character were alone employed in such situations, speak of the
reasons they had for distrusting the intentions of England, on the
subject of our independence, but I have lately been astonished
at hearing it suggested, here, that this government has not yet
absolutely abandoned the project of attempting re-colonization. It
is probable that this opinion is now exaggerated, but that such a
scheme did exist, until within the last fifteen or twenty years,
I make no doubt. There is a remarkable expression in an article
of the Edinburgh Review, that appeared shortly after the peace of
1815. I quote from memory, but the words were nearly these, and
as to the idea it is accurate, the subject of the article being
America—“_We presume that the project of re-colonization is at length
abandoned!_” Such a remark would not have been made causelessly. But
I have, myself, been present when this subject was discussed, in
Paris, by men who are in the secrets of states, and I well remember
the surprise I felt at hearing the possibility of re-colonization
suggested. On that occasion, when I gave the failure in 1776, as a
proof of the impracticability of such a project at this late day, I
was significantly reminded of the hundred millions that England had
subjugated in India.
One thing is certain; we estimate our own security, very differently
from what it is estimated here. It is the expectation of Europe
generally, and of England especially, that we shall separate; and
to this end, it is probable that the efforts of those who plot our
overthrow will be directed. Little, I might almost say nothing, is
known in America, of the means that are employed by the privileged
classes of Europe to maintain their ascendancy. We have heard a great
deal of the machinations of infidelity, and of the infamous schemes
of demagogues to overturn the existing order of things, in these
governments, but scarcely a whisper has been breathed against the
plots and inexcusable agencies that are universally attributed to
the friends of despotism and aristocracy, by the friends of liberty.
Little accustomed to think for ourselves, and with a corrupt and
interested press, we have lent greedy ears to _ex-parte_ testimony,
and, ready enough to oppose the principles of the Age of Reason and
of the Illuminati, we have overlooked the essential circumstance that
they are merely the reaction of extreme abuses, and that the root of
the evil lies deeper than the disgusting excesses which have been so
zealously paraded before our eyes. I can know no more of the past
than what I hear; but the fairest minded men of France have assured
me of their deep conviction, that the machinations of their enemies
were principally instrumental in bringing about the horrors of their
own revolution. No one pretends that it is unnatural for those who
have been ruthlessly depressed, to break out in acts of violence
when suddenly released, but they believe that agents were employed
to excite these passions to fury, and that, finding it impossible to
stay the torrent of revolution by resistance, the privileged here,
directed their schemes to bringing it into disrepute, by inciting
the people to acts that would be certain to offend humanity. One
anecdote related to me by General Lafayette, in person, I consider so
remarkable that it shall be repeated, substituting, however, initials
of names that do not apply to those that were actually mentioned, as
some of the parties are still living. I select this anecdote from a
hundred, because I so well know the integrity of the party from whom
it is derived, that I feel confident there is no exaggeration or
colouring in the account, and because it is, fortunately, in my power
to prove that I had it from General Lafayette, almost in the words in
which it is given to you.
We were conversing on the subject of the probable agency of the
monarchs and aristocrats of Europe, in bringing about the excesses
of the revolution. “Count N—— was in England during the peace of
Amiens,” said our venerable friend, “and he dined with Lord G——, one
of Mr. Pitt’s cabinet. They were standing together at a window of
the drawing-room, when Lord G—— pointed to a window of a house at a
little distance, and said “that is the window of the room in which
F—— lodged, when in England.” “F——,” exclaimed Count N——, “what can
you know, my Lord, of such a man as F——!” The English minister smiled
significantly, and replied “why, _we sent him to France_.”
By substituting for “Count N——” the name of a Frenchman who has been
a minister under nearly every government in France for the last forty
years, and whose private and public character is one of the best of
that country; for that of Lord G——, a well-known English statesman;
and that of F——, one of the greatest monsters to which the Reign of
Terror gave birth, you will have the story almost in the words in
which it was related to me by General Lafayette, who told me he had
it from Count N——, himself.
Had this anecdote appeared in one of the newspaper comments of
the day, I should think less of it, but coming as it did, from a
distinguished Frenchman, and he of better reputation than most of
the politicians of the period, to a man like Lafayette, who is so
perfectly free from the vice of attributing base motives to even
his enemies, and this in a free and friendly conversation, with no
apparent reason to misrepresent, I confess it has struck me as worthy
of more than ordinary consideration.
When we remember how natural it is to employ the most obvious
agencies in effecting our objects, one is not to be surprised
that the scheme of pushing the popular feelings into extremes,
should suggest itself, on such an occasion; and, as for any
restraint imposed by principles, men are so apt to shift a divided
responsibility from their own shoulders to those of their associates,
so ready to look for justification in the end, and always so much
disposed, in politics, to consider “_une faute_” more heinous than
“_un crime_,” that I have no difficulty in believing the story,
on the score of any moral scruples in the parties. The avowal
might cause surprise, but it was two old soldiers talking over the
different _ruses_ of their late campaigns, and surprising things of
the sort leak out in this way.
Mr. Huskisson was a student of medicine in Paris, at the commencement
of the French revolution. The French openly accuse him of having worn
the _bonnet rouge_, and of having belonged to the most exaggerated of
the Jacobins. They add that he was suddenly lost sight of, and when
next seen was in the employment of the British government. All this
may be true, however, and still no more than a natural consequence
of youth and inexperience. Had Mr. Huskisson been less equivocal
in his commercial ethics, and more consistent with his own avowed
principles, the circumstance would not have much weight with me, for
nothing is more natural than for a young mind to be carried away by
sentiments that appear to be generous; but I hold it to be a pretty
safe rule that the man who is jesuitical on any one fact, is to be
distrusted on all others. That Mr. Huskisson is self-contradicted and
insincere in his Free Trade doctrines, is as obvious as any moral
truth I know.
But, admitting that both these tales are idle, it would be folly
for an American to shut his eyes to the confidence with which even
the women, here, speak of the dismemberment of the Union. This is
the point to which our enemies will be certain to direct their
machinations; and if we wish “to calculate its value” to ourselves,
we have only to regard the importance that is attached to it, by our
enemies. You will judge of my surprise, when a young girl, under
twenty years, told me very cooly, in answer to some pleasantry that
had passed between us, on the subject of national power, “Oh, but
your Union will soon be dissolved!”
Mr. Cobbett, who, though any thing but authority in matters of fact,
is a shrewd thinker, and is accustomed to appreciate the means and
agencies of states, has just declared in his journal, that, unless
we abandon the protective policy, England ought to manifest her real
power, and “blow their boasted Union to the winds.” Here we have
a specimen of the ethics as well of the means employed, in such
matters, by politicians. Unless we abandon a legitimate policy of our
own, the social firebrand is to be lighted in our bosom! This savours
strongly of the principles contained in the anecdote of General
Lafayette. It will be said, however, that Mr. Cobbett is authority
for nothing. But other journals have said, in substance, the same
thing, and, I think, such is the tone of most political men, here.
I have said that we overrate our security. A people, as much in the
habit of looking to another nation for opinions, as our own, cannot
be otherwise than dependent, to a certain degree, on the mercy of
those who give them their impulses. No one can deny that we receive
from England a vast deal that is excellent and useful, and it will be
the cue of those who wish to influence us to our own injury, to mix
their poison so artfully with this wholesome nutriment, that the two
shall be swallowed together. Coupled with the most inflated boastings
about American literature, in the journals, we may constantly see
statements that such and such a work is republished in England,
or has gone to a second edition in this country, as the highest
eulogium that can be given. Much the greater proportion of our
writers still manifest a dependance on English opinion, a dread of
its censure, and a desire to secure its favour, in a way that cannot
easily be mistaken. God forbid! that any one should indulge in the
low calumnies that mark equally ignorance and vulgarity; but it is
painful to see the truckling manner in which flattery and homage are
interwoven in so many of our works, with a manifest design to secure
the favour of a people, who do not care to conceal their contempt. In
my own case, how often have I had occasion to see the influence of
this spirit, by having it tauntingly thrown into my teeth that such
and such abuse has appeared in some English journal—perhaps such and
such a puff, by way of flattery! There is not an American writer, at
this moment, who does not lie at the mercy of the English critics,
should they consider him of sufficient importance to notice; and
there are symptoms that this country begins to think seriously, if
indeed it has not long thought, of influencing the reputation of our
political men. That such are their own opinions of their own power is
sufficiently manifest, for they openly boast of it in the newspapers.
Obvious attempts are made to influence opinion even in France, a
country that is singularly deaf to foreign impressions; and if they
can excite a comment in France, they can convulse America.
In regarding this subject, the feelings and dispositions of the
English nation are to be kept out of sight; for the human impulses
of bodies of men are of no account in the control of interests
like these: they who move the wires are behind the scenes, and the
mass here, like the mass at home, is wrought on in a way that is
perceptible only to the vigilant and the observing. But it is a
humiliating fact, accompanying these circumstances, that the English
see their influence, and deride us for it, even while they exercise
it.
Some peculiarities of a physical nature serve to aid foreigners in
perpetuating their power over the American mind. The population is
so diffused, that, unless in cases which excite local interest,
there is no opinion sufficiently strong to cope with that which is
formed in the towns, and these towns, particularly those of the most
influence, are quite as much foreign as American. A large portion of
even the presses, in the seaports, are directly controlled by men
who were born British subjects, and it is a peculiarity about these
people, scarcely ever to forget their origin. There is an infatuation
in America, on this subject, that one who stands aloof, can hardly
credit. Still, when we come to look into all the causes, it can
scarcely create surprise that the writers of the nation, look as much
to foreign as to native approbation, that the diplomatists court
their enemies, instead of their friends, and that public opinion is
constantly influenced by interests and rights adverse to our own.
God knows, what is to be the final result. We may grow out of this
weakness, as children get the better of the rickets; or we may
succumb to the disease, as children often do. There is little use,
however, in treating it with an overstrained delicacy, for it is the
school of sentimentalists that has aggravated the disease to its
present dangerous extent, and nothing will be so apt to cure it,
besides time, as a little caustic, properly applied. I very well
know, it is said, that the war of 1812, liberated the American mind
from its ancient thraldom, and for a time it did; so did the war of
the revolution; but no sooner did things, in both instances, revert
back to their ancient channels, than the habits of thought appear to
have kept them company. We have gained a little, permanently, beyond
a question. No one thinks now, that a British frigate has only to
say, “boh!” to an American frigate, to cause her to strike her flag;
but this very point of manhood in the field, will prove the tendency
to drop back into the old train of thinking, for, in despite of all
the experience of 1776, thousands and tens of thousands of native
citizens, believed we could not resist the English, when war was
declared in 1812, either ashore or afloat! I do not mean, that they
believed the power of America could not resist the power of England,
but that the man of America could not fight the man of England;
for to this had the uninterrupted practice of reading the English
accounts of themselves, brought the state of public opinion. As no
nation has shown a better spirit in the field, when actually called
on to serve, does not this fact prove how completely courage is a
matter of convention, and how necessary it is to guard all the habits
of thought?
There is a feature of English jealousy, that strikes me as
particularly odd. Every one reasons here, as if our government is
always to be distrusted on account of its tendency to be driven into
wars, by the truculent spirit of the democracy! I should say this
notion haunts the English imagination, on the subject of America,
though it would be difficult to give a good reason for it. The war
of 1812, probably took our enemy by surprise, but it could not have
been because the people of America rushed into it with precipitation,
but because they had forborne so long as to remove every apprehension
of their appealing to force at all. There is a professed distrust of
General Jackson on this account. They think, or affect to think, that
being a soldier, he will profit by the elements of democracy, and
bring on a war of conquest, with a view to his own glory and tastes.
Some do not hesitate to say, that he will then aim at a crown, like
Napoleon![18]
LETTER XXVIII.
TO RICHARD COOPER, ESQUIRE, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.
It would be an occupation of interest, to note the changes, moral
and physical, that time, climate, and different institutions, have
produced between the people of England, and those of America.
Physically, I do not think the change as great as is usually
imagined. Dress makes a sensible difference in appearance, and I find
that the Americans, who have been under the hands of the English
tailors, are not easily distinguished from the English themselves.
The principal points of distinction strike me to be these. We are
taller, and less fleshy; more disposed to stoop; have more prominent
features, and faces less full; are less ruddy, and more tanned; have
much smaller hands and feet, anti-democratical as it may be; and are
more slouching in gait. The exceptions, of course, are numerous, but
I think these distinctions may be deemed national. The American, who
has become Europeanized by dress, however, is so very different a
looking animal, from what he is at home, that too much stress is not
to be laid on them. Then the great extent of the United States is
creating certain physical differences in our own population, that
render all such comparisons liable to many qualifications.
As to stature, and physical force, I see no reason to think the
animal has deteriorated in America. As between England and the old
Atlantic states, the difference is not striking, after one allows for
the disparity in numbers, and the density of the population here, the
eye always seeking exceptions; but, I incline to believe that the
southwest will turn the scale to our side. I believe it to be a fact,
that the aborigines of that portion of the Union, were larger than
those of our own section of the country.
There are obvious physical differences among the English themselves.
One county is said to have an undue proportion of red heads, another
to have men taller than common, this again men that are shorter, and
all to show traces of their remote origins. It is probable, that some
of these peculiarities have descended to ourselves, though they have
become blended by the unusual admixture of the population.
Morally, we live under the influence of systems so completely the
converse of each other, that it is matter of surprise, so many points
of resemblance still remain. The immediate tendency of the English
system is, to create an extreme deference in all the subordinate
classes for their superiors, while that of the American is to run
into the opposite feeling. The effects of both these tendencies, are
certainly observable, though relatively, that of our own much less,
I think, than that of England. It gives good models a rather better
chance here, than they have with us.
In England, the disaffected to the government, are among precisely
those who most sustain government in America; and the disaffected in
America, (if so strong a word can properly be used, as applied to
natives,) are of a class whose interests it is to sustain government
in England.[19] These facts give very different aspects to the
general features of society. Walking in Regent’s street, lately, I
witnessed an attempt of the police, to compel some hackney coachmen
to quit their boxes, and go with them before the magistrate. A
crowd of a thousand people collected immediately, and its feeling
was decidedly against the ministers of the law; so much so, indeed,
as to render it doubtful, whether the coachmen, whose conduct had
been flagrantly criminal, would not be rescued. Now, in America, I
think, the feeling of such a crowd, would have been just the other
way. It would have taken an interest in supporting the authorities
of the country, instead of an interest in opposing them. This was
not the case of a mob, you will remember, in which passion puts down
reason, but an ordinary occurrence of the exercise of the power of
the police. Instances of this nature, might be multiplied, to show
that the mass of the two people, act under the influence of feelings
diametrically opposed to each other.
On the other hand, Englishmen of the higher classes are, with very
few exceptions, and these exceptions are usually instances of mere
party opposition, attached to their system, sensitive on the subject
of its merits or defects, and ever ready to defend it when assailed.
The American of the same class is accustomed to sneer at democracy,
to cavil at its fruits, and to colour and exaggerate its faults.
Though this latter disposition may be, to a degree, accounted for by
the facts, that all merit is comparative, and most of our people
have not had the opportunities to compare; and that it is natural to
resist most that which most annoys, although the substitution of any
other for the actual system would produce even greater discontent;
still, I think, the general tendency of aristocratical institutions
on the one hand, and of democratical on the other, is to produce this
broad difference in feeling, as between classes.
Both the Americans and the English are charged with being offensively
boastful and arrogant, as nations, and too much disposed to compare
themselves advantageously with their neighbours. I have visited
no country in which a similar disposition does not exist, and
as communities are merely aggregations of men, I fancy that the
disposition of a people to take this view of their own merits, is
no more than carrying out the well-known principle of individual
vanity. The English and ourselves, however, well may, and probably do
differ from other nations, in one circumstance connected with such a
failing. The mass in both nations, are better instructed, and are of
more account than the mass in other countries, and their sentiments
form more of a public opinion than elsewhere. When the bulk of a
people are in a condition to make themselves heard, one is not to
expect much refinement or delicacy, in the sentiments they utter. The
English do not strike me as being a vainer nation than the French,
although, in the way of ordinary intercourse, I believe that both
they and we are more boastful.
The English are to be particularly distinguished from the Americans,
in the circumstance of their being proud people. This is a useful
and even an ennobling quality, when it is sustained by facts, though
apt to render a people both uncomfortable and unpleasant, when the
glory on which they pique themselves is passed away. We are almost
entirely wanting in national pride, though abundantly supplied
with an irritable vanity, that might rise to pride, had we greater
confidence in our facts. Most intelligent Englishmen are ready enough
to admit the obvious faults of their climate, and even of their
social condition, but it is an uncommon American that will concede
any thing material, on such points, unless it can be made to bear
on democracy. We have the sensitiveness of provincials, increased
by the consciousness of having our spurs to earn, on all matters of
glory and renown, and our jealousy extends even to the reputations
of the cats and dogs. It is but an indifferent compliment to human
nature to add, that the man who will join, complacently, and I may
say ignorantly, in the abuse of foreigners against the institutions
of the country, and even against its people, always reserving a
saving clause in favour of his own particular class, will take fire
if an innuendo is hazarded against its beef, or a suggestion made
that the four thousand feet of the Round Peak, are not equal to
the thirteen thousand of the _Jung Frau_. The English are tolerably
free from this weakness, and travelling is daily increasing this
species of liberality, at least. I presume that the insular situation
of England, and our own distance from Europe, are equally the
causes of these traits, though there may be said to be a “property
qualification” in the very nature of man, that disposes him to view
his own things with complacency, and those of his neighbours with
distrust. Bishop Heber, in one of his letters to Lord Grenville,
in speaking of the highest peaks of the Himalayas, throws into a
parenthesis, “which I feel some exultation in saying, is completely
within the limits of the British empire,” a sort of sentiment, of
which, I dare say, neither St. Chrysostom nor Polycarp was entirely
free.
On the subject of sensibility to comments on their national habits
and national characters, neither France nor England is by any means
as philosophical or indifferent as one might suppose. As a rule, I
believe all men are more easily enraged when their real faults are
censured, than when their virtues are called in question; and, if
the defect happen to be unavoidable, or one for which they are not
fairly responsible, the resentment is twofold that which would attend
a comment on a vice. The only difference I can discover between the
English and ourselves, in this particular, is easily to be traced
to our greater provincialism, youth, and the consciousness that we
are obliged to anticipate some of our renown. I should say that the
English are _thin-skinned_, and the Americans _raw_. Both resent
fair, frank, and manly comments with the same bad taste, resorting
to calumny, blackguardism, and abuse, when wit and pleasantry would
prove both more effective and wiser, and, perhaps, reformation,
wisest of all. I can only account for this peculiarity, by supposing
that the institutions and political facts of the two countries have
rendered vulgar-minded men of more account, than is usually the case,
and that their influence has created a species of public opinion
which is less under the correction of taste, principles, and manners,
than is the case in nations where the mass is more depressed. Of the
fact, itself, there can be no question.