authentic history, commemorating a great revolution, for good and for
evil, in the fortunes of a whole people,--a people semi-barbarous, but
simple hearted, and of ancient descent.
* * * * *
On the 21st of January, 1761, the young Prince Oubacha assumed the
sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the death of his father. Some part of the
power attached to this dignity he had already wielded since his
fourteenth year, in quality of vice-khan, by the express appointment,
and with the avowed support, of the Russian government. He was now about
eighteen years of age, amiable in his personal character, and not
without titles to respect in his public character as a sovereign prince.
In times more peaceable, and amongst a people more entirely civilized or
more humanized by religion, it is even probable that he might have
discharged his high duties with considerable distinction; but his lot
was thrown upon stormy times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes
whose native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of superstition,
and by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit of their own merit
absolutely unparalleled; whilst the circumstances of their hard and
trying position under the jealous _surveillance_ of an irresistible lord
paramount, in the person of the Russian czar, gave a fiercer edge to the
natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and irritated its
gloomier qualities into action under the restless impulses of suspicion
and permanent distrust. No prince could hope for a cordial allegiance
from his subjects, or a peaceful reign under the circumstances of the
case; for the dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of
this nature: _wanting_ the sanction and support of the czar, he was
inevitably too weak from without to command confidence from his subjects
or resistance to his competitors. On the other hand, _with_ this kind of
support, and deriving his title in any degree from the favor of the
imperial court, he became almost in that extent an object of hatred at
home and within the whole compass of his own territory. He was at once
an object of hatred for the past, being a living monument of national
independence ignominiously surrendered, and an object of jealousy for
the future, as one who had already advertised himself to be a fitting
tool for the ultimate purposes (whatsoever those might prove to be) of
the Russian court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck sceptre under the
heaviest weight of prejudice from the unfortunate circumstances of his
position, it might have been expected that Oubacha would have been
pre-eminently an object of detestation; for, besides his known
dependence upon the cabinet of St. Petersburg, the direct line of
succession had been set aside, and the principle of inheritance
violently suspended, in favor of his own father, so recently as nineteen
years before the era of his own accession, consequently within the
lively remembrance of the existing generation. He, therefore, almost
equally with his father, stood within the full current of the national
prejudices, and might have anticipated the most pointed hostility. But
it was not so; such are the caprices in human affairs, that he was even,
in a moderate sense, popular,--a benefit which wore the more cheering
aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he owed it
exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness and affability, as
well as to the beneficence of his government. On the other hand, to
balance this unlooked-for prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met
with a rival in popular favor--almost a competitor--in the person of
Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to the throne, and,
perhaps it might be said, with equal pretensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a
direct descendant of the same royal house as himself, through a
different branch. On public grounds his claim stood, perhaps, on a
footing equally good with that of Oubacha; whilst his personal
qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philosophical
observer most odious and repulsive, promised the most effectual aid to
the dark purposes of an intriguer or a conspirator, and were generally
fitted to win a popular support precisely in those points where Oubacha
was most defective. He was much superior in external appearance to his
rival on the throne, and so far better qualified to win the good opinion
of a semi-barbarous people; whilst his dark intellectual qualities of
Machiavelian dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and perfidy which knew
no touch of remorse, were admirably calculated to sustain any ground
which he might win from the simple-hearted people with whom he had to
deal and from the frank carelessness of his unconscious competitor.
At the very outset of his treacherous career Zebek-Dorchi was
sagacious enough to perceive that nothing could be gained by open
declaration of hostility to the reigning prince. The choice had been a
deliberate act on the part of Russia; and Elizabeth Petrowna was not
the person to recall her own favors with levity or upon slight
grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared his enmity towards his
relative on the throne, could have had no effect but that of arming
suspicions against his own ulterior purposes in a quarter where it was
most essential to his interest that for the present all suspicion
should be hoodwinked. Accordingly, after much meditation, the course
he took for opening his snares was this: He raised a rumor that his
own life was in danger from the plots of several _saissang_ (that
is, Kalmuck nobles), who were leagued together under an oath to
assassinate him; and immediately after, assuming a well-counterfeited
alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, followed by sixty-five tents. From this
place he kept up a correspondence with the imperial court; and, by way
of soliciting his cause more effectually, he soon repaired in person
to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to personal conferences with the
cabinet, he found no difficulty in winning over the Russian councils
to a concurrence with some of his political views, and thus covertly
introducing the point of that wedge which was finally to accomplish
his purposes. In particular, he persuaded the Russian government to
make a very important alteration in the constitution of the Kalmuck
state council, which in effect reorganized the whole political
condition of the state and disturbed the balance of power as
previously adjusted. Of this council--in the Kalmuck language called
_sarga_--there were eight members, called _sargatchi_; and hitherto it
had been the custom that these eight members should be entirely
subordinate to the khan; holding, in fact, the ministerial character
of secretaries and assistants, but in no respect ranking as
co-ordinate authorities. That had produced some inconveniences in
former reigns; and it was easy for Zebek-Dorchi to point the jealousy
of the Russian court to others more serious which might arise in
future circumstances of war or other contingencies. It was resolved,
therefore, to place the _sargatchi_ henceforward on a footing of
perfect independence, and, therefore (as regarded responsibility), on
a footing of equality with the khan. Their independence, however, had
respect only to their own sovereign; for towards Russia they were
placed in a new attitude of direct duty and accountability by the
creation in their favor of small pensions (three hundred rubles a
year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that day were more considerable
than might be supposed, and had a further value as marks of honorary
distinction emanating from a great empress. Thus far the purposes of
Zebek-Dorchi were served effectually for the moment; but, apparently,
it was only for the moment; since, in the further development of his
plots, this very dependency upon Russian influence would be the most
serious obstacle in his way. There was, however, another point
carried, which outweighed all inferior considerations, as it gave him
a power of setting aside discretionally whatsoever should arise to
disturb his plots,--he was himself appointed president and controller
of the _sargatchi_. The Russian court had been aware of his high
pretensions by birth, and hoped by this promotion to satisfy the
ambition which, in some degree, was acknowledged to be a reasonable
passion for any man occupying his situation.