"There weren't no such luck
For John A. Roebuck,
And he thought he would teach the whole nation
That the Tories were fools,
And the Whigs only tools,
But Roebuck was England's salvation."
And he, according to this programme, set himself to reform the
Constitution and protect the Colonies.
"Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,"
he was an eclectic in politics,--acknowledged no leader, had himself no
followers. A chief without a party, an apostle without disciples, a
critic without the merest ordinary penetration, a cynic whose bitterness
was not enlivened by wit or humor, a spouter whose arguments, when he
had any, were usually furnished from the mint, John Arthur Roebuck was
for many years that impersonation of terrific honesty, glaring purity,
and indignant virtue, known in English politics as an INDEPENDENT member
of Parliament. When party-spirit runs high, and many party-men are
disposed to be unscrupulous in the measures and artifices by which they
win or retain place and power, such a position, occupied with judgment
and fortified by modesty and good sense, is a most powerful and a most
beneficent one; but it is useless when seized on by one whose obtrusive
egotism and more than feminine vanity disqualify him for any serious or
permanent influence on his fellow-men. When a Pocket-Diogenes rolls his
little tub into the House of Commons, and complains that everybody is
standing between him and the sun,--why, in an assembly of educated and
sensible men the sham is soon discovered, the pseudo-cynic seen through,
and his affected misanthropy deservedly gains for him universal derision
and scorn. Some years after he entered Parliament, Mr. Disraeli, with
whom he had many encounters, in which he was invariably worsted, made
the House roar with laughter by taunting Roebuck with his "Sadler's
Wells sarcasms and melodramatic malignities," and drew a most amusing
picture of him as "a solitary sentinel pacing round the deserted citadel
of his own opinions."
"He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below";
but as Mr. Roebuck has done neither the one nor the other, his only
chance of not being utterly forgotten, instead of being feared or hated,
by his contemporaries, is to continue his work of mischief, and merely
change the object of his puny attacks as one becomes more prominent than
another, and as he can manage to maintain his own quasi-importance by
attaching his name to great questions. He had no special dislike for
this country; so far from that, he admired and praised us, as by an
extract from one of his books we will presently prove; but since he has
become a self-appointed lackey, has donned imperial livery, and as a
volunteer does the dirty work of despots, he must have lost all sympathy
with and all regard for an independent, free, and brave people. We hope
and believe that this country vastly prefers his censure to his praise,
and, as far as it has leisure at the present crisis for any serious
consideration of his erratic pranks, would rather have his enmity than
his friendship. _Non tali auxilio!_
But we must recur to his inconsistent and rather uninteresting career,
and so satisfy, and perhaps weary, the curiosity of any reader who is
still disposed to ask the momentous question, "Who is Roebuck?"
In 1835, he was appointed the agent--the _paid_ agent--of the House of
Assembly of Lower Canada, during the dispute then raging between the
Executive Government and the House of Assembly. As Englishmen especially
plume themselves on the fact that the members of their legislative
bodies are unremunerated, it is somewhat difficult to understand how
this exception was made in John Arthur's favor. As a precedent it is to
be hoped that it has not been followed; for it is obvious that such an
arrangement, however advantageous or pleasant to individual members,
might throw grave suspicions on the purity of public men, and introduce
a wholesale venality into public life. If such a system is permitted,
any foreign monarch or any foreign government may secure the services of
a British senator as his agent and representative. It is quite appalling
to think that the chivalrous Earl of Derby or the conscientious Mr.
Gladstone should be shocked by the offer of a handsome annual salary
paid quarterly, (not deducting the income-tax,) made by the King of
Dahomey for an eloquent defence of his humane and enlightened rule, or
by an equally munificent donative from the famous and merry monarch of
the Cannibal Islands for the support of himself and his loyal subjects
in their copious consumption of human flesh. We should be sorry wantonly
to raise so dreadful a suspicion; but if British M.P.s are permitted,
according to the Roebuck precedent, to be PAID agents, why has not
Southern money found its way into senatorial pockets? Greedy Mr. Laird,
and unscrupulous, money-loving Mr. Lindsay,[A] always resolutely
grubbing for the main chance, are perhaps sufficiently paid by indirect,
though heavy gains in shipbuilding. Needy Mr. Roebuck may be salaried by
the Emperor of Austria, though there is nothing to prove, except his own
open-mouthed and loud-tongued professions of purity, that he is not
"_paid_ agent" of the Confederate Government. The indulgence of the evil
feelings of malice and uncharitableness may, however, sufficiently
recompense him; and to him, perhaps, his virtue may be its own reward.
But if paid agencies are not permitted, a very serious suspicion fastens
on that hard-mouthed, rising lordling, Robert Cecil, son of the Marquis
of Salisbury, and one of the most active and energetic champions of the
slave-mongers of the South. The young lord, it is well known, stepped
down from the lofty pedestal of a bad pedigree to marry the fair, but
portionless daughter of an English judge; his father is proverbially
mean and stingy, and the young lord himself proportionately poor; and in
the intervals of his strenuous advocacy of the claims of the Rebels to
European recognition he laudably ekes out his very narrow income by
writing articles for the London newspapers and reviews; and rumor says
that he communicates gossiping letters, full of piquant and satirical
sketches of the proceedings of the House of Commons to two or three of
the provincial papers. He is under these circumstances peculiarly open
to suspicion. If the proceeding in question is a usual one, why does he
not openly avow it? If it is unusual or improper, why does he not deny
the soft impeachment so much credited both in this country and in his
own? It is really refreshing to contemplate, that Roebuck, after being
the paid agent of the Canadian House of Assembly, should have become
such a _purist_ as to drag poor Mr. Isaac Butt before the notice of the
Commons, and scream for the censure on him on a mere suspicion that he
had touched the yellow and handsome gold coins of one of the innumerable
Indian princes and rajahs who come to England with complaints of
grievances, sometimes real, and sometimes fictitious, against the
British Government.
[Footnote A: Lindsay's fawning, plastic sycophancy is well known this
side the water. After shrewdly filling his coffers with profits from
Northern business-transactions, he now turns about, kicks his old
friends, who always half suspected his knavish propensities, bows, cap
in hand, to visionary cotton-bales, and hopes to turn some honest
pounds, shillings, and pence by advocating the slave-drivers' rebellion.
A "fool's gudgeon" will surely reward his laborious endeavors for
Southern gold, that article growing beautifully less every day.]
During the period of the "paid agency" Roebuck was tolerably industrious
with his pen; but in literature and journalism he proved his utter
incapacity for joining in any combined action. Such was his dogged
self-assertion and indomitable egotism that none of the ordinary
channels would answer his purpose; and so he issued a series of
political papers, entitled "Pamphlets for the People," to which the
curious may sometimes refer, but which have now lost all their
significance and interest. His quarrels with editors and publishers were
notorious; and an altercation with Mr. Black, the well-known editor of
the "Morning Chronicle," eventuated in a duel so bloodless as to be
ridiculous. David's pebble did not reach Goliath, and Goliath was
equally merciful to David. In these pamphlets he violently assailed the
whole body of editors, sub-editors, reporters, etc., of most of the
papers of any note. And the more accustomed he became to the House of
Commons, the greater liberties did he take with the conventional
fairness and courtesy of debate. His personality and scurrility were so
indiscriminating and excessive that he was perhaps at this time the most
unpopular member of the House.
In 1837 he lost his election for Bath, but was reelected in 1841. In a
subsequent contest at Bath he was successfully opposed by Lord Ashley,
the present Earl of Shaftesbury. On this occasion he exhibited even more
than his usual bad temper and bad taste. He declined to accept Lord
Ashley's proffered hand; and in the chagrin and vexation occasioned by
unexpected defeat he uttered a rabid invective against the
Non-Conformist ministers of the place, to whose influence he rightly
attributed his rival's success. Lord Ashley was a well-known
philanthropist, and his consistent support and patronage of many
religious and charitable societies had naturally given him popularity
among the Protestant clergy of all denominations,--a popularity
heightened in the case of the Evangelical and Calvinistic ministers by
his Lordship's strict Sabbatarianism and his belief in cold dinners on
Sunday. On the other hand, Mr. Roebuck was openly accused of private
professions of skepticism in matters of religion; and this report, so
dangerous to the repute of any public man in England, (where theology
and politics so frequently cross each other,) considerably damaged his
chance of success. Lord Ashley, however, was in no way responsible for
the rumor; and the difference between the conduct of the two during the
contest was this, that Lord Ashley behaved like a gentleman and Mr.
Roebuck did not.
During his retirement into private life, after this defeat in 1847, he
wrote his work entitled "The History of the Whig Ministry of 1830,"--a
book in the preparation of which he is said to have received
considerable and valuable assistance from no less a person than Lord
Brougham. Despite the aid that he received, it is amusing to find in his
preface a characteristic vaunting of his entire difference with Lord
Brougham about the character of King William IV. "Lord Brougham," he
writes, "is accustomed to describe William IV as frank, just, and
straightforward. We believe him to have been very weak and very false, a
finished dissembler, and always bitterly hostile to the Whig Ministry
and their great measure of Reform." This is Roebuck all over. He would
infinitely rather argue that white was black than quietly coincide in
any generally received opinion.
While on the subject of his writings, we will mention the book in which
he vouchsafed to praise those whom he now so elaborately vilifies. In
1849 he published an octavo volume of two hundred and forty-eight pages
on "The Colonies of England." Speaking (page 84) of the vast and rapid
progress made by this country, he says:--
"We are led to inquire by what machinery, by what favoring
circumstances, such a result has been brought about. The people, be it
remarked, are the same as ourselves,--the original Thirteen States were
the work of Englishmen. English heads, English hearts, English hands
brought those new communities into existence. No longer connected by
government with us, they nevertheless retained the characteristics of
the race from which they sprang, and proceeding in the great work to
which they were destined, they strode across the continent, the fairest
portion of which they could now call their own. In planting new
settlements they were aided by our own people,--the very elements _out
of which we endeavor to frame colonies, and with which we do produce
sickly, miserable communities that can only be said to exist, and to
linger on in a sort of half-life_, without the spirit of a young, or the
amenities and polish of an old community, and, above all, _without any
spirit of independence_."
Again, speaking of colonization In this country as opposed to Canada and
other English colonies, he writes (page 88):--"Certain adventurous
persons, the 'pioneers' of civilization, wishing to make new settlements
beyond the boundaries of Pennsylvania and Virginia, upon wild lands
belonging to the United States, made formal application to the
Government of the United States at Washington, who, being bound to
afford all possible facility, thereupon take steps to have the land
surveyed and laid out into counties, townships, parishes. The roads are
also indicated, and at once the law exists; and security, guarantied by
the authority of the United States, immediately follows, both for person
and property; and all the machinery known to the Common Law, and needed
for the maintenance of this security, and the enforcement of the law's
decrees, is at once adopted. A municipal authority comes into existence;
a court-house, a jail, a school-room, arise in the wilderness; and
although these buildings be humble, and the men who exercise authority
in them may appear to be in some degree rude, yet is the law there in
all its useful majesty. To it a reverent obedience is rendered; and the
plain magistrate, who, in a hunter's frock, may, in the name of the
United States, pronounce the law's decree, commands an obedience as
complete and sincere as that which is paid to the Chief-Justice of the
Supreme Court at Washington, or to the ermined judge who presides in the
courts of our Lady the Queen in Westminster Hall."
This in 1849; but what a very different tone has he thought fit to adopt
now! Was any agency then expected which has not been forthcoming? Or,
having degenerated from being a supporter of liberal opinions in his
youth to being the fond and fatuous admirer of autocrats in his old age,
does he think that it is absolutely necessary that the firm friend of
Austrian despotism should be the malignant assailant of the Government
and people of the United States? The man is consistent in nothing but
his spiteful vindictiveness and love of mischief. He is now the general
object of deserved ridicule and contempt for his flunkyistic attendance
at the Tuileries. At the time of Louis Napoleon's visit to London,
Roebuck raved and ranted about his "perjured lips having kissed the
Queen of England."
He has, on some occasions, put himself prominently forward, and in such
a way as to make himself an influential member of Parliament. He moved
the vote of confidence in the Whig Government in 1850, when the great
debate ensued in which the late Sir Robert Peel made his last speech,
and they were kept in office by a poetical majority of nine. But the
speech with which Roebuck introduced the motion was entirely eclipsed by
the magnificent declamation of Sir Alexander Cockburn, the present
Lord-Chief-Justice of England. On another great occasion, in January,
1855, he brought forward in the House of Commons a motion for inquiry
into the conduct of the Crimean War. Lord Aberdeen's Government was
defeated by an immense majority, and, of course, resigned. Mr. Roebuck
was chairman of the Committee of Inquiry; but the cabinet that came in
discreetly declined to give him any official post in their ranks. They
knew too well the terrible uncertainty and inconsistency of the man's
conduct. They could place no reliance either on his temper or his
discretion. In 1855 he was one of the numerous candidates for the
chairmanship of the Metropolitan Board of Works, but failed to inspire
the electors with any confidence in his capacity for the post. In the
following year he became the chairman of the Administrative Reform
Association, and although the league had at first been highly
successful, and aided much in awaking public attention to the
miscarriages and mismanagement in the Crimea, yet, under this fatal
presidency, it became speedily and ingloriously defunct. This was his
last great failure, before abdicating all his early liberal principles.
He has of late years endeavored to solace himself for the now
irretrievable blunders of his career by an exaggerated indulgence in his
idiosyncratic waywardness, paradox, and eccentricity. He is proud of
being considered the acquaintance of the Emperor of Austria, and rather
pleased than otherwise at being assailed on this account. He affects the
society and friendship of conservative members of the House of Commons.
He has become tolerant of lords. He may be seen sitting next to Lord
Robert Cecil, indulging in ill-natured jocosities, from which his
Lordship probably borrows when he indites ill-natured articles for the
misguided "Saturday Review."[A] He hates the Manchester school of
politicians, because their liberality and their sympathy with the cause
of freedom and civilization in this country remind Roebuck of his own
deflection from the right path.
[Footnote A: This journal is now owned by Mr. Alexander James Beresford
Beresford-Hope, (we dare not omit any portion of this august name,) who
has ample means to enlist the talents of reckless, "smart" young men in
search of employment for any work he may require, no matter how
unprincipled the job in hand.]
His private undertakings have not been more fortunate than his public
acts. He was chairman of a bank, which was unsuccessful, to say the
least of it. He has been connected with other enterprises, which soon
courted and obtained failure.
What he has recently said and done in reference to this country is too
fresh in our memories to require that we should recite or recapitulate
it here. His past career, as we have reviewed it, may account for the
now intolerable acerbity of temper and the ludicrous vanity which
disgrace him. Never was a Nemesis more just than that which has for the
present consigned him to a melancholy obscurity. The political
extinguisher has certainly dropped upon his head, and this burning and
shining light has gone out with an unpleasant odor into utter darkness.
In summing up his character, it is evident that excessive vanity is his
besetting sin. He is not too clever or too honest to act in union with
other people, but he is too _vain_. He is by no means too good for the
rest of the world; but he is too conceited and self-opinionated to
condescend to coöperate with them. As, at some of the minor theatres, a
single actor may play an army, so, in the House of Commons, Roebuck is a
host in himself,--is his own party, and leads it. His occasional
popularity in his own country is due to the fact, that, in his own
character, he, to a certain extent, represents and crystallizes a few of
the good and many of the bad qualities of Englishmen. He has their
courage and audacity, their independence and pride, their generally
defiant front to the rest of the world; but he is also vain, obstinate,
bigoted, prejudiced, narrow in his views, and boastful in his language.
His vulgar swagger, for instance, about the navy sweeping the seas,
would have been condemned here, if it had been addressed by the most
violent of demagogues to the most ignorant of Irish mobs.
We have heard him speak in the House of Commons in his palmier days,
before he was as decrepit in mind as he is in body. He had great
fluency, some power of invective, and a vast stock of assurance. We
listened to him upon one occasion, when, without the slightest
provocation, he used the most undignified personalities to the late Sir
Robert Peel,--to which Sir Robert, very wisely, never replied.
We cannot say that we feel any profound interest as to his future. He
has compared himself to a dog,--but, on behalf of that faithful and
valued companion of man, we protest against the similitude. He has the
kind of pugnacity which prompts a cur or a puppy to attack a
Newfoundland or a mastiff. He has not the fidelity and many other good
qualities of the canine race. At any rate, he has become a mischievous
dog,--and a dull dog,--and will soon be a "sad dog."
We would venture to suggest, that he should at once be raised to the
peerage, under the title of Baron Tear-'em. He might then aid the good
cause of the slave-mongers of the South, and act in unison with that
just, generous, moral, and virtuous nobleman, the Marquis of
Clanricarde.
We ought to apologize to our readers for so lengthy an account of so
undeserving a person,--but, at any rate, they ought by this time to know
"Who is Roebuck?"