BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXIII. MARCH, 1850. VOL. LXVII.
CONTENTS.
CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS, 249
A LATE CASE OF COURT-MARTIAL, 269
A FAREWELL TO NAPLES, 279
BARBARIAN RAMBLES, 281
GOLDSMITH. PART II., 296
TO BURNS’S “HIGHLAND MARY,” 309
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART IV., 313
THE GREEN HAND—A “SHORT” YARN. PART IX., 329
CANADIAN LOYALTY. AN ODE, 345
AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES: OPENING OF THE SESSION, 347
EDINBURGH:
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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXIII. MARCH, 1850. VOL. LXVII.
CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS.
We had intended changing the title of our papers on the Canadas, and
throwing together for the Magazine the results of many years’
experience, and many opportunities of observing the lights and shades of
colonial life. Not that we had a new system of settlement to propound,
or a new art of colonisation to illustrate. Our purpose was simply to
have conducted the reader along the high road of colonial life, and to
have pointed out to him, on the way, houses evidencing comfort,
respectability, and plenty, farms proving wealth and independence, and
barn-yards filled with stock and with grain, belonging to men, who, but
a comparatively short time before, had been labouring in Europe without
a hope beyond their daily bread, or a prospect beyond that of constantly
toiling for others. We had purposed, too, telling the story of how these
men rose; and pointing out, in the same great country, thousands upon
thousands of openings for others to go and do likewise. Nor did we
intend stopping here. There is a large class of men in Great Britain,
who, feeling as men, and wishing to discharge the duties of men, cannot
look very comfortably around them, and see those who owe their existence
to them likely to be left worse off in the world than they were left
themselves; yet who cannot, from the peculiar organisation of society in
Britain, help themselves; and who are often prevented—through family
connexions that bring them no good, and family pride that often sickens
much more than it elevates the heart—even from using those exertions and
efforts that might better their condition. We purposed pointing out the
adaptation of the colonies to such men, and their adaptation to the
colonies. But this to us agreeable undertaking—for we believe it might
be attended with good—we are obliged for the present to abandon, to
consider the state of the colonies with respect to their government and
the institutions of England; and to see if we cannot suggest a plan
whereby those we might induce to settle in them might not lose the
protection, the glory, and the fostering care of their mother country.
The legislation of Great Britain, for the last ten years, is marked by
some peculiar and distinctive features over that of perhaps any other
portion of her legislative history. These are eminently, a studied and
intentional disregard of the teachings and the experience of the past,
in an overweening confidence in the wisdom of present measures, and
their being proof against all future disasters; a sort of supercilious
spurning, in sailing under the new canvass of free trade, of all the old
landmarks which saved England’s power from many a shipwreck, and her
glory from many a stain. It will hardly be denied, that that portion of
Great Britain’s national worth which is made up of her achievements, of
her glory, ever well-earned, and of her fame, ever dearly bought, has
been and is regarded, by the philosophy of the Manchester school of
politicians, as a possession by no means worth its cost, and little
worth the keeping. May it not, in truth, be fairly presumed, from the
movements that have followed the portentous measure of _free trade_, and
from the recent agitations and speeches of its principal promoters, that
they are seeking to establish a new description of glory for Great
Britain; that they are endeavouring to change her whole national
character; that they are, in short, seeking to raze all the former
monuments, sacred to _her_ greatness, in order to construct, in their
stead, monuments sacred to their own? Clearly the spirit of the age, in
so far as they have evoked it, is destructive alike of reverence for the
wisdom, and pride in the achievements, of the past. Neither is it
unnatural, with the views of this school of politicians, that it should
be so. The free-trade movement has ever advanced, in proportion as it
succeeded in converting Great Britain to the belief, that the whole mind
of the past was shrouded in darkness and error. It could not, therefore,
be expected to inspire admiration or reverence, for what it thus
practically taught men to condemn and repudiate. And it may well indeed
seek to establish a new and a great glory for Britain; for assuredly
great is the glory, and great is the national possession of which it is
fast bereaving her. The essential spirit of national patriotism—that
chivalrous feeling of disinterestedness, which once made Britons proud
of forgetting the world for their country, and themselves in its
defence—where is it?—what is now swiftly becoming its doom? Is it not
palpably withering beneath the cold shadow of free-trade philosophy? Are
not the cosmopolitan doctrines of free trade rapidly making Britons
forget their country? Are these doctrines not absorbing all the energies
of the nation in the struggles of avarice? Are they not sinking every
patriotic, every noble national feeling, in the love of gain? Speak now
of a measure involving the glory, the shame, and the interests of
England, or of even a single class in England, and what will be its
probable treatment? The glorious part may have a few advocates, who will
be laughed at for their antiquated notions; or it may serve to evoke a
few bright ideas in a debate—the modern surplusage of great men’s
speeches. The shame part may occasion a feeling of effervescent
indignation for the moment. But the interest portion will instantly call
forth all the energies of the economic mind of Britain, and will soon
accumulate such an avalanche of figures and calculations, as will bear
down and crush every other consideration before it. It was once thought
wise that men should be taught, through the achievements of their
forefathers, the value of their institutions. Free-trade philosophy
calls it wiser to teach them to forget forefathers, achievements, and
all, in a gigantic struggle for pounds, shillings, and pence. “Confound
your acquiring a manly pride by learning your hereditary right to it!”
is the language of this school of politicians, and the language they are
rapidly teaching England. “Give us the pride of money.” “Britain against
the world, as long as Britain pays; but the world against Britain, the
moment she doesn’t,” are the popular and practical lessons of the
Manchester school,—though a nation’s glory, all the world’s experience
teaches us, is the very vitality of its patriotism. A throne or a
republic, without such flowers blooming around it, is a poor, unsightly,
unlovable thing, having nothing for a people’s affections to cling to;
yet are not these flowers fast withering round the throne of England?
Are not the memories of the nation, which nourish and keep them alive,
being obliterated by the all-powerful tendencies of a political
philosophy which recognises no greatness but that of money, and no
pursuit worth following but that of material interests? Are not the
ties, too, which bind subjects together, and the duties which men owe to
each other in a state, of harmonising their interests for the common
good, and of making mutual sacrifices for national unity and great
national destiny, being fast relaxed and forgotten in Great Britain?
The parties ruling the United States of America are at this moment
making sacrifices of the vastest magnitude to each other—sacrifices of
great principles as well as of great interests. And why? Because, did
they not do so, the republic could not hold together perhaps for a
twelvemonth; and, once severed, they know full well what would be the
magnitude of their disaster. Mutual sacrifices and concessions are, in
truth, the ties that bind them together. Let their common glory and
their common destiny, let the knowledge of what they have achieved
united, and what they would become if severed, once fail to produce a
patriotism, or national virtue, powerful enough to cause them to yield
sectional interests for the common good, and to forego great party
principles and objects, for the preservation of their institutions and
the integrity of their government, and glory would soon take leave of
their Israel.
Now in Great Britain, where the operation of free institutions occasions
similar necessities for sacrifices and concessions being made by each
great class in the state to the other, or others, in order to secure
that harmony and unity necessary to all national permanency, and to the
perpetuation of national power, what does the legislation of the last
ten years exhibit? Does it not exhibit one great class struggling for
the giant’s power over another, and, having gained it, using it like a
giant? In the great co-partnery in national property and national
destiny, men owe it to each other to balance their books fairly as to
national advantages. What ruins one large class, though it may
temporarily benefit another, must eventually ruin the nation. A nation
cannot, more than an individual, bear a constantly mortifying limb. Now
it is impossible for an intelligent mind not to see, not to have the
conviction forced upon it, that free trade in Britain is destroying the
great agricultural limb of the state; and that, if the giant’s power is
much longer wielded by the giant, fearful consequences must ensue.
But whether the philosophy of free trade has produced, or is producing,
such great changes as these upon English national character—whether it
is un-Anglifying England to the extent that we have indicated or not, we
can answer, at least, for its training to forgetfulness of Britain the
North American colonies. We can answer for its causing the sinking of
the subject in the avaricious struggler for “material interests” in
America. We can answer for its obliterating all national memories,
obligations, and ties on the part of the colonists, in following the
selfish lessons that have been sent to them from England, “to take care
of themselves, for England no longer cares for them.” Perhaps the seeds
that have been thrown upon the winds by free-trade discussions in
England, have first taken root in the colonies. Perhaps it was designed
that they should. Be this as it may, let England learn from the result
of these on the colonies what it may soon be with herself. Let her
learn, by their example, the effect of the doctrines, that allegiance
may be made wholly subservient to interest, and that love of country
must give way to love of gain.
Twelve years ago, in the month in which we write, the city of Montreal
presented an appearance that no similarly situated city in the world
perhaps ever presented before. Its whole British population, educated to
business, little accustomed to ordinary exercises, least of all to those
of war, were in the short space of a few days literally converted into
an army; for, though they knew not the use of arms, and were incapable
of systematic movements, yet each had the heart to grapple, hand to
hand, with his foe: and in this they were soldiers. Old men of sixty and
seventy years of age, accustomed to ease and luxuries, might have been
seen, at this period, doing duty in the streets of Montreal, in the
middle of a Canadian winter’s night, as common sentinels. Boys, taken
away from their schools, might have been seen doing the same. A regiment
of regulars at the time marched through the city; they struck up, as
they halted, an air as familiar as the rhymes of children. The strains
of the music were drowned in the spontaneous cheers of the people. Women
shed tears of gladness. The air the soldiers played was _God save the
Queen!_ But why this enthusiasm? and why this military display?
Two-thirds of the people of Lower Canada—its French inhabitants—had
taken up arms against the institutions of England. The people of
Montreal were British.
Now this city of Montreal was little, if at all, capable of military
defence. It was so constructed as to have been peculiarly liable to
destruction by fire; and, at the time that the spectacle we have faintly
sketched might have been witnessed, the chances of war were at least two
to one against its determined British inhabitants. Nor should it be
forgotten, that nearly the whole of the property in this city was owned
by these British inhabitants; was the fruits of many years of their
honest toil; and as it is well known that policies of insurance do not
cover losses occasioned by the Queen’s enemies, the loss to them might
have been total had it been burned.
These British inhabitants of Montreal, therefore, without a moment’s
hesitation, in an indefensible city, and with the chances of war as two
to one against them, willingly and even cheerfully perilled their lives,
their families, their hearths, their property, their all, to uphold the
flag of England.
In the month of October last, upwards of twelve hundred persons, in the
space of a few days—one half of whom were the very men who acted in 1838
as we have described—openly and deliberately called upon their fellow
colonists to haul down the flag of Britain upon the continent of
America; and coupled that request with another, that the flag of a rival
power should be put up in its stead.
Now what are the causes of this most extraordinary change? What is it
which has exerted so powerful an influence, as to have caused men
capable of making the noblest sacrifices to uphold the institutions of
their forefathers at one time, capable of making such attempts to
destroy them at another? We answer, emphatically, it was free trade and
its attendant philosophy. It was the injuries it inflicted upon the
colonies—not in the spirit of national compromise or mutual sacrifices,
but in the spirit of the giant using the giant’s power. It was the
lessons, too, that accompanied the injuries. It was the obliterating the
love of country in the pursuits of avarice. It was the ruinous latitude
that free-trade philosophy had to allow to others, in claiming the same
for its own disciples.
To those who have closely observed the opinions expressed regarding the
colonies, in the debates upon free trade, little need be said to prove
that the Manchester school of politicians not only considered their
connexion with Britain as of no importance, but as actually undesirable
in itself. There was no attempt made at harmonising interests with them.
There was no intention expressed of making sacrifices for them, and
incidentally, as we shall show, for England. There was no respect paid
to their love of Britain; for loyalty is not a word in the free-trade
catalogue. But there was a studious and intentional under-rating and
disparaging of them and their country, to subserve the free-trade cause,
and to destroy the force that the argument of their ruin might possibly
have upon the people of England. They were made the subject too of cold,
mercenary calculations, which were enough to insult them into sedition,
and to disgust them out of their connexion with the mother country. When
the disastrous effect that the loss of a protection, to the benefits of
which they had been educated by England for fifty years, and to which
the whole business arrangements of their country were as much adapted
and which they as much required as the very crops in their ground
required sunshine and rain—when these were pointed out in England, how
were they met by the free-trade leaders? Was it not by cold calculations
of how much they consumed per head of this, and how much they consumed,
in comparison with the rest of the world, of that; and how much they
cost for this, and how little they required of that; until, by some
strange mystification of arithmetic, they were made out to be an actual
injury to England. And had the colonies the satisfaction, if they must
needs be injured and crippled, of knowing that one single individual
connected with the free-trade movement had the justice to regret the
injury that was being perpetrated against them, and to say, that England
would endeavour to retrieve it in some other way? We believe we are
justified in saying there was not one. The vilification of the colonies
was an argument in favour of free trade, and they were vilified. And
when the consequences of free trade upon the colonies have been alluded
to; when the shops which had been built, in expectation of the
agricultural interests of the country being stimulated as they had
formerly been, and large quantities of land being taken up and cleared,
as was formerly the case—when these shops became unrequired and useless;
when store-houses, and wharves, and vessels, and steamers, which, before
free trade came into operation, were full of activity, life, and
business, became as so much dead property on the hands of their owners,
and the people connected with them had to seek a livelihood by other
means, and in other places than the colonies: when these disastrous
consequences of free trade were experienced and pointed out, how were
they also met? how were they regarded, and were the colonists
sympathised with on account of them? They were spoken of and accounted
for, by the free-trade leaders, in a spirit similar to the following
paragraph—in a spirit of exaggerated detraction, instead of national
sympathy and management. And we put it to the candour of the English
public, if the succeeding remarks of the _Daily News_ are not a fair
sample of the manner in which the party that paper represents are in the
habit of speaking of the colonies:—
“The argument of the Montreal traders is: ‘The Americans are more
prosperous than we. If our territory was incorporated into the Union,
we would be as prosperous as the Americans.’ The fallacy of this
argument is obvious to dispassionate lookers-on. The superior
prosperity of the Americans was as marked when the late Mr Stuart
visited Canada and the United States as it is now. It has not
originated in the change of British mercantile policy. It has all
along been owing to the superior energy and enterprise of the
Americans. The Canadians were listless, relying upon protection in the
British market; the Americans were active, because they had only their
own enterprise to rely upon. The Americans, in the position of the
Canadians, are not afraid of free competition. The stronghold of the
protectionist party in America is in the sea-board manufacturing
states. If the Canadians would be as prosperous as the Americans, they
must become as active and enterprising as the Americans. The
self-government of the people of the United States promoted the spirit
of enterprise; but, for all essential purposes, Canadians now enjoy
that spring of energy. Canada annexed to the United States would
advance more rapidly than Canada under its former close government and
protective system did; but the advance would be the work of, and its
profits would be reaped by, the hardy emigrants from the United
States. The dreamers who think that their prosperity depends upon
their being subject to this or the other government, not upon their
own exertions, would be driven to the wall before the new-comers.
Their individual plight, be that of the province what it might, would
be worse than ever.”
Now, that the deductions and statements in this paragraph—if they are
intended to apply to the state of Canada before as well as after free
trade, and they certainly seem so intended—are as untrue, ungenerous,
and unjust, towards the colonists—towards the hardy, persevering, and
hard-working people of Great Britain in them—as they are grossly
misrepresentative and unfair with respect to the prosperity of the
country—we here undertake and pledge ourselves to the reader
satisfactorily to prove.
We are no enemies to the American States; and in the incidental
references we have had occasion to make to them, in the course of our
papers upon the colonies, we have candidly and fully admitted their
extraordinary advancement; we have conceded to the fullest the great
impetus their peculiar working of the institutions of Britain—for this
is in reality the true state of the case—has imparted to human progress.
But we are practically and well acquainted with their agricultural
interests, and with much of their great country, and with the comforts
and prosperity enjoyed and gained by its farmers; and we are also well
and practically acquainted with the whole of Upper Canada, and we assert
without fear of question by any man in America who understands the
matter, that, in period of settlement, and prosperity to show for it; in
crops raised from the land, and evidences of good management and good
farming; in stock proving comfort and plenty; in houses, carriages,
dress; in all that establishes that an agricultural people are easy in
their circumstances, and are enjoying comfort and plenty—the farmers of
Upper Canada are behind none in any part of the United States, and are
before them in many.
Now, London, as all the world knows, is a great leviathan city; but its
being so does not prove that individual comfort, happiness, and
prosperity are greater in it than they are in many a small town in
England. The United States, too, have vastly more territory than Upper
Canada has; have many larger and more bustling cities, and have finer
and more gorgeous steamers; but this does not prove, more than London
does as respects England, that this larger territory brings greater
prosperity, health, and comfort, to the farmers in it, than Canada does;
that the business in the larger and bustling cities is more healthy, or
more profitable, than that which is the legitimate offspring of the
people’s wants in Canada; or that the gorgeous steamers pay better, or
are better, than those which are adapted to the purposes, and are
admirably suited to the conveniences and comforts, of the agricultural
population of the Canadas. The question therefore, to any man who has
settled in either country, or who wishes to do so, is not how much
larger one’s territory is over that of the other, but which secures, and
has secured, the greater amount of benefits and prosperity for the same
amount of labour and capital invested in it; and which has by experience
been proved to be the most desirable place for man to live in? Now, that
the only interest which Great Britain has ever fostered or encouraged in
America, and indeed the only interest which, with her policy of
manufacturing for the colonies, she has allowed to grow up in
them—namely, their agricultural interest—was not in Canada, before free
trade withered it, behind its state in any part of America; and that the
Canadas as a country were before any portion of it, we adduce the
conclusive and unquestionable proof, that, distributed over the last
thirty years, twenty-five thousand shrewd and sagacious American
citizens have left the institutions that they so much prized, have
foregone the temptations of their magnificent prairies and valleys that
the world has heard so much of, and have taken leave of all their fine
and prosperous cities, to take up their abode in Upper Canada. As
equally conclusive evidence that the legitimate business of the province
was, in proportion to the requirements of the country, always in a
healthy and prosperous state, we adduce the fact of the invariable
success in every branch of business that they ever engaged in, in Upper
Canada, of these same American citizens. And we here state it as a fact
that will not be denied by a single American farmer in the province,
that, before free trade prostrated its agricultural interests, there was
not a single farmer, American or of other country—with the exception of
the time of the rebellion in 1837–8—who would have been willing to
exchange his property for similar property in any part of the whole
United States. And does not, in truth, the fact that these Americans
came and settled in the province, under their circumstances, and with
their feelings of regard for their own institutions, prove that this
must have been the case? And does not the fact of these men carrying
with them the same energy and industry into Canada that their friends
were possessed of in the States, prove, that in everything that marked
the success of labour in a generous land, Canada could not have been
behind the rest of America? But it is a well-known fact, as the
Americans quaintly observe of themselves, “that they do not love to work
as well as the English, Irish, and Scotch do.” They are, as a nation,
given to speculating; and an American farmer or mechanic would rather at
any time make a dollar by a “trade,” than he would two by hard work. So
that, in the march of improvement in agriculture in the Canadas, and in
the growth of wealth, these American settlers are by no means before
their Canadian neighbours; and, excepting where they have combined some
business with their farming, they have not wherewithal to show that they
have equally prospered with them. Now, these are facts—facts whose force
and justice will not be questioned by a single individual in America who
understands the matter; and we state them, not only with the view of
vindicating our own countrymen against the injustice of those who
wilfully or ignorantly underrate their exertions and the success that
has attended their labours, but we state them to save the Americans
themselves from unjust and unfair comparisons, and in defence of one of
the finest countries that a beneficent Creator ever spread out before
needy humanity—a country teeming with unappropriated wealth; with a
climate pure, bracing, and adapted to the largest development of the
best energies of man, and with millions of openings for poverty to raise
itself out of the ashes of its degradation; and for capital to reproduce
itself to an extent unheard of in Europe.
Now the people living adjacent to Lake Windermere might just as well be
supposed to be an inert, unprosperous race, because their beautiful
little lake has fewer steamers, and sailing craft, and bustle upon it,
than the Thames exhibits near London, as the people of the Canadas, in
comfort and prosperity, can be said to be behind those of the States,
because their towns have less bustle, and their waters fewer steamers
and less trade upon them. The Canadas have been, and are, a purely
agricultural country; and it is in this respect only they can be
compared with the rest of America. Their trade and business is, and
could only have been, such as naturally grew out of their other
interests. If that trade and business was, though less bustling than
that of the States, as it naturally would be from its character, healthy
and paying, no man could expect more of it. Have we not fairly proved
that it must have been so? But if any traveller wishes to judge truly
and justly of Upper Canada and the States, he must not skim over their
borders, and be deceived by the superficial glare. He must learn the
intrinsic value of the thing itself, by going into the interior of the
country. He must see men plough. He must see how deep they plough, and
what sort of cattle they plough with, and how hard they work. He must
examine the farmers’ houses, and learn how they are finished, furnished,
and provisioned. He must hover round their barn-yards, and linger along
their fences. He must witness their harvests, and be fortunate enough
occasionally to be their guests. He must make his observations on their
children; and we would excuse him even coming a little closer to their
young women, although it would be hardly fair to expect him to judge
impartially under such circumstances. But let any man of intelligence do
this with regard to the farmers of Upper Canada, and of any portion of
the American States—we care not which—and if he does not find that
industry has secured as large rewards, and the farmers have as many
comforts, in the British possessions as the American, he is at liberty
to say that our upwards of seventeen years’ practical experience in them
has been of no use to us; or, to use the words of an American friend of
ours upon the subject, “we might be inclined to recommend his friends
not to trust him very far away from home again.”
But now we would put it to the proverbial sense of justice and fairness
of the people of England, if the calling such men “listless, relying
upon protection in the British market,” is a fair way of treating them,
after educating them to the benefits of that protection; and after
checking the manufacturing interests that might have grown up in the
colonies, and placed them on a par with the States, for the express
benefit of the manufacturing interests of Britain? Men who built
vessels, and store-houses, and purchased property in the colonies, upon
the faith that England, having established the system of manufacturing
for them, would continue that of discriminating in their favour in her
markets, have now not only their property in ruin on their hands, but
they are abused because it is in ruins. Farmers who, as we have shown,
and as no man in America will deny, have worked hard, and have
wherewithal to show for it—have achieved that which is no less a credit
to themselves than it is to the country they came from—are vilified
because they complain that England’s policy, in destroying manufacturing
interests in the colonies, has deprived them of a home market such as
the farmers of the United States have got; and England’s free-trade
system, in destroying so much, and injuring so much more property, in
the colonies, has involved them in the general depression and
retrogression. The plain English, and the plain truth of the whole
matter, is this—that the free-trade leaders of England, having
sacrificed the colonies, are desirous of making their former history
harmonise with the picture of the injury and ruin they have brought upon
them. But we trust that we have established, to the satisfaction of
every honest man, what we promised we should—namely, that the attempt is
no less unjust and unfair to the colonists, to their industry, and to
their perseverance, than it is to the country they came from—its
institutions, and its patient, cheerful, and successful labour.
We have dwelt somewhat at length upon this matter; and for two reasons.
The first is, because the reiteration of the same, or similar remarks
and reflections as those contained in the extract we have made from the
_Daily News_, has given a false impression, both in England and America,
of the true state of the Canadas. People, forgetting that they were
settled—at least the great province of Upper Canada was—by the very same
people who have settled the greater portion of the States, and by whose
labour these States have become what they are—people in England,
unknowingly or unthinkingly, have been led to associate the inhabitants
of the colonies with ideas of listlessness, inertness, and poverty,
when, in truth, on the whole continent of America, there is not a
hardier or a steadier working people, or a people whose success,
independence, and comfort would afford a better example to the poor of
Europe. The locomotives by which the farmers of Canada should be judged
of, after all, are their waggons and their teams. The bustle which best
shows their prosperity, is the bustle of their harvest fields. The
business which gives the best proof of success to the world, is that
which can show good balance-sheets, and few bankruptcies. Now, before
free trade overtook the prosperity of these colonies, we can, with the
most perfect safety, challenge any and all America to show a better
state of things in all these several branches of their business and
interests, than the province of Upper Canada did and could exhibit. We
have felt that we owed it to this great province, to this province which
might, and we trust will, be made a great right arm of Britain’s power
and empire, to say thus much in its defence. We owed it to the manly and
hard-working people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, who have settled
in it, and whose industry and skill have made many parts of it the very
gardens of America, to shield them against the unjust representations
that have been sent abroad to the world concerning them, and that have
been the more galling, because they have emanated from home and friends.
Our other reason for going into this matter so fully, is to ask, at this
important juncture, how it is possible to expect that these colonists
will or can continue loyal to Britain long, with vilification and
detraction thus added to the injuries that they have so unquestionably
and undeniably suffered? They point to their vessels lying unused, and
rotting in their harbours; and they point to the lands of the province
not being taken up as they used to be, and those that are cleared not
paying for the labour of tilling them: and they ask themselves, and they
ask America, and they ask England,—Why is it so? And all answer—Free
trade will not make it pay to clear the lands; free trade will not make
it pay to till the lands; free trade has knocked Canadian farming on the
head. Yet free trade, upon hearing this, turns round and asserts it to
be all false, and says that the vessels are decaying because the
Canadians are too indolent to use them, although they have nothing to
carry. Free trade says, that the stagnation of the country, and the
indisposition of people to settle in it, are owing to the country’s own
backwardness, are the result of its inertness; whereas we have shown
that its people, of all others on earth, least deserve such injustice
and insults at the hands of England. Free trade, when driven—for it
sometimes is—to admit that it must inevitably separate Great Britain
from her colonies, then turns round, and charges the colonies with being
an expense and an injury to England. Yet, after all this, free trade
expects the colonies to continue loyal to England. Free trade affects to
be shocked at the effects of the storm which itself palpably, and in a
thousand ways, sowed. Free trade having sickened, weakened, and struck
down the colonies, now literally stands over them, taunting them with
the effects of its own medicines, and, at the same time, affects to
wonder that they should be sick or depressed.
That these effects of free trade upon the colonies have been foreseen
and accurately judged of by the shrewd and far-seeing mind of America,
we may show, by quoting the opinions in point of the great leading
journal of the New England States. This journal, the _Boston Atlas_,
like many of the leading papers in Britain, is occasionally contributed
to by the leading statesmen of the great Whig party in America; and as
we happen to know that the article from which we quote was written by a
gentleman who commands a wide and powerful influence as a statesman and
political economist in the States, his views may be considered entitled
to the greater attention in England:—
“We have said that Canada has been deliberately sacrificed; and we
have too high an opinion of the intelligence of the British ministry
not to suppose that, when they made the sacrifice, they foresaw the
probable ultimate result. We do not believe that they will be
surprised at the movements which are now taking place, or that they
will think of making serious resistance to any step which the
Provinces may decide to take—whether it be for annexation or
independence—though we have no doubt the latter would best suit their
views, for grave reasons upon which we do not now think it necessary
to expatiate.
“As matters now stand, Canada is an agricultural State, paying for all
the manufactures she consumes in the raw productions of the earth. She
has been but a very short time in this position, and yet she already
groans under the free-trade experiment. Her wants are the same; but
the more timber and corn she exports, the less she gets for them.
Instead of growing rich under this beneficent free-trade system, she
is every day getting poorer. She has had enough of free trade, and is
anxiously seeking some way of escape from it. Such is ever the
inevitable result, when the attempt is made to pay for manufactures
with raw productions; and the longer it is continued, the worse will
be the situation of the agricultural state.
“Can she mend her position by adopting the proposed ‘Remedy?’ If her
representatives in parliament happen to be the true representatives of
her interests—which is very far from certain—and if they can persuade
the government to restore the bounty upon her timber and corn—the
answer is, yes. But we see little chance of that, for the situation of
Canada is perfectly well known now by that same government; her case
has been examined in all its bearings, and she has been deliberately
sacrificed to ‘free trade,’—in other words, to the manufacturing
interest of Great Britain; and it will take something more than the
eloquence of a few Canadian orators, admitted to seats in parliament,
to induce that interest to reconsider her case, or to yield a
hair’s-breadth to her claims. She has not been sacrificed through
ignorance, but because she stood in the way of a great theory. She
will look in vain to this source for relief. But if the proposed
consolidation should cause British capital to cross the water and set
up manufacturing establishments, would not the end be gained? Perhaps
so. Of this, however, the chance is small, unless labour is as cheap
in Canada as it is in England, which it never can be until the United
States, ceasing to afford any protection to labour, become parties to
the Free Trade League, and so bring all the labour of North America
down to the level of the labour of Europe. Such a suicidal system can
never be permanently established here, and, therefore, we look upon
this second source of relief as equally visionary with the
first.”—_Boston Atlas._
We had purposed showing that, in addition to the free trade party in
England’s having literally endeavoured to injure and insult the colonies
out of their allegiance to their mother country, they have also been
educating them, by their speeches in parliament and otherwise, to the
same end. But we trust that we have already proved enough to satisfy any
man, not unwilling to believe the truth, that if some men in the
colonies have fallen from their high estate, they have but taken the
course that the free-trade policy of England left open to them; the
course that that policy, if not intentionally, at least inevitably, must
sooner or later compel them to take. If, therefore, England thinks that
those men in the colonies who have looked towards another government
have acted unworthily of themselves and of her, let her lay the blame at
once on those who compelled them to take to the boats by making the ship
no longer a home for them. If their love for their great and glorious
mother country has diminished, it is only, and it is solely, because the
nutriment which supported the affection has been poisoned by men who
have ruled the councils of England. Yet, injured though they were, and
galled and insulted though they unquestionably have been, to palliate
and to justify that injury, still, we believe that the loyalists would
have looked beyond the sway of the free-trade party over England; would
have been willing to trust to England’s justice eventually doing justice
to them, had it not been for the lessons which we have already referred
to as having been diffused by free-trade philosophy with free trade
itself. It is the colonists being practically told, that those who ruled
the councils of the empire would do the best they could for themselves,
and that they must and might do likewise, that made the inroads upon
their loyalty. It is the utter absence of the spirit of compromise—of a
disposition to make a single sacrifice, or to harmonise a single
interest, either to preserve the empire or to save it from humiliation,
by the free-trade party of England, that has taught the colonists
selfishness sufficient to make them say that they would leave Britain
behind for “material interests;” that they too had allowed all memories
of the past to be obliterated in the struggles and aspirations of
avarice. Let England contrast the conduct of these colonies twelve years
ago with what it is now. Let her ask those who have been willing to
forego their connexion with her destiny, and the glory and the safety of
her protection, what it is that causes them to do so; and they will
answer, to a man, it is the teachings and the effects of free trade.
These lessons have been falling upon the colonial mind for years, like
water upon a rock, and they have worn seams and made impressions upon
it, that the swords of many enemies in many years could not have
effected.
But we have now arrived at a point when that plain and straightforward
question, common to Englishmen to ask, may be put to us—and that is,
What is to be done with the colonies, situated as they are? Connected
with this, too, is another question, equally necessary to be answered,
which is—What is Great Britain likely to lose, in possessions, people,
and character, with the Canadas, if she loses them?
With regard to the latter question, which, as it is suggestive of the
consequences to be provided against, it may be better to consider before
that which is suggestive of a remedy—it seems clear enough to us, that
the loss of all the North American colonies would inevitably follow that
of the Canadas. The situation of all of them is the same. Free trade has
affected them nearly equally; and it is a significant fact, that the
agitation upon the subject of “annexation,” without concert, common
interests, or agreement, commenced in all the provinces simultaneously,
though not to the same extent in some as in others. But, apart from
this, if the great province of Upper Canada should take leave of
Britain, the following of the others would be as natural as the limbs
following the dictates of the head. It is indeed useless to waste words
upon a matter that is perfectly self-evident; for if the Canadas
separate from Britain, it must and will go forth to the world, that they
had to do so in order to prosper; and all the colonies being
dissatisfied, and chafing under the same mortifications, and suffering
the same injuries from England’s free-trade policy, would claim, upon
the same grounds, to be relieved of the withering shadow of her power in
America. However uncomplimentary or unjust this may or might be, such
will be the opinion of the world, and Great Britain must prepare to meet
it, or to counteract what will occasion it. As misfortunes, too, do not
come single with a nation more than with an individual, the West Indian
possessions would assuredly follow the North American; and would
certainly not give any more complimentary reasons for doing so. Great
Britain would therefore stand forth before the rest of her colonies and
the world, as having utterly and humiliatingly failed to govern those
she lost with that success which ought to result from her free
institutions, and the freedom of her people. Now this momentous
consideration is clearly bound up with that of what she is to do with
the Canadas. Now, will Great Britain—by whatsoever cause or policy they
may justify their claim for separation, or by whatsoever party in
England it may be or may have been favoured—permit the Canadas to shake
off her power, with these consequences palpably before her eyes? Will
she not the rather prefer coming back to that best of all systems—mutual
sacrifices for common good, and mutual concessions for national
integrity and destiny? Will she not rather endeavour to impart to them
that capital and those people, which would benefit her much, and make
them rich indeed? We think so; and we think she will, because we know
she can devise a plan for doing so, and for governing them in a manner
that will not be attended with the mortifications that have accrued to
both the colonists and the mother country, from all former patchings and
props to a constitutionally bad colonial system. Thinking this, we shall
now proceed briefly to consider—for in the space we have at our command,
it would be impossible fully to show—what great Britain would lose, in
possessions, by losing the Canadas. In this we shall be obliged to lay
under tribute a short but interesting sketch of the Canadas, their value
and extent, by the late Charles Fothergill. He spent many years in the
colonies; knew them well; and his opinions are those of an intelligent
English gentleman, who saw, and made himself practically and thoroughly
acquainted with what he wrote concerning
“THE CANADAS.
“The geographical position of this vast country may be thus generally
stated:—It is bounded on the east by the Gulf of St Lawrence and
Labrador; on the north by the territories of Hudson’s Bay; on the west
by the Pacific Ocean; on the south by Indian countries, which extend
to Mexico, and part of the United States of America—viz., Wisconsin,
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont,
New Hampshire, the district of Maine, and by the British province of
New Brunswick. These boundaries describe a large and magnificent
portion of the globe we inhabit, large enough for the foundation of an
empire, which may become hereafter the arbitress of the destinies of
the new world, embracing with her mighty arms the whole width of the
great continent of America. Secured in her rear by the frozen regions
of the north, and with such a front as she possesses towards the
south, it is impossible but that, with the adoption of wise and
decisive measures, she must be able, hereafter, to hold a far more
potential influence over the countries of the south, than was ever
held by the Tartars, (in their best days,) over Asia; or by the
northern hordes of Europe over the empire of Rome, at the period of
her overthrow. The foundation stone of this empire has been laid by
England, and it depends on the wisdom of her councils, and on the
loyalty, ambition, temper, skill, industry, bravery, high qualities,
and perseverance of the Canadians, no matter of what origin, how far
the fairy vision which is kindled up in fancy may be realised.
“We have only to cast our eyes slightly over a map of North America,
to be immediately assured of the singularly advantageous situation of
the settled parts of Upper Canada. Seated like a gem in the bosom of a
country that is neither scorched by the sultry summers of the south,
nor blasted by the tardy, bitter, winters of the north; surrounded by
the most magnificent lakes, and possessing the most extensive internal
navigation in the known world, it would be difficult, perhaps
impossible, to find in any other region of the globe a tract of
country of the same magnitude with so many natural advantages, as that
part of Upper Canada which lies between the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and
Huron, and the Ottawa, or Grand River, nine-tenths of the whole extent
of which are calculated for the exercise of almost every description
of agricultural labour, and with such a prospect of success as,
perhaps, no other part of this continent could realise. A part of this
tract of country, commencing in the neighbourhood of Kingston, and
running westward nearly 500 miles to the Sandwich frontier, by a
depth, northward, of from 40 to 100 miles, is, alone, capable of
supplying all Europe with grain; besides being rich in cattle, and
producing silver, lead, copper, iron, lime, marl, gypsum, marble,
freestone, coal, salt, wool, hemp and flax, of the best quality,
tobacco and timber of every description, besides furs, game, fish, and
many other valuable productions.
Much has been said, at a distance, against the climate of this fine
country. Those, however, who have removed to it from Great Britain are
agreeably disappointed in finding it more pleasant, (all things
considered,) than that which they have left, because it is neither so
moist nor so unsettled. It might be said, with no great impropriety,
that the present inhabitants of Canada have but two seasons—summer and
winter—for winter has no sooner disappeared, which generally happens
by the middle of April, than the whole animal and vegetable creation
starts into renewed life, with a rapidity and vigour that leaves the
season of spring with such doubtful limits as to be scarcely
perceptible, or deserving a specific character. Again, in the fall of
the year, the months of September and October are generally so fine
and summerlike, and these being succeeded by what is aptly termed the
Indian summer, in November, (that month which is so gloomy in England,
and said to be so fatal to Englishmen,) that we should have great
difficulty, were it not for an artificial calendar, in saying when it
was autumn. As a proof of the general nature of our climate, and to
show that we have other sources of wealth, by the exercise of domestic
industry, in store, it must not be here forgotten that the culture of
both cotton and indigo has been attempted, on a small scale, in the
western district, with success; that the various species of Mulberry,
necessary for the growth of silk, flourish under the care of those who
have made the experiment in the London and western districts; that
vineyards may be advantageously laid out; and the hop is found in
perfection almost everywhere. It may be readily supposed that, in such
a vast extent of country, every description of soil, and every variety
of surface, as to mountains, hills, valleys, and plains, must occur.
Speaking of the inhabited parts of Canada, the Lower Province is the
most mountainous, and the Upper the most level and champagne; indeed,
from the division line on Lake St Francis to Sandwich, a distance of
nearly six hundred miles, nothing like a mountain occurs, although the
greater part of the country which is passed through, between those
places, is gently undulated into pleasing hills, fine slopes, and
fertile valleys. There is, however, a ridge of rocky and generally
barren country, running south-easterly from Lake Huron, through the
Newcastle district, towards the Ottawa, or Grand River, at the
distance of from 50 to 100 miles from the northern shore of Lake
Ontario, and the course of the River St Lawrence; a ridge which
divides and directs the course of innumerable streams, those on one
side running to the northward or north-east, whilst those on the other
run to the southward, and empty themselves into Lake Ontario or the
River St Lawrence. The base of this ridge has an elevation of not much
less than 200 feet above the level of Ontario, and it is rich in
silver, lead, copper, and iron, and near the Lake Marmora, in white
marble. In the neighbourhood of Gunanoque, a beautifully variegated
marble of green and yellow is found; and, in the vicinity of Kingston,
there is an immense bed of black and also gray marble.
“Farther to the north, beyond the French River, which falls into Lake
Huron, are immense mountains, some of them of great elevation. Many of
the mountains which describe the great valley of the St Lawrence, are
from 2000 to 3000 feet above the level of the river; and that part of
the chain which approaches the city of Quebec, on the northern side of
the river, is worthy the attention of the geologist; and, in a
particular manner, of the mineralogist, from the hope there is every
reason to entertain that these mountains yield several rare and
valuable kinds of earth for pigments, which may hereafter become
articles of commerce. When in Quebec, some years ago, the writer of
this sketch was shown several fine specimens, in the seminary of that
city, which had been procured in those mountains at no great distance
from Quebec; amongst which may be mentioned a rich brown resembling
the Vandyke brown of artists; a yellow, equal to that of Naples, and
an extraordinary fine blue, of a tint between that of indigo and the
costly ultramarine. The subject is mentioned in this place with a view
of exciting further inquiry and experiment; because, at present, the
artists and colourmen of London are principally supplied with their
most valuable pigments from Italy. A scientific gentleman who has
lately explored the coast of Labrador, and the Gulf of St Lawrence,
was very successful in his mineralogical pursuits, particularly in the
neighbourhood of Gaspé, from whence he obtained some new, and many
valuable and beautiful specimens of the quartz family—including a
great variety of cornelians, agates, opals, and jaspers; several of
which have been cut into useful or ornamental articles at Quebec. From
Labrador the same gentleman brought several large and beautiful
specimens of the spar so peculiar to that coast, and which is commonly
known by the name of Labrador spar, of a brilliant cornelian or
ultramarine tint, with others of a green, yellow, red, and one or two
of a singularly fine pearl-gray colour. These specimens were found at
Mingan, imbedded in a rock of granite.
“It may give a just idea of the general richness of the soil to state,
that we have frequently heard of instances where 50 bushels of wheat
per acre have been produced on a farm, even where the stumps (which
would probably occupy one eighth of the surface of the field) have not
been eradicated; and, in the district of Newcastle, many examples may
be found wherein wheat has been raised on the same ground for 16 or 18
years successively, without the application of manure! The general
average of the returns of wheat crops, however, throughout Upper
Canada, is probably not more than 25 bushels per acre, owing to the
space occupied by stumps, and the indifferent skill of some of the
farmers. The winter wheats are found to be the most productive, and
they weigh the heaviest: the best seldom exceeds 64 lb. or 65 lb., to
the Winchester bushel, although we have known several instances of
higher weights.
“Of Indian corn or maize, from 60 to 80 bushels per acre is not an
uncommon return; and of pumpkins, of the largest kinds, we have
instances of more than a cwt. being produced from a single seed. But
there cannot be a more certain indication of the depth and richness of
the soil than the fine growth of the timber which it produces; and we
have not unfrequently measured particular trees of that species of
white oak, which grows in low moist places, and which is usually
called swamp oak, that gave circumferences of sixteen to seventeen and
eighteen feet, and an altitude of from thirty to forty, and even fifty
feet to the first bough. And we have more than once, on the rich lands
to the northward of Rice Lake, found white pine trees, that give a
diameter of five feet, and altitude of two hundred! These are facts
that determine at once the depth, richness, and vegetative power of
the soil, since those giants of the forest are not nourished solely by
the heavens which they pierce, but also by the earth from whence they
spring.
“Vegetation is so rapid in this country, that barley sown in July has
been reaped in the second week of September, for several years
successively, and on land that was deemed poor and exhausted; and a
more abundant crop has been seldom witnessed.
“From every observation and experiment that has been made, no doubt
can be entertained of the great fertility of the soil of this fine
country. Not only does every vegetable production which thrives in
similar latitudes in Europe prosper here, but others, which require
either greater heat or greater care, are found to succeed in Canada,
without any particular attention. The finest melons and cucumbers are
brought to perfection in the open fields, and tobacco is cultivated
with success. Even the wild grapes become ripe by the first or second
week in September; so that there is every reason to believe, if
vineyards were cultivated, the inhabitants of this country might add a
variety of choice wines to their list of articles of home consumption,
and of foreign trade. We have drunk of wine very nearly resembling,
and but little inferior to, that of Oporto, which was made from the
common wild grape of the country.”
Now, we have already shown the prosperity that has attended labour in
these provinces, and the comfort and independence that is enjoyed by
their farmers. Few readers in England—at least it is to be hoped there
are few—have not read something of the life and prosperity of the
thousands who are annually taking possession of the vast prairies of the
western states and the valley of the Mississippi. We have shown that, by
the most adventurous and the shrewdest people in the world, the Canadas
have been preferred to them. If England had the world to select from,
she could not desire a finer country for her poor to prosper in, or for
her poor gentlemen to strike out for themselves in, and to work where
labour is honoured, and where its rewards are the only titles that the
people lay claim to. We have, after some pains and calculation, arrived
at the conclusion, that at least five millions of additional inhabitants
can, by agricultural pursuits alone, prosper, in a manner unknown in
Europe, in the province of Upper Canada; not by the hundreds perpetually
toiling for the tens, but by the hundreds having an opportunity, from
the prodigious extent of the country, of becoming, by industry and
management, the lords of their own, and that an abundant, share of the
soil. Now, will Great Britain let it go forth to the world, that she
cannot keep her flag floating over this great country in prosperity and
peace? We think not. But will she do what may be necessary to make it to
her what it ought to be? and make herself to it what she might, and
should be? We think she will; and we shall now, in so far as our short
space will admit of, point out what the country has suffered from, and
what it requires to make it a credit to England, and a support to her
power, instead of being a source of mortification to her, and an
inglorious field for the employment of her troops.
The country’s whole wants may be comprised in few words. It wants
population—not paupers, without industry, or anything left to engraft a
manly pride upon; but people that the country is by nature adapted to
benefit, and who are by nature adapted to benefit it. It wants capital,
nationality, stability in its institutions, and peace.
Now, will the people of England, under the present colonial system,
which has from the very first been marked by broils, misunderstandings,
and commotions—which have always undermined the credit of the colonies,
which are now worse than ever, and which must soon lead to something
worse still, (for paroxysms such as they have must change for the
better, or the state of the patient will become hopeless,)—will the
people of England, then, who have anything to lose, and who wish to live
in peace, settle in the Canadas in this state of things; and in this
state of hopes, too? We think not.
The same reasons which would prevent people settling in the colonies,
would likewise prevent capital being invested in them; so that, under
the present system, there can be no rational hope entertained of the
colonies having much, if any, capital invested in them.
This brings us to the consideration, then, of this other great and
principal want, upon which, in fact, all the others are mainly
founded—namely, a nationality and stability in their institutions. We
have already, in the October number of the Magazine, pointed out at some
length, that these can only be properly and effectually acquired by the
colonists being represented in the Imperial Legislature, and raised to
the standard, in fact, of British subjects. We have shown—and every
event and circumstance that has transpired since has confirmed us in the
opinion—that it is only by this that the colonies can be, or, indeed,
ought to be, connected with Great Britain. They can never otherwise have
the stamp of permanency put upon their institutions. They can never
otherwise command that credit in the world which they are justly
entitled to. But, above all, they can never otherwise make their
property and worth known to England, or to the world, in such a way as
to secure that attention to it which is absolutely indispensable to the
legitimate prosperity of the country.
We have left ourselves comparatively little space to say much, in
addition to what we said in October, upon this great question. It may in
the end, however, be mainly resolved into this—Would it be better to
have intelligent colonists representing and making known their own
interests in Great Britain, than to have incompetent governors sent out
to the colonies, to keep them in constant broils among themselves, and
in constant collision with the colonial office in England? We are but
too well assured that it would be better. And in forming these great
colonies into an empire, which Great Britain must do if she does them
justice, and which indeed will be done with or without Britain,—the race
that inhabits them must, in the very nature of things, be and become
what they ought to be. But if Great Britain will but undertake to do so,
can any man say that no questions could arise in that empire’s growth
and maturity, upon which her wisdom, experience, and mind might not
exert a salutary influence? Or can any person, willing to take a broad
view of this great question and country, continue in the belief that it
should be, or ought to be crippled, or have its growth longer stunted?
Probably one of the most galling circumstances connected with colonial
residence and birth, is the constantly seeing and feeling that colonial
mind is underrated by England; for no other reason, it would seem, than
because it is colonial; or, if there be another reason, it is the no
less humiliating one, that England deems the mind of the colonies
beneath her attention. Not less injurious, though less disagreeable, is
the indifference constantly displayed by England towards the colonies,
and the almost universal ignorance that prevails there as to their
importance and worth. It was the same with the old colonies. The idea
was ridiculed of “clod-hopping colonists” entering the House of Commons,
and holding up their heads among the collected wisdom of Great Britain.
The unpretending but profound wisdom of Franklin was sneered at and
underrated by men as much higher than him in power as they were lower in
understanding. The powerful and convincing eloquence of Patrick Henry
fell dead upon the English nation; and what has since commanded the
admiration of the world for its originality and boldness, was then
regarded with cold contempt.
Speaking of what should be the treatment of American mind by England,
Adam Smith used the following language; and its complete applicability
to the present state of things, shows that great truths lose nothing by
long keeping. He said—
“By this representation, a new method of acquiring importance, a new
and more dazzling object of ambition, would be presented to the
leading men of each colony. Instead of piddling for the little prizes
which are to be found in what may be called the paltry raffle of a
colony faction, they might then hope, from the presumption which men
naturally have in their own ability and good fortune, to draw some of
the great prizes which sometimes come from the whole of the great
state lottery of British politics. Unless this, or some other method
is fallen upon—and there seems to be none more obvious than this—of
preserving the importance and gratifying the ambition of the leading
men in America, it is not very probable they will ever voluntarily
submit to us; and we ought to consider that the blood we shed in
forcing them to do so, is, every drop of it, the blood of either those
who are, or of those whom we wish to have, for our fellow citizens.”
Before concluding this part of our subject, we cannot avoid comparing
the conduct of the American States towards their distant possessions,
and the feeling of these distant possessions towards them, with that of
Britain towards her colonies, and of her colonies towards Britain. We
could perhaps adduce no better argument in favour of what we are
contending for; and the example of America is well worthy the attention
of a power like Britain, which owes so much of its greatness to its
distant possessions, and so many of its troubles and embarrassments to
their bad management.
California is between five and six months’ passage from New York round
Cape Horn. It is about thirty-five days by way of Panama. It is several
months—and the journey is only at certain seasons accomplishable at
all—by the south pass of the Rocky Mountains; and it is about forty days
by way of the Mexican territory, with many dangers and uncertainties
attending it to even well-protected parties—and somewhat of the most
hazardous to those who are not protected. Now, these distant possessions
of the United States—which are, measuring distance by the time and
difficulties attending the journey, at least four times as far as
Halifax is from Liverpool—these distant possessions, how are they
treated by America? Has their intended application to be received into
the Union, and to bear their share of its burthens, and receive their
share of its benefits and protection, been regarded as dreamy and
utopian? Have the States regarded it as impossible to extend to them
their stability, and the conservative elements of their legislation and
federal government? Have the States had their misgivings, as to
California’s representatives having too much influence in their
government? or have the Californians thought the United States’
government would exercise too much power over them? Whatever they have,
or have not, thought in this respect, the great consideration of their
becoming an integral portion of the United States, of their being
identified with their destiny, and borne along with their prosperity,
has utterly obliterated all others; and there is no doubt but that in a
few years they will bear the same relation to the American Union that
Louisiana and Texas do.
Now, what good reason is there why Great Britain should not regard her
North American colonies and her West Indian possessions in the same way
as the States do California? And why should these colonies and
possessions not look to England as the Californians do to the States—and
seek, in the same way, to identify themselves with her destiny—to share
in her stability—to participate in her glory and greatness—and to enjoy,
as far as they merit it, her vast credit?
But it is not alone in the mutual appreciation of each other’s value, by
the States and their distant possessions, and their mutual willingness
to share in each other’s burthens, and to have an identity of destiny,
that these States and their possessions differ from Great Britain and
her colonies. The two nations, apart from the views of their respective
colonists, differ widely from each other in the most essential point
necessary to the beneficial governmental connexion of any country with
another, be it empire or colony, or distant far or near. And that
difference consists in the people of the United States always becoming
thoroughly acquainted with what they are connected with, and thoroughly
understanding how that connexion may be rendered advantageous; and in
the people of England’s desiring to retain their sway over what they
will not take the trouble to understand, and wishing to combine and
harmonise their interests with those which they seem, and ever have
seemed, determined to be in ignorance regarding. Almost every
intelligent inhabitant of the States, at this present moment, has nearly
as definite and particular a knowledge of the portions of California
that have been explored, as those who live in or have traversed
California for themselves. The value of town lots, their situation and
eligibility in San Francisco are as well understood in New York and
Boston as they are by the man who occupies the next lot to them. There
is not a spot where a village might grow up—there is not a place where a
mill might be advantageously built—that is not known, marked, and
considered, with all its relative bearings and benefits, by thousands in
the States, with just as much intention of taking advantage of it, and,
from the extraordinary enterprise of the people, with just as much
likelihood of being able to do so, as those that are on the spot. The
whole country—its towns, its situations for towns, its valleys, its
hills, its woods, and its want of woods, its crops, and its climate,
are, for all purposes of business, for present and for future advantage
to the States, well and universally understood by the mass of the
people. Its newspapers, published at the immense distance that San
Francisco is from New York and Boston, are largely supported by
subscribers in these cities, and by the people in every direction over
the vast surface of the United States. The advertisements in them of
village lots for sale, are matters of nearly as much interest to
Americans as an auction sale of a bankrupt’s furniture and plate would
be to a Jew in London.
Now, can it be accounted as other than natural, that the legislation of
America should partake of the universality of its mind, and the
largeness of its activity and enterprise?—that, California’s interests,
situation, extent, and value, being well understood by America, America
might wisely legislate for it?—that America might beneficially extend
the mantle of her wisdom and experience over it, and infuse the
conservative elements of her federal government into it, and raise it as
much in the estimation of the world as it benefited it within itself?
Hence the desire of the Californians that the flag of the United States
should not only represent their protection of California, but their
government over it, and their legislation in it, which the world has
associated with success and advancement.
Now, for upwards of half a century, there has been an extensive
commercial intercourse carried on between Great Britain and her North
American colonies. The province of Upper Canada is all that we have
described it to be—open to five millions of people to settle and become
independent in—open to many more millions of capital being profitably
invested in it. The other colonies ever have been, and are, full of
opportunities for the successful employment of money and enterprise, and
the profitable application of labour. But we would here ask, with such
opportunities on the part of Great Britain of knowing the value of these
magnificent possessions, has she shown anything of the activity of mind
and the universality of enterprise of America? Has she literally done
anything where the Americans have done everything, to render these
possessions valuable to her—to render them a vast boon to her people,
instead of being a perpetual source of confusion and embarrassment to
her government? Who has there been in England, with capital ready to
invest and enterprise ready to undertake, looking out for valuable mill
sites on the magnificent rivers of the Canadas? How many of her
capitalists have been looking over the map of the colonies, and
inquiring into the richness and value of particular lands, adjacent to a
stream, where a village or a town might be formed and grow up? Who in
England have been learning the wealth of her colonies in timber, in
fisheries, in minerals, and in scores of other things, with the view of
profitably employing their capital in them, and making the colonies
while they enriched themselves? Few, very few, indeed. Is it not a fact,
that thousands in Great Britain, whose capital might be of the vastest
use to the colonies, and the colonies the best field in the world for
reproducing it, hardly know whether they lie on the north or the south
side of the St Lawrence; hardly know whether the cities of Hamilton and
Toronto are on lake Ontario or lake Erie; hardly know whether Upper
Canada is a cold, inhospitable region, or possesses the bracing, genial,
and healthy climate it really has? And though it is now but a ten days’
trip from these colonies to Great Britain, and they possess so many
objects of interest and value to her, we believe we might with safety
offer a reward to any person who would find in England, apart from
government officials, news-rooms, and colonial traders, twelve men who
take a Canadian newspaper. Now, is it any wonder that the colonists
would like to get rid of a system of colonial government which has been
productive of no better knowledge or understanding, for this period of
time, of their interests and prosperity than this? Is it any wonder that
they feel that they never can, and never will, be appreciated, valued,
or benefited as they should, and might, and ought to be, as long as the
present system is kept up? Is it any wonder that, knowing their great
country—knowing what it is capable of—and knowing what they as colonists
should be thought of in connexion with it, they should seek in the
parliament of Great Britain to place themselves and their country before
the world in the position that they both should occupy?
As pertinent to this view of the question, we may here mention that the
facilities of communication between Great Britain and the colonies have
now become so great and so perfect, that all the commercial houses of
importance in the colonies send home their agents twice a-year to
purchase goods. Thus these agents go home in January to lay in their
spring and summer stocks. They return to Canada again in the latter end
of March, and make their observations of the trade, and help to sell the
goods they purchased in England. In July, they go home again to buy
their fall and winter stocks, and in October they return to help to
assort and to sell them. The agent for the large importing house of
Buchanan, Harris, & Co., in Hamilton, at the head of Lake Ontario, has
done this for years; and between Hamilton (which is five hundred and
ninety-five miles above Quebec) and Liverpool, since the Canard steamers
have been running, the time occupied on the journey has not varied two
days, the time of performing it averaging but eighteen days. We may add,
too, as a singular fact, that we have seen, in a country village six
hundred and twenty-five miles above Quebec, fashions worn within the
same month in which they first appeared in London!
Now, should these extraordinary evidences of the triumphs of science
over matter not teach legislation to move from its old and crippling
paths, and to keep pace with the spirit and the advancement of the age?
Is it not a fact, pregnant with powerful reasons why the colonies should
represent their own interests in the Legislature of Great Britain, that
commercial houses find it indispensable to their success to be
represented twice a-year in the British markets? Yet the vast property
and interests of the colonies are without any representation in that
legislature, where alone they can be fostered or withered. We have
pointed out the consequences.
Before concluding this paper, it may be expected by the English public,
(and indeed by the Americans,) that we should not pass unnoticed a
movement in the colonies, which, though it might well have been looked
for, from what we have already proved and shown, has still struck the
great body of the people of England with surprise, if not with alarm. We
mean the movement in favour of the “annexation” of the colonies to the
States. It may be proper, in the first place, to say, that though its
name would seem to imply that the consent of the government and people
of the United States had been solicited and obtained, before the “banns”
were published to the world, yet that consent has never been asked, nor
was it either promised or given without the asking. The people of the
United States are quietly and calmly looking on at the dispute between
Great Britain and her colonies, and they are determined to continue so
to do until that dispute is settled. The days of their bitterness and
hostility to England are over. What they may, or what they would do, if
the colonies should be separated from Britain, they reserve to
themselves the right of deciding when the colonies are in a position to
ask for themselves, and to act for themselves. In this we believe we
express the feelings and opinions of the great body of the intelligent
people of the American States—certainly we do of the distinguished
individual at the head of their government, and of the whole of the
respectable portion of the American press. A report may reach England,
that a portion of the money which was collected in the States, to aid
the late unhappy insurrection in Ireland, has been contributed to
establish and support “annexation” newspapers in the Canadas. This
report requires confirmation; and if it were even partially true, it
would only amount to this, that the “Irish Directory” in New York, who
are said to have the money, have been regularly sold; for if they wished
to dismember England, there is nothing they could possibly do that would
more effectually tend to defeat their intentions. The “annexation”
movement rests, in truth, upon the merits or demerits of its own
treason, for treason it assuredly is. Authorised by whomsoever it may
be—justified, occasioned, or palliated by whatever men or measures, in
England or elsewhere—it is clearly a case of attempting to dissolve her
Majesty’s empire in the name of “material interests,” being moved and
instigated thereto by a certain individual called _free trade_.
But can this movement go on and prosper, seditious as it palpably is,
without establishing a most dangerous precedent for England? And can it
be stopped without a waste of life and money, that would bring Great
Britain but little credit, and less advantage?
Whatever may be the danger of the precedent, and whatever may be its
effects upon other colonies, or upon England herself, it seems clear
that a large expenditure of blood and money, to suppress this movement
in the Canadas, is neither desirable, nor, in the present temper of the
British public, might it be possible. And this movement never could be
physically or forcibly put down, without a large expenditure of both
these. The men who have deliberately entered into it are not such as
could be easily driven out of the land, or frightened out of their
convictions in it. They would fight for their opinions, and, considering
all things—loyalists disgusted, and Frenchmen in power—they are
dangerously numerous.
This brings us, then, to consider what is being done in a conciliatory
point of view, by the free-trade party in England—who are answerable for
the difficulty—to take the wind out of this “annexation movement’s”
sails. This is, according to Lord John Russell’s speech—at the dinner
given some months since, for the purpose, it would seem, of discussing
colonial subjects—to give them more liberty. Heaven help us! If Lord
John Russell saw, as we have seen, liberty recently running clean mad in
these colonies; if he saw responsible government playing its “fantastic
tricks before high heaven,” with England’s “dignified neutrality”
looking on, he would hardly be disposed to give them any more rope. But
what is the character of the liberty and privileges they ask? and, being
asked, he would give them? The last small instalment they require is, to
elect their legislative council; and, thinking that the phantom of Great
Britain’s power, called “dignified neutrality,” may be had at a cheaper
rate at home, they propose to elect that also—feeling, too, not without
justice, that they might thereby _neutralise_ the loss to the colonies
of some four thousand pounds annually. But suppose England should waive
the privilege of sending out a phantom, and the legislative lords would
have, like David Crocket, to go about the country electioneering with a
pocket full of _quids_, pray what, after all this, would be left in the
colonies to recognise England by? An Englishman coming to them, like the
man in the farce who had been asleep for a century, would find it rather
difficult to recognise his relations. But, seriously, what is all this
but annexation? And is this the only way the great authors of the
colonial difficulties have of keeping the colonies British?—of making
them a home for men who seek and who claim to live under the
institutions of Britain? Better—infinitely better—would it be to tell
men straightforwardly, and at once, that they must feel the iron enter
their souls of seeing the flag of their forefathers hauled down on the
American continent for ever, than compel them to endure its being thus
slowly and gradually disgraced out of it. And this would and must be the
inevitable result of Lord John Russell’s giving the colonies more rope.
But what other cause or question is there now before the colonies to put
against this “annexation movement?” Of purely colonial questions there
are none. Beyond the true and honest hearts which love Britain, despite
of all her faults; who would, and will, cling to her, although she has
sadly requited their attachment,—she has nothing now to bind her to or
to represent her in America. Her institutions are gone; her government
has ceased to be respected; Lord Elgin has made her power as “the
baseless fabric of a vision.” There is nothing Britain can do; there is
nothing Britain ought to do, but to say, emphatically and at once, to
her North American colonies—We have not understood you—we have not
appreciated you—we have not known your great country as we should have
known it—we have not respected your mind or your interests; but we will
now make you partners in our great legislature—we will impart to you our
credit, our greatness, and our stability—and we will bind you up with
our destiny.
Great Britain has a glorious part to play in America; and she has a
disastrous one. _She has but a short time to decide upon which she will
play._
HAMILTON, CANADA WEST, _Jan. 17, 1850_.
(POSTSCRIPT.)
The very day on which I last wrote you, we received a London morning
paper, containing an announcement that the Whig ministry were prepared
to give up these colonies, and to take upon themselves, before
parliament, the responsibility of the act. Though it seemed unlike that
party—whatever they might privately think, or whatever they might
plainly see must be the inevitable result of their present free-trade
policy—to take so bold, or rather, so frank a step, yet the articles
which have appeared from time to time in the _Times_, and which bore on
the face of them an air of authority, had prepared me to attach some
credence to the statement. These, after all, may be put from the cabinet
as feelers upon the country. They may be but a disingenuous _ruse_ of
men who do not seek to regulate their conduct by what they ought to do
from the dictates of enlightened principle and great national
consideration, but are anxious only to float along with the current of
popular delusion, regardless of the nation’s humiliation and
dismemberment. It is my belief, however, that if the present ministry,
backed by Mr Cobden and the Manchester party, play into the hands of
those here who are struggling to dismember the empire, it will produce a
civil or social war in the colonies. There is a large body of their
British and loyal inhabitants who will cling to Britain, and keep her
flag floating here; and who will, if necessary, part with their lives
ere they part with it. It is possible—nay, is it not certain?—that Sir
Robert Peel, and other statesmen, who have plainly and undeniably placed
the colonies in a situation incompatible with imperial connexion,—may
throw out such hints and suggestions in the approaching session of
parliament, as will agitate and move the colonies to their very heart’s
core,—one party to secure a majority in favour of their “annexation” to
the States, the other to prevent the dismemberment of their mother
country? Sir Robert Peel and others have thrown out such suggestions
before; but, under existing circumstances, if they are again put forth,
they will be regarded by the “annexation movement” party as an
invitation to test the opinions of the colonies—to proselytise them, as
in fact they are now doing, into insurrection, and away from allegiance
to Britain. Meetings will follow; _the stars and stripes_ will be
hoisted by one party; the flag of their forefathers by the other; and,
take my word for it, you will hear of struggles of which God only can
tell the end, and what they may lead to here and elsewhere. Certainly
the world will never have witnessed such a scene. The statesmen, the
cabinet even of Britain playing into the hands of those who would tear
down her flag in America; and her loyal children supporting it against
the influence of many who are, and have been, surrounding the throne.
A long residence in the colonies, and a habit of observing, unbiassed by
colonial party considerations, the character and tendencies of men and
measures, have enabled me to judge, with some accuracy, of the effects
of causes not generally supposed to be pregnant with important results.
At this moment there are, in my judgment, the slumbering elements of a
deadly strife in the colonies. There is but a small remove between a
civil revolution and a physical struggle. The seeds of the national and
revolutionary hurricane are often sown in the peaceful closet, and by
men who could weep over the thought of what they would produce. The
seeds of a wild and fearful hurricane in the colonies, and which must
and will reach England, may be now sowing in many a peaceful closet in
England. Mr Cobden may talk of peace, and denuding Britain of her
national defences, and convincing men against all humanity’s experience;
but he must be, he should be, made aware, that he has not made Britain,
and may not be allowed to unmake her. He has not added these colonies to
her crown; and while he may be in words _twaddling_ about universal
peace, his very speeches may be sowing the seeds here of a deadly
struggle. Let him beware; let others beware of the vanity of free-trade
success. The wisdom of the Manchester school has not been that which has
made Great Britain. Let its vanity and its arrogance not ruin her. If it
arms treason here—if it wings a storm, from which England may learn
much, it may be taught to feel what it has done. The demagogues of
Athens succeeded in banishing the great and the just, but they did not
succeed in destroying greatness or justice—these are immortal. The
free-trade party may denude Britain of her glorious possessions in
America, but these possessions may be the rising, growing, unending
shame of those who caused their loss, and the generation of Britons who
permitted it.
HAMILTON, _30th January 1850_.
A LATE CASE OF COURT-MARTIAL.[1]
“Surely never was so slight a fault visited by so severe a punishment!”
Such is the exclamation which will fall from the lips, or pass through
the mind, we believe, of every one who shall peruse Mr Warren’s _Letter
to the Queen on a Late Court-Martial_. The reader of that letter will
also rise from its perusal with the painful conviction, that, in the
awarding of this heavy punishment, a gross violation of one of the most
ordinary and fundamental laws of jurisprudence has been committed; and
he will probably conclude with Mr Warren, that if this be a fair
specimen of the lax manner in which justice is administered in
courts-martial, some reform is necessary in their structure, or, at all
events, some higher court of appeal ought to be instituted for the
revision of their proceedings.
We have read this admirable letter of Mr Warren’s with unusual interest.
As a literary performance it well comports with, and sustains the
established reputation of its author; but it reflects a high honour upon
him of another and loftier description than that which springs from
literary excellence. It shows him in the light of a warmhearted, zealous
champion of one whom he believes, and with every appearance of reason,
to be an oppressed and injured man. He had assisted Captain Douglas at
his trial before the court-martial, on which he now comments, as his
legal adviser; he had done his duty as counsel for the defendant, so far
as such a court admits of the aid or interference of counsel; he had no
interest to promote, and no obligation to fulfil, by any further
advocacy of his cause. Captain Douglas had been condemned; the great
authorities of the Horse Guards had sanctioned and confirmed the
sentence: a cautious man, and a lover of his ease, would here have
parted company. He would have shaken his mournful client by the hand,
and, with some cold unmeaning words of condolence, have left him with
that troop of summer friends, who have, no doubt, by this time, found
him a most uncompanionable man. The world was now against him; to
volunteer his defence was to oppose constituted authorities; it was to
side with weakness against power—with defeat against triumph. It was to
stand side by side with one in adversity—stricken, and condemned. But
caution and love of ease are evidently motives that have very little
influence on the mind of Mr Warren. As the counsel of Captain Douglas,
he had grown warm in his defence; he could not suddenly cool when he saw
him prostrate, defeated, and dishonoured. He was convinced of the
innocence of his client; he felt persuaded that it was in his power to
show to all mankind that that client had been cruelly dealt with—treated
with a degree of harshness amounting to injustice. His position of
counsel had also given him insight into the whole legal proceedings of
this court-martial, which betrayed to his practised eye a palpable
infraction of one at least of those essential rules by which every
tribunal of justice ought to be governed, or cease to be considered a
tribunal of justice. He knew all this, and the truth _burnt within him_;
he could not sit down in silence; he could not at once dismiss his
sympathy and indignation—his sympathy for an injured man, his
indignation for the rules of justice violated. He had ceased to be the
advocate of Captain Douglas, but he still clung to his cause, for it was
the cause, he was persuaded, of truth and justice.
“Only a great and pressing exigency,” he thus explains himself in the
eloquent exordium of his letter, “could have induced one of the
humblest of your Majesty’s subjects to step forth from his obscurity,
and thus publicly and directly address your Majesty. Even had he not
known, however, the benignant and equitable temper of his sovereign, a
case like the present would have forced him to bring it forward; for
the voice of justice is a sublime one, strengthening the feeblest, and
elevating the humblest, who, hearing, endeavours to obey it.
“He who has thus ventured to beseech the ear of his sovereign,
believes in his conscience that the cause of justice in this country
has recently sustained, through a defective system of military
jurisprudence, a calamitous defeat.
“An officer, an accomplished gentleman, of ancient and honourable
family, in the very flower of his age,[2] after having devoted
thirteen years to the faithful and zealous service of your Majesty in
almost every quarter of your world-wide dominions, has been
ignominiously expelled from that service, branded as a Liar. He stood
on trial before his brother officers with as high vouchers to
character, as could have been presented, had it unfortunately been
rendered necessary by such a casualty as has befallen him, by any one
of themselves. He was, moreover, the eldest son of a general officer
who lately descended to his grave with honour, after half a century
spent in the service of three of your Majesty’s predecessors; leaving
behind him, as his eldest son, the unhappy gentleman to whose case I
earnestly implore the attention of your Majesty....
“That gentleman I believe to be, at this moment, one of the most
deeply-injured men in your Majesty’s dominions. He has been convicted
of misconduct of which he is utterly incapable; and I consider that
conviction to be altogether contrary to law and justice, and to have
proceeded upon an unconscious violation of cardinal and characteristic
rules of British jurisprudence, essential to the safety as well as to
the liberties of your Majesty’s subjects. And what has thus happened
to Captain Douglas may happen to any other gentleman who is now, or
may be hereafter, honoured by bearing the commission of your Majesty.
I think myself able to bring forward facts which are incontrovertible,
and reasonings which appear, if I may be permitted to say it,
conclusive—and that not to myself alone, but to others whose judgment,
were it publicly pronounced, would be deemed entitled to the utmost
deference—to establish the innocence of one, upon whose brow,
nevertheless, stands at this moment, and has stood for eight miserable
months, the brand of ‘infamous and scandalous conduct.’”
He then proceeds to say that her Majesty alone has the power to redress
the wrong of which he comes forward to complain.
“In the present case, the blighting sentence passed upon Captain
Douglas cannot be reviewed in any court of law. It was solemnly
decided, in your Majesty’s Court of Queen’s Bench, on a late occasion,
that it had no power to issue a prohibition to restrain the execution
of the sentence of a court-martial, after that sentence had been
ratified by the king, and carried into execution. And yet, in the
existing state of the law, the unfortunate accused has no means of
knowing the sentence which has crushed him, until it has been so
ratified, carried into execution, and thus declared _therefore_
irrevocable! And that sentence, too, pronounced by a _court of law_,
bound to proceed according to the law of the land—which law it may
have violated in every particular!”
It is hardly necessary to say, that the military law under which our
army has been governed, ever since the Revolution, is as completely
founded upon the statutes of parliament as any other branch of our
jurisprudence. A less technical mode of procedure is recognised as
prevailing in courts-martial, than that which regulates our civil or
criminal courts. But there is nothing of an _arbitrary_ nature in the
sentences they pass. These are determined, so far as this is possible,
by the act of parliament. A judge of the bankruptcy court is not more
bound by the statute, when he grants or withholds the bankrupt’s
certificate, than are the judges of a court-martial when they sentence a
fellow-officer to be cashiered. Let it be granted, therefore, that
Captain Douglas had so far committed himself, in the course of the
events we shall have to record, that it was expedient to bring him
before a court-martial. Let this be granted—an opinion, however, from
which many will dissent—when there, he claims justice! He is under the
protection of the law. He is not to be punished with undue severity; he
is not to be punished illegally.
It is probable that Mr Warren will be thought to have been carried a
little too far, in his vindication of Captain Douglas’s conduct, by his
generous zeal and by the ardour of advocacy. It would be asking too much
to require that he should suddenly assume towards his late client the
coolness of a quite impartial observer. But whilst his argument is that
of an advocate, and is something too much tainted with the logic of the
courts of Westminster, his statement of facts is full and impartial. He
may be a too zealous advocate, but he is a candid historian. It is
hardly necessary to add, that, whenever occasion legitimately permits,
he is a very pleasant and graphic historian.
We do not intend that our account of this case should be a substitute
for the perusal of Mr Warren’s pamphlet; we desire rather to prompt to
such a perusal. It is far, therefore, from our design to enter upon all
the topics it discusses. But the case is one to which, on public
grounds, we would cheerfully assist in calling public attention. In
doing so we shall endeavour, in the first place, to state, with perfect
impartiality, the real and sole offence, or fault, or error, of which it
seems to us Captain Douglas can be justly accused; and, in the second
place, to show with what _illegal severity_ this offence has been
visited. On the first of these topics, we shall, perhaps, be in some
slight degree at variance with our author; on the second, we shall fully
accord with him in his main and leading argument: for we think there
cannot be a doubt that the judgment of this court-martial is
vitiated—not by any merely technical error, but by an error affecting
the very justice of the sentence—by no less an error than the finding a
man guilty of an offence of a certain degree of guilt, and condemning
him to a punishment expressly and solely awarded to an offence of a far
greater degree of criminality—finding him, in short, guilty of the crime
A, and inflicting the penalty decreed only to the crime B.
The life of military men in time of peace presents, as we catch a
glimpse of it here, no very attractive picture. Captain Douglas in
barracks at Longy, in the island of Alderney, with one subaltern, Ensign
Parker, is commanding his detachment. Lieutenant-Colonel Le Mesurier is
commanding at Alderney, under the title of Town Major. Between these
rival potentates disputes arise as to their respective jurisdictions.
Instead of companionship, assistance, co-operation, there is only mutual
repulsion, mutual hostility.
In this cheerless position of affairs, Captain Douglas “went one
day—on Friday the 5th January—about twelve o’clock, for a little
amusement, to practise pistol-firing, at a spot near the Frying-Pan
Battery, as it is called, which was at a distance of two or three
hundred yards from the barracks where he resided. This happened to be
the first and only time of his using firearms during his stay in the
island. No one but himself, indeed, knew even the fact of his
possessing firearms. He ordered his servant Riley to procure some
potatoes, and to follow him with them, and the pistol-case, (which,
however, Riley did not know to be such, nor for what purpose the
potatoes were required,) to the Frying-Pan Battery.”
These circumstances are mentioned to account for the scanty testimony
which Riley afterwards gave; it being supposed that he had withheld
evidence to serve the interest of his master. And certainly it is a
little difficult to believe that Patrick Riley, who was a soldier as
well as the servant of Captain Douglas, did not know what the
pistol-case contained, or for what purpose he carried it and the two
potatoes to the battery. We continue the narrative in the words of Mr
Warren, which we should be very unwise not to adopt, wherever it is in
our power to do so.
“Captain Douglas proceeded to make a target in the wall opposite,
which faced the sea—by putting a potato into the centre of an open
piece of newspaper, and then thrusting it into a crevice in the wall.
This he did to make the mark at which he intended to aim more
distinctly visible. He had selected this particular spot for his
practice because it was retired and safe. It was entirely hid from the
view of the sentry, or any of the men on guard at the barracks....
After firing about twenty or thirty shots, every one of them at the
target in question—standing all the while with his back to the sea,
and against the rampart, and at which stood the pistol-case and
potatoes—he saw Mr Parker approaching. It was a few minutes before one
o’clock when he got there. Having fired two shots, both at the same
target at which Captain Douglas had been shooting, he went down by a
somewhat precipitous descent to the beach, which lay about forty feet
immediately below them, accompanied by his dog—intending to amuse
himself for a few minutes by throwing stones into the sea, and sending
his dog after them; and also desirous of ascertaining whether a hole,
which had caught his eye in descending, was that of a rabbit or a
rat.”
Amusements were scarce at Alderney.
“Neither Captain Douglas nor Mr Parker’s attention was called to the
circumstance of their harmless pistol practice, on the 5th January,
till about three or four o’clock on the ensuing Monday afternoon—the
8th January. During the interval, Captain Henderson had arrived from
Guernsey; and he, Mr Parker, and Captain Douglas were walking together
towards the town, when they met Mr Bains, (a medical gentleman.) After
the ordinary salutations, Captain Douglas asked him, ‘What news was
going on in the town?’ To which Mr Bains answered, laughing, ‘Nothing
new, _since your sport with the bulls of Bashan at Longy_;’ and he
proceeded to say, to the surprise of Captain Douglas and Mr Parker,
‘that he understood a bullock had been shot at or near Longy.’ Captain
Douglas replied with a smile, ‘You surely don’t mean to say that _I_
am charged with having had anything to do with it?’—‘Indeed you are,’
said Mr Bains—‘and you will find the constable at your quarters about
it, on your return! But it is true, is it not, that you and Parker
were ball firing there?’—‘Yes, we were practising,’ replied Captain
Douglas unhesitatingly; ‘but I know nothing about the bullock.’ After
some other observations, Mr Bains, who knew the position in which
Colonel Le Mesurier and Captain Douglas stood towards each other, said
with a smile, ‘Colonel Le Mesurier has gone up to look at the
bullock.’ To this observation Captain Douglas made a brief sarcastic
answer; and shortly afterwards Mr Bains left them.
“The three officers, after continuing their walk for some time longer,
separated, towards five o’clock. Captain Henderson went to Corblets
barracks, to dress for dinner, both he and Mr Parker being engaged to
dine that evening with Captain Douglas; who, with Mr Parker, walked
towards Longy, expecting to meet with the constable spoken of by Mr
Bains. As they went, they conversed on the subject of his
communication, remarking how oddly circumstances seemed to favour the
notion that, if a bullock had really been shot, it must have been by
them; and they also adverted to the fact of Colonel Le Mesurier having
already become acquainted with the matter, and what could have been
his object in going to see the carcase of the animal. After some
consideration they agreed that it would be better, under the
circumstances, _not to admit the fact of their having been firing, but
leave it to be proved by those who seemed disposed to charge them with
having shot the bullock_.”
Here was the fatal error. In this resolution, and the acting on it, lies
the whole moral offence, fault, or delinquency of Captain Douglas. Not
to admit a fact, when questioned on it, is so close upon a denial of the
fact, that no human ingenuity can keep them long separate. His
concealment of an act perfectly innocent was construed into a denial of
that act: it could not well be otherwise, for an evasive answer, which
serves the purpose of concealment, must be understood by the party who
receives it as a denial, or it no longer serves the purpose of
concealment. Yet an evasive answer of this description is permitted by
men of the strictest honour in a thousand instances, and is only visited
with _moral opprobrium_ in those cases where there is an imperative
claim upon the conscience to tell the whole truth. No such imperative
claim can be made out in the present case. We admit, however, that it
was an error. The better rule is never to resort to an evasion unless
there are very strong reasons for so doing. We admit that the adopting
of, and persisting in, this policy, or rather this _impolicy_, of
concealment, was here to some extent blameable. But we can detect no
base or dishonourable motive leading to it. The worst motive we can
divine, is a certain love of a tortuous policy by which some ingenious
persons are afflicted. They like finessing, and will introduce into the
common affairs of life, much to their own and other people’s
embarrassment, what they would describe as a diplomatic dexterity.
The constable, Renier, on the same afternoon, made his appearance at the
house of Captain Douglas. There is much controversy as to the import of
the question which he put to Captain Douglas; whether, when he asked
him, “If he knew anything about it?”—he referred to the shooting of the
bullock, or the firing on the battery. It is plain, from the
circumstances of the case, that both these matters were inextricably
mixed up _in the mind of the constable_; for he came to inquire of the
shooting of the bullock because of the firing on the battery; and into
the firing on the battery, because of the supposed shooting of the
bullock. There is no wonder, therefore, that a man, not accustomed to
analyse his own ideas, should, in giving his evidence before the court,
sometimes state one, and sometimes the other, as the object of his
inquiry. But it is equally plain, from the very nature of the case, that
whatever was stirring in the mind of the constable, his first question
to the Captain would be, whether he knew anything about the death of the
bullock. He would never have thought of coming to the barracks to ask an
officer whether he had been practising with his pistol, without showing
in the first place that he had grounds for making what otherwise would
be a very impertinent inquiry. We feel ourselves, therefore, quite
justified in adopting here the statement of Captain Douglas. According
to that statement, Renier asked him “if he knew anything about shooting
the bullock?” He answered “No,” as he well might. For it is to be
understood at once, and distinctly, that Captain Douglas had nothing
whatever to do with the death of the bullock, and knew nothing about it.
But, unfortunately, the dialogue between them did not stop here. It will
be remembered that Captain Douglas had made use of a piece of a
newspaper, the _Times_, to form his target. This newspaper bore his own
name and address on it. The constable added—“That a _Times_ paper had
been found near the spot, with Captain Douglas’s name upon it.” _This_
remark could have reference only to the question—who had been firing on
the battery? And to this remark Captain Douglas replied—“Possibly so;
there were plenty of his papers about; they went all through the
barracks and into the town, and he had five or six a-week.” With this
answer the constable departed.
The next day a civil court was held, presided over by Judge Gaudion, to
inquire into this affair of the death of the bullock. Captain Douglas
was summoned to attend. A number of witnesses were examined, whose
testimony it is not necessary for our purpose to enter into. Mr Bisset,
the owner of the animal, who had connected its death with the firing
heard upon the ramparts, produced a number of flattened bullets, broken
percussion caps, and pieces of a newspaper addressed to Captain Douglas,
which had been found upon the battery. After the judge had asked Captain
Douglas whether he had any knowledge who had shot the bullock, and had
received the decisive and truthful answer, that “he had not,” he
proceeded—pointing to some pieces of newspaper lying on the table—to put
the following question: “Can you account for the _Times_ newspaper to
your address having been found in the battery, perforated evidently by
ball practice?” To which Captain Douglas answered, “I am not accountable
for my papers, as they travel through the barracks and into the town.”
This absurd policy (for so we should characterise it) of concealment is
adhered to, and with these unfortunate pieces of the _Times_ newspaper
lying before him! His answer is understood as a denial of having been
practising with his pistol on the battery, and there are those tell-tale
fragments “evidently perforated with ball.” It is inconceivably absurd.
He is getting into a scrape, and raising a scandal in the little island
of Alderney, for no intelligible motive whatever.
Mr Warren here defends the conduct of his late client on the legal
principle or maxim, that no man is bound to criminate himself. He stood
there in a court of justice “virtually as an accused party;” the court
throws its shield over persons in such a position, cautions them, and
would protect them even against their own indiscretion. Captain Douglas
was fully justified in availing himself of this well-known privilege—in
evading and warding off a question which he could not answer without
supplying evidence against himself.
Mr Warren will forgive us if we smiled, for a moment, at this instance
of the inveterate habits of the lawyer, overpowering the natural
shrewdness and sagacity of the man. This legal argument is manifestly
inapplicable, and for this simple reason: in the circumstances of the
case, there is nothing sufficiently grave—no impending charge of
sufficient magnitude—to induce or warrant, in any reasonable man, a
departure from, or a concealment of the truth, or any tampering with his
honour. _If_ the evasive statement of Captain Douglas be considered as
tantamount to a denial, and _if_ that virtual denial be considered as in
some degree dishonourable, there can be no shelter for him in this maxim
of law, because the fear of a false accusation of having accidentally
shot a bullock, would not be accepted, by men of honour, as an excuse or
justification.
If Captain Douglas had really shot the bullock, he would have been still
more completely under the shelter of this legal maxim—and his
equivocation would have been a ten times more heinous offence.
As Mr Warren repeats this argument more than once, it may be worth while
to state, in general terms, wherein its fallacy lies. A person is tried
before a court-martial, which partakes of the nature of a court of
honour, for a departure from, or a concealment of truth, considered to
be dishonourable to a gentleman. It is no sufficient answer to plead the
privilege which courts of law throw around a witness, unless you show at
the same time that, in his case, such a privilege could be taken
advantage of without any derogation to his character as a member of
society. A very little reflection will satisfy us that the permission
granted by courts of law to the accused party, or to a witness, to deny
or withhold the truth, _may_ or _may not_ be a valid excuse in the moral
judgment of society—may or may not be such a permission as it would be
honourable to accept.
A man is tried for his life on the charge of murder, or high treason. He
pleads not guilty. Although he is in fact guilty, the most honourable
and fastidious portion of society add nothing to their reprobation of
the accused on account of this plea. The code of honour or of moral
opinion, and the rule of the court of law, are not at variance.
But nothing is easier than to imagine cases in which they would be at
variance, and at variance in all possible degrees, from slight
difference to complete opposition. The accused is being tried on a false
accusation for murder. Titus is a witness. He can by his evidence
establish the innocence of the accused, but in giving that evidence he
will reveal his own guilt. The court allows him to be silent where his
answer to the question would criminate himself. And here, too, the
opinion of society would probably coincide with the rule of the
court,—yet not entirely; many would censure the witness, many would
excuse, none would cordially approve.
Let us now suppose that Titus is innocent, but, in giving his evidence,
he must confess some fact which will excite a strong suspicion against
himself. Here the number of those who would justify his silence would
greatly diminish. Suppose now that the suspicion which would be raised
against him, was of a slight character, one which might be easily
removed; suppose that by his evidence alone could the accused be saved
from the unjust condemnation that hung over him; add to all this, that
the accused and innocent party was the _friend_ of Titus, and had been
his benefactor—and now this witness, “not bound to criminate himself,”
has become the object of execration to all mankind.
This legal maxim is but one of many rules which courts of law, or the
legislature, enact for the better administration of justice,—rules which
cannot be so framed as to be strictly consentaneous, or identical, with
the rules of morality. One who owes a just debt takes advantage of the
forbearance of an indulgent creditor, and pleads the statute of
limitations. The court admits the plea, puts it in his mouth, justifies
him for the use of it. But the use of it has dishonoured him for life.
To return to our case. Mr Bisset, the owner of the bullock, still
associating its death, most erroneously, with the firing heard on the
battery, published a newspaper paragraph in the _Guernsey Comet_, headed
DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR! in which suspicion was thrown upon Captain Douglas
and Ensign Parker, and which terminated with the offer of “A REWARD OF
TWENTY POUNDS, to be paid to any one giving information sufficient to
convict the party or parties who were shooting at the Frying-pan Battery
on Friday the 5th January, between the hours of twelve and three P.M.
Mr Bisset also laid his complaint before Major-General Bell, the
commanding officer at Guernsey. That officer wrote to Captain Douglas,
requiring his explanation of the affair. A great part of the letter
referred distinctly to this pistol-firing on the battery. Now then, the
reader is prepared to say, Captain Douglas will surely lay aside this
needless and silly piece of diplomacy, this concealment of a perfectly
innocent act, which is only strengthening suspicion against him. If he
could permit himself to trifle with Judge Gaudion, and the petty civil
court at Alderney, he will not trifle with his superior officer; he will
not run the risk _here_ of being thought to equivocate. Nearly a month
had now elapsed since the first visit of Constable Renier. Time had been
given him to reflect: and Captain Douglas did reflect. Ensign Parker
lets fall in his evidence that he wrote _two_ letters in answer to this
communication, and pondered some time which he should send. In the one,
he frankly avowed having been firing with his pistol on the battery,
whilst he utterly denied the accusation of having shot the bullock; in
the other, he adhered to his policy of concealment, confined himself to
a denial of the main accusation, and left all that part of the letter
relating to the firing on the battery virtually unanswered. He pondered
which of the two he should send; but the genius of diplomacy
prevailed,—he sent the second!
Major-General Bell, as might be expected, was not satisfied with such a
reply. He instituted a military Court of Inquiry, consisting of Colonel
Le Mesurier, Captain Cockburn, and Captain Clerk, with instructions “to
ascertain whether any person or persons, belonging to the garrison, were
engaged in firing with ball, within or immediately adjoining Longy
Lines, on the day and within the hours specified in several of the
documents laid before them.” It was not till the evening of the second
day on which this court had sat, that Captain Douglas seems to have had
his eyes opened to the perilous manner in which he was compromising
himself. On the evening of that day, he wrote a letter to Judge Gaudion,
stating the whole and simple truth with regard to this pistol-firing;
and the next morning, he repeated the same statement before the military
Court of Inquiry. The confession, it seems, came too late to save him
from the consequences of his unwise, needless, and pertinacious
concealment of an act in itself perfectly innocent. It was thought a
case sufficiently grave to bring before a court-martial.[3]
It will be seen and acknowledged at once, that we have not attempted to
screen Captain Douglas from the degree of blame which an impartial judge
would throw upon his conduct. If the court-martial had reprimanded
Captain Douglas, we should have thought the penalty sufficiently severe,
but neither we, nor perhaps others, would have been disposed to dispute
the propriety of the sentence, or, at least, to call public attention to
the case. But, for this offence, the court has sentenced Captain Douglas
to be _cashiered_!
This sentence—to enter now upon our second topic—is not only cruelly
severe, it is illegal, it is unjust. Our readers need not fear that we
are about to involve them in the technicalities of jurisprudence. It is
no technical matter we have to deal with, but broad principles of
justice. Mr Warren has, indeed, raised a class of legal objections
against the verdict of the court-martial, grounded on its refusal to
admit certain evidence. On these objections we shall not enter. To us it
appears that the president of the court exercised his power in this
matter, in general, very discreetly. But, on these objections, we wish
it to be understood that we give no opinion. We pass at once to what we
deem a fatal error in this verdict—an error, not of form, but of
substance; an error which constitutes it to be an _unjust judgment_.
Captain Douglas was tried upon the following charge,—“for conduct
unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman.” Of such conduct
he was found guilty. Now, the article of war under which he was
arraigned, and the only one under which his offence, by any fair
interpretation, could fall, is the 80th, and runs thus:—“Any officer who
shall behave _in a scandalous, infamous manner_, unbecoming the
character of an officer and a gentleman, shall, on conviction thereof
before a general court-martial, be CASHIERED.”[4]
The penalty, under this article, is _peremptorily_ that of cashiering. A
less punishment the court is not competent to pronounce. The article has
for its express object the removal from the service of officers who are
convicted of scandalous and infamous behaviour.
“There is no provision,” says Mr Warren, “in the Articles of War, for
the cognisance of unofficer-like and ungentleman-like conduct,
divested of a tendency to prejudice good order and military
discipline, (so as to bring it within Article 108,) in any degree less
than that involving infamy and scandal. In the year 1801, an officer
was charged before a General Court-martial with scandalous and
infamous conduct, unbecoming the character of an officer and a
gentleman. The Court acquitted the prisoner of ‘scandalous and
infamous behaviour,’ but considering his conduct, nevertheless, as
‘unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman,’ adjudged him
to ‘be suspended from rank and pay for six calendar months.’ His
Majesty King George III. declared the adjudication irregular, and
disapproved the sentence, ‘inasmuch as the Court had acquitted the
prisoner of the only imputation which could bring the business as a
charge before them—namely, of any scandalous and infamous behaviour in
the transaction.’ In another case, which happened in 1814, in India,
an officer was tried by General Court-martial, on the charge of
‘scandalous and infamous conduct, unbecoming the character of an
officer and a gentleman,’ in two instances. The Court acquitted him of
the first, but found him guilty of the criminal acts charged in the
second instance; acquitting him, however, of ‘scandalous and infamous
conduct, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman.’ The
Commander-in-Chief, Earl Moira, declared that ‘he regarded the Court
as having returned a verdict of acquittal generally, and directed the
officer who had been convicted to return to his duty.’ His lordship
observed that ‘the Court, in declaring that the criminal act proved
against the prisoner did not come within the description of
‘scandalous, infamous, and unbecoming the character of an officer and
a gentleman,’ had divested itself of all power to award punishment,
except inasmuch as the acts might be considered to come under the
above specific definition.’ In the present case, the Court _could_ not
have acquitted of scandalous and infamous conduct, because _it was not
charged_.”
The charge quotes a portion of the very words of the article. But that
this portion can be separated from the rest of the sentence, and made to
designate a distinct, substantive offence, would be a monstrous
supposition. The whole stress, the whole meaning lies in the words
“infamous and scandalous;” but because there may be scandalous and
infamous conduct, which does not fall under the cognisance of a
court-martial, it is added as a further definition, that it must be such
misconduct as affects the character of an officer and a gentleman.[5]
The article of war intends to describe such conduct as would make a man
_scandalous and infamous amongst his fellow-officers_.
Suppose it were thought fit to frame similar rules for the medical
profession, and one of these declared, “That any one who shall behave in
a scandalous and infamous manner unbecoming the character of a physician
and a gentleman, shall, on conviction thereof, be expelled from the
profession,” would any one in his senses think it sufficient to adopt
the last qualifying phrase, “unbecoming the character of a physician and
a gentleman,” as descriptive of an offence which, under this rule, would
incur an expulsion from the faculty? Why, it might be thought
“unbecoming” a physician to break rude and silly jests upon his
patients, (as a late celebrated character is accused of doing,) but not
for such offences, we presume, would any one imagine that expulsion from
the profession was provided.
But we shall be told that the proceedings of a court-martial are not
fettered by the same strict rules which preside over the record in a
court of law. This is very true. It is sufficient if the offence is
substantially indicated. Perhaps it will be argued that these words,
“unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman,” must be taken as a part for
the whole, and that the charge _was_ essentially for scandalous and
infamous behaviour.
If so, the court has placed itself in the following dilemma, from which
we do not see any possibility of escape:—_Either_ the charge is to be
understood as substantially for scandalous and infamous conduct—and, in
that case, who will venture to assert that the evidence supports so
heinous an accusation?—who will venture to assert that the concealment
or equivocation proved against Captain Douglas was that falsehood, that
sort of lie, which stamps a man as scandalous and infamous, and drives
him from the society of gentlemen? _Or_ (which is the plain common-sense
view of the case) the charge is what it professes to be—for “unbecoming”
conduct—it is this charge which is present to the minds of the members
of the court-martial—it is on this he is tried, of this which he is
convicted; and _then_, after being found guilty of this all but venial
offence, he is visited with the punishment of a far heavier one—for
behaviour which would make him scandalous and infamous amongst his
brother officers.
We repeat, this is no technical argument—it is gross, palpable
injustice—as palpable injustice as if a man were tried for manslaughter,
convicted of manslaughter, and hanged for murder!
If we ask why the Court awarded so severe a sentence as cashiering on so
trifling an offence, we shall be told that the Court had no power to
pass any less sentence than that which is decreed by the article of war.
We admit the reason. But surely if the Court was bound to inflict the
severe sentence decreed by the article of war, it was bound to convict
of the crime specified by that article. The court-martial which tried
Captain Douglas was scrupulous in passing the right sentence, was _not_
scrupulous in determining whether the crime had been committed for which
alone that sentence is by law awarded.
Mr Warren concludes his “Letter” by some suggestions for the reform of
our military law. These appear to us to be worthy of consideration. But
legal reforms are grave and intricate matters; we would not give a hasty
opinion on them; we would recommend them to the consideration of our
jurists, and the whole pamphlet to the perusal of our readers. They will
also probably find it far more entertaining than, from our meagre
abstract of the case of Captain Douglas, they will expect. There is one
subject which occupies a considerable space, and which, to the
generality of readers, will form the most attractive portion of the
“Letter,” to which we have made no allusion. We refer to a narrative of
facts, which show the hostile attitude in which Colonel Le Mesurier and
Captain Douglas stood towards each other. It is a little history we
could not possibly abridge, and which did not appear to us as absolutely
necessary to an intelligible view of the case. This narrative will be
read with interest, affording as it does a glimpse into real life, and
showing us what very animated contests and controversies a few officers
may contrive to while away their time with, even in the dull quiet
island of Alderney. It is well told, with graphic but _subdued_ power.
Conscious that the author of one of our best and most popular novels
would be watched on such an occasion, and readily suspected of employing
his art as a consummate narrator, Mr Warren has abstained from producing
any startling effects; he has, at least, used no other than that highest
art which conceals art. We have left the whole of this portion of the
pamphlet fresh and untouched, for the perusal of the reader.
In the account we have given of this really very important case, we have
not been able to mention the numerous points on which Mr Warren dwells
for the exculpation of his client. We have been compelled to content
ourselves with the impression which the whole narrative, after careful
and unbiassed perusal, left upon our own minds. We are utterly unable to
imagine, for the conduct of Captain Douglas, any worse motive than what
we have described as a somewhat too diplomatic taste, as a want of a
perfectly straightforward manner of speech. We see in his conduct a very
palpable error in judgment, but we are quite at a loss to fix upon
anything which deserves to be characterised as dishonourable—anything
like such infamous and palpable falsehood as ought to drive a man with
disgrace out of the service.
When we turn from the conduct of Captain Douglas to the sentence passed
upon it, we are utterly amazed at its egregious disproportion and
flagrant injustice. There is an article of war framed for the express
purpose of ridding the service of scandalous and infamous persons. In
order to bring the case of Captain Douglas under this article, he is
first arraigned for “unbecoming conduct,” and by a very severe
construction found guilty of this charge; and then these comparatively
mild and harmless expressions are found to be equivalent to “scandalous
and infamous conduct.” Why, if this be law, if this is a precedent, that
article of war should henceforth be read thus,—“Whoever is guilty of
unbecoming conduct shall be cashiered.” And what a terrible instrument
of injustice such an article of war might be converted into, it is quite
unnecessary to insist upon. If any officer should have made himself
unpopular at the Horse Guards, or amongst his fellow-officers, no matter
by what line of conduct, by being worse or better than the general and
approved standard—it would be strange if his enemies could not fasten
upon some act they could pronounce “unbecoming,” and thereupon expel him
from the service with disgrace and infamy.
A FAREWELL TO NAPLES.
I.
A glorious amphitheatre, whose girth
Exceeds three-fold th’ horizons of the north,
Mixing our pleasure in a goblet wide,
With hard, firm rim through clear air far-descried;
Illumined mountains, on whose heavenly slopes,
Quick, busy shades rehearse, while Phœbus drops,
Dramatic parts in scenic mysteries;
Far-shadowing islands, and exulting seas
With cities girt, that catch, till day is done,
Successive glances from the circling sun,
And cast a snowy gleam across the blue:—
A gulf that, to its lakelike softness true,
Reveres the stillness of the syren’s cell,
Yet knows the ocean’s roll, and loves it well;
A gulf where Zephyr oft, with noontide heat
Oppressed, descends to bathe his sacred feet,
And, at the first cold touch, at once reviving,
Sinks to the wings in joy, before him driving
A feathery foam into the lemon groves;—
Evasive, zone-like sands and secret coves;
Translucent waves that, heaved with motion slow,
On fanes submerged a brighter gleam bestow;
Fair hamlets, streets with odorous myrtles spread,
Bruised by processions grave with soundless tread,
That leave (the Duomo entered) on the mind
A pomp confused, and music on the wind;
Smooth, mounded banks like inland coasts and capes,
That take from seas extinct their sinuous shapes,
And girdle plains whose growths, fire-fed below,
In bacchanal exuberance burst and blow;
A light Olympian and an air divine—
Naples! if these are blessings, they are thine.
II.
Thy sands we paced in sunlight and soft gloom;
From Tasso’s birthplace roamed to Virgil’s tomb.
Baia! thy haunts we trod, and glowing caves
Whose ambushed ardours pant o’er vine-decked waves.
Thy cliffs we coasted, loitered in thy creeks,
O shaggy island[6] with the five gray peaks!
Explored thy grotto, scaled thy fortress, where
Thy dark-eyed maids trip down the rocky stair,
With glance cast backward, laugh of playful scorn,
And cheek carnationed with the lights of morn.
The hills Lactarean lodged us in their breast:
Shadowy Sorrento to her spicy rest
Called us from far with gales embalmed, yet pure;
Her orange brakes we pierced, and ranged her rifts obscure.
Breathless along Pompeii’s streets we strayed
By songless fount, mosaic undecayed,
Voluptuous tomb, still forum, painted hall,
Where wreathed Bacchantes float on every wall;
Where Ariadne, by the purple deep,
Hears not those panting sails, but smiles in sleep;
Where yet Silenus grasps the woodland cup,
And buried Pleasure from its grave looks up.
Lastly, the great Vesuvian steep we clomb;
Then, Naples! made once more with thee our home.
We leave thee now—but first, with just review,
We cast the account, and strike the balance true—
And thus, as forth we move, we take our last adieu.
III.
From her whom genius never yet inspired,
Or virtue raised, or pulse heroic fired;
From her who, in the grand historic page,
Maintains one barren blank from age to age;
From her, with insect life and insect buz,
Who, evermore unresting, nothing does;
From her who, with the future and the past
No commerce holds, no structure rears to last:
From streets where priests and jesters, side by side,
Range the rank markets, and their gains divide;
Where faith in art, and art in sense is lost,
And toys and gewgaws form a nation’s boast;
Where Passion, from Affection’s bond cut loose,
Revels in orgies of its own abuse;
And appetite, from Passion’s portals thrust,
Creeps on its belly to its grave of dust;
Where Vice her mask disdains, where Fraud is loud,
And naught but Wisdom dumb and Justice cowed;—
Lastly, from her who planted here unawed,
’Mid heaven-topped hills, and waters bright and broad,
Lacks heart to gather, and lacks strength to bear,
From these, one impulse of the free and fair;
And, girt not less with ruin, lives to show
That worse than wasted weal is wasted woe,—
We part; forth issuing through her closing gate,
With unreverting faces, not ingrate.
BARBARIAN RAMBLES.[7]
That great geniuses meet, is a saying almost as ancient as the twin
rocks that give a title to Mr David Urquhart’s latest literary
production. But not often is the same country visited and described,
within the short space of two years, by two such distinguished persons
as the member for Stafford and the author of _Monte-Christo_. For the
honour of their presence, the shores of Barbary and Andalusia are
indebted to the chapter of accidents. “I did not visit Morocco or Spain
on any settled plan. I was on my way to Italy by sea, and, passing
through the straits of Gibraltar, was so fascinated by the beauty and
mysteries of the adjoining lands, that I relinquished my proposed
excursion for the explorations which are here recorded.” Thus far the
Celt. Hear the Gaul’s reply to the Bey of Tunis, when questioned as to
the motive of his African excursion,—“I answered, that I had the honour
to be known to the king and princes of France; that I had the misfortune
to be on tolerably bad terms with the father, but the happiness to stand
pretty well with the sons; that one of these sons, of whom he (the Bey)
had doubtless heard speak, and who was dead—M. le Duc d’Orléans—had more
than once deigned to call me his friend; that another son, still better
known to him than the first,—M. le Duc de Montpensier—had inherited his
brother’s friendship for me, and had invited me to his wedding, which
had just taken place at Madrid; that, being at Madrid, I desired to push
on to Algiers, and, once at Algiers, I felt unwilling to quit Africa
without saying a prayer upon the tomb of St Louis, who was, as he surely
knew, a great _marabout_; that I was on my way to perform this duty,
when I heard that he did me the honour to expect me, whereupon I
hastened to pay him my respects.” Such trivial causes lead to great
results! To the Montpensier marriage is the Bey of Tunis indebted for an
interview with the first of French novelists, and the European world for
the narrative of his African travels. We hesitated before associating
the two books that form the theme of this article. We feared to rouse M.
Dumas’ indignation, by coupling him with an author whom he, with his
usual supercilious disesteem of things British, will probably set down
as _un pédant Ecossais_. On the other hand, we thought it possible so
grave and erudite a person as Mr Urquhart might consider his labours
slighted, when linked with the playful superficialities of _Le Véloce_;
and from this apprehension we were relieved, only upon finding him quote
his French cotemporary’s Spanish tour with an air of greater approval
than he usually bestows upon the works of recent writers on Spain. For
it is not the most amiable of his peculiarities, that his references to
brother travellers are generally censorious. He seems to have vowed
opposition and animosity to all who have rambled and written over the
same ground as himself. Blanco White, George Borrow, Richard Ford, and
various others of less note, in turn come in for correction or a sneer.
The last-named is particularly ill-treated. “To Mr Ford’s book, however
disagreeable the task, I had intended to devote a special chapter; but,
understanding that the two volumes are, in the second edition, reduced
to one, I must infer that the author has anticipated my conclusion,—that
the work might be made valuable by cutting out the slang, ribaldry,
opinions, and false quotations.” Should _The Pillars of Hercules_ reach
a second edition, either condensed, or in its present diffuse form, we
advise its author to cut out this passage, or at least to correct its
discourtesy and exaggeration. So harsh and unjust a verdict drives us to
the inference that, owing to some mental idiosyncrasy of Mr Urquhart’s,
the chief merits of the book he decries altogether escape his
perception; and that, whilst dwelling upon an occasional
error—pardonable in a work embracing so great a variety of subject, and
such a mass of detail—and condemning those opinions that are so
unfortunate as to differ from his own, he totally overlooks the racy
humour, the happy illustrations, the felicitous exposition of Spanish
foibles and characteristics, the intimate knowledge of the country and
its customs, which place the author of the _Handbook_ and _Gatherings_
amongst the very highest authorities respecting modern Spain. But we
need not take up the cudgels for Richard Ford, whose works will stand
upon their own bottom, and whose acute and pungent pen is quite able to
defend his literary offspring, should he think it worth his while, even
against his present formidable assailant.
There can be no doubt about the disappointment of those persons who open
_The Pillars of Hercules_ in expectation of finding what the title
promises—a narrative of travel in Spain and Morocco. These countries are
certainly mentioned here and there in the two bulky octavos, but quite
subordinately to a variety of other matters which had perhaps better
been treated elsewhere than in the professed book of travels they cumber
and overload. Mr Urquhart, who has published volumes and pamphlets on
innumerable subjects, social and political, foreign and domestic,
appears to have had by him a heterogeneous mass of essays and
dissertations, which he has now strung, pretty much at random, upon the
slender thread of his Spanish-African ramble. Wearisomely discursive and
desultory, he continually canters off to distant regions, and to
subjects foreign to his text. Thus we have a chapter on the invention
and antiquity of glass; another concerning the magnetic needle; a third
and fourth, in which we are taken to America, Ceylon, China, and other
remote places; one about the celebrated drug hashish, which temporarily
transports its votaries into paradise. This is presently succeeded by a
dissertation on buttered muffins; and shortly thereafter we arrive at a
long essay on the early races of Spain and Mauritania, which we take for
granted to be exceedingly learned and important, and which we are quite
sure is awfully heavy and uninteresting. Etymology is a hobby of this
author’s, and the portions of his work devoted to it would, of
themselves, make a good-sized volume, by whose separation the book would
be greatly lightened and advantaged. On the subject of corporal
purification he grows positively eloquent and impassioned; and so minute
are his descriptions of the scrubbing and scraping processes, by which
alone men become fit to live, that he very rightly deems a prefatory
apology essential. On this head more anon. We pause, for a specimen of
solemn trifling, at Chapter Nine, Book the First, Volume the First.
Nominally an “Excursion round the Straits,” it is actually an essay on
costume, commencing with Spanish petticoats, giving a passing glance to
the history and origin of lace, asserting the identity of the Moorish
and Highland garb, and closing with an argument in favour of the
importance and moral influence of a national dress. The chapter opens
with praises of Cadiz, a city so long accustomed to rhyme with “ladies,”
that it will hardly feel surprise or annoyance at Mr Urquhart’s
attributing its charm less to the beauty of its buildings than to the
“swarm of women,” with “fluttering eyes,” and “silk blonde tresses,”
covering the floor of the cathedral. From tresses to dresses the
transition is easy, and he proceeds to discourse upon the mantilla: not
a very novel subject certainly, but one upon which he, nevertheless,
contrives to cast some new lights—lights that would, we suspect, rather
dazzle and astonish the amiable Gaditanas, whose habits and habiliments
he professes to describe. Whilst stigmatising as “a bagged hood” the
most graceful and elegant description of mantilla—that, namely, composed
entirely of lace, and which is in fact the only kind worn by the higher
classes of Spanish women—he informs us that “in windy weather the
mantilla is secured against the cheek by the tip of the fan.” We laugh
horribly as we summon up, at this conjuror’s bidding, a procession of
mantilla-draped dames and damsels tripping the Alameda on a breezy day,
each one of them with the extremity of her fan poked into her dexter
jaw. Spanish women know better how to use that active little instrument
of flirtation. Passing over these and other slight absurdities, we
arrive at the hair-dressing department. Here Mr Urquhart is at first
rather puzzled. But he will not be baffled, and goes to the very roots
of the capillaries. “The hair is dressed in two styles. One is called
_sarrano_. The only explanation I could get for this name was, that
_sierra_ means mountain, and that the mountaineers dress in this way.
But neither does it seem to be the style of the sierra, nor does the
word _sarrano_ mean mountain: there is, indeed, no such word in
Spanish.” When ascertaining this last fact by reference to his
dictionary, it is strange that our traveller did not stumble upon the
word “_Serrano_, subs. mountaineer; adj. pertaining to mountains,” and
which is, in fact, the very word applied to the style of head-dress in
question, his ear having doubtless misled him as to the _e_ and _a_.
This guides us to two derivations. First, the one furnished him by the
natives, that the style in question is or was particularly affected by
the dwellers in the Andalusian sierras, as it still is by the
mountaineers of Catalonia. A second explanation may be found in the form
of the comb that accompanies this mode of head-dress, (but of which Mr
Urquhart makes no mention,) and whose turreted or dentated crest, rising
full four inches perpendicularly from the crown of the head, may have
suggested the term _serrano_, by its elevation and imaginary resemblance
to a row of hill-tops. But such interpretations as these are far too
simple and vulgar to suit Mr Urquhart, who loves to journey by
roundabout roads, and would make, like Monkbarns, a Roman sacrificing
vessel out of a kail-supper’s ladle. He bores and proses away till he
proves, quite to his own satisfaction, that “sarrano head-dress means
neither more nor less than Tyrian head-dress. Such an etymology is by no
means far-fetched.” Certainly not, when compared with others scattered
through the book, although even this one may be considered rather _tiré
par les cheveux_: and, moreover, the whole fabric is overthrown by the
word proving to be serrano. But the hunting after derivations is a
passion with Mr Urquhart, and leads him to the unearthing of affinities
which nobody else would suspect. We confess ourselves so overwhelmed by
the flux of erudition, by the multiplicity of languages brought to bear,
and by the extraordinary etymons assigned to words with which they have
nothing visible in common, that we resign ourselves to believe in
Urquhart, and are prepared to admit, at his dictation, the old
derivation of cucumber from Jeremiah King as perfectly valid, and
consonant to all received laws. So fond is the honourable gentleman of
this grubbing for roots, that, when once he stumbles on a derivation, he
goes on through a whole alphabet of them; like a child who, having begun
to run down hill, is unable to stop till it reaches the plain, or falls
exhausted by the road-side. We doubt if many of his readers will share
the avidity with which he pursues his dry and long-winded
investigations, which would be more in place in a dictionary of
derivations than in a narrative of travel.
Our intention, in bringing Messrs Dumas and Urquhart into juxtaposition,
is by no means to compare them, or to exalt either at the expense of the
other. Their books form the strongest possible contrast. In one respect
only do they agree—in a propensity to ramble from their subject. We have
hinted at the crotchets that lead the Highlander from his track; the
Frenchman strays in quest of the dramatic and romantic, and is beguiled
by his prodigious vanity into the most divertingly egotistical details.
The one is an eccentric dogmatist, full of crotchets, but unobtrusive of
his individuality; the other never loses sight of himself, nor will
suffer his reader to do so. He is always in the foreground of the
picture, the chief character on the canvass, the hero of his own comedy;
or, if for a moment he retires from the foot-lamps, it is that their
light may shine upon his son and heir, Alexander the younger, a _grand
garçon blond_, and one of the half-score artists and literati who
compose the suite of the illustrious Monte-Christo. When the travellers
arrived at Cadiz, in November 1846, Mr Dumas junior was suddenly
discovered to be missing. Fascinated by the bright eyes of a Cordovan
maiden, he had given his friends the slip. Although somewhat uneasy, his
father contented himself with detaching one of his staff in quest of the
truant, and went on board the war-steamer Véloce, which had been placed
at his disposal by the Minister of Public Instruction. Some of our
readers may remember that, about three years ago, this circumstance gave
rise to a discussion in the French Chamber, when some doubt was thrown
upon the fact of M. Dumas being intrusted with a government mission.
This seems to have annoyed the distinguished dramatist, who repeatedly
refers to the subject, gives a copy of his passport and of certain
official letters; and upbraids M. Guizot, whom he at last, however,
magnanimously forgives, declaring he has forgotten his name. He then
protests against the envy of which his eminent position has rendered him
the object, and concludes his remarks, made in a tone of dignified and
chastened indignation, with the following striking passage:—“The steamer
thus placed at my disposal has made me more enemies than _Antony_ and
_Monte-Christo_, which is saying not a little. It was in 1823 or 1824, I
believe, that Sir Walter Scott, being then in bad health, expressed a
wish to make a voyage to Italy. The English admiralty placed its finest
frigate at the disposal of the author of _Ivanhoe_; and England
applauded, and the two houses of parliament applauded, and the very
newspapers clapped their hands approvingly. And it was well done; for,
for the first time perhaps, the flag with the three leopards was saluted
in every port of the Mediterranean by the enthusiastic acclamations of
the people. Were those acclamations for the flag, or for the man of
genius it sheltered? for the unknown captain of the frigate, whose name
I never heard, or for Sir Walter Scott? True, I may be told that I am
not Sir Walter Scott; but to this I reply, that it is the great
misfortune of living men in France not to know what they are, so long as
they _are_ living.”
How very good is this quiet assertion of merit and anticipation of
posthumous appreciation by an ungrateful country. “The steamer,”
continues the possible future rival of Scott, “was granted me—be it as a
matter of favour, or as an act of justice; and Government consented to
expend for me some sixteen thousand francs’ worth of coal. It is right
the world should know that this voyage, which caused such an outcry,
cost the Government sixteen thousand francs. Just half what it cost me!”
A paltry eight hundred napoleons! Can France regret it, when applied to
the service of her brightest literary ornament? Let her read the
_Véloce_, and take shame for her shabbiness. Astride upon his fiery
charger, the giant commenced his cruise. Need we say that all eyes were
upon him as he boarded the steamer, and that he took by assault the
hearts of the entire ship’s company, whom he seized an early opportunity
to convince that his skill was as great with the fowling-piece as with
the pen. “The Véloce was surrounded by a flock of sea-fowl; on
approaching the vessel, desirous to give our future companions a
specimen of my dexterity, I fired my two barrels at a brace of gulls,
both of which fell. The yawl pulled to pick them up; and, after this
brilliant feat, we proceeded triumphantly to the steamer.” This is the
first and least considerable of a series of “brilliant feats” of the
same kind, recorded by M. Dumas of himself in the pages of _Le Véloce_.
At Tangiers, his first landing-place in Africa, he goes out shooting,
and encounters an Arab, the first he has seen. This meeting furnishes a
chapter—a sort of parody of scenes in Scott and Cooper, the parts of
Robin Hood and Leatherstocking by M. Alexandre Dumas. He has just shot a
small bird, when the Arab appears and doubts his having killed it on the
wing. A trial of skill ensues between the Parisian and the Bedouin, the
former promising the latter, who is unwilling to waste his powder, six
charges for every one he fires away. The Arab fires at a plover and
misses. M. Dumas brings down a snipe. The Arab smiles.
“‘The Frenchman shoots well,’ he said; ‘but a true hunter uses not shot,
but a ball.’ The janissary translated his words to me.
“‘’Tis true’ I replied; ‘tell him I quite agree with him, and that, if
he will fix upon a mark, I engage to do what he does.’
“‘The Frenchman owes me six charges of powder,’ quoth the Arab.
“‘True again,’ I replied; ‘let the Arab hold out his hand.’ He held it
out, and I emptied into it about a third of the contents of my flask. He
produced his horn, and poured in the powder to the very last grain. This
done, he would evidently have been well-pleased to depart; but that
would not answer the purpose of Giraud and Boulanger, who had not yet
finished their sketches. Accordingly, at the first movement he made,
“‘Remind your countryman,’ said I to El-Arbi-Bernat, ‘that we have each
of us to send a bullet somewhere, whithersoever he pleases.’
“‘Yes,’ said the Arab. He looked about and found a stick, which he
picked up, and then again set himself to seek for something. I had in my
pocket a letter from one of my nephews, employed on His Majesty’s
private domain: this letter reposed peaceably in its square envelope,
adorned with a red seal; I give it to the Arab, suspecting he was
looking for it, or for something like it. The letter was the very thing
for a target. The Arab understood at once; he split the end of the stick
with his knife, stuck in the letter, planted the stick in the sand, and
returned to us, counting twenty-five paces. Then he loaded his gun. I
had a double-barrelled rifle, ready loaded; an excellent weapon, made by
Devisme: in each of its barrels was one of those pointed bullets with
which one kills a man at fifteen hundred metres, (an English mile; well
done, M. Dumas!) I took it from Paul, its usual bearer, and I waited.
“The Arab took aim with a care which showed the importance he attached
to not being vanquished a second time. He fired, and his bullet carried
off a corner of the envelope. Masters of themselves as Arabs generally
are, ours could not restrain a cry of joy as he pointed to the rent in
the paper. I made sign that I saw it perfectly well. He addressed to me
a few animated words.
“‘He says it is your turn,’ interpreted the janissary.
“‘Certainly,’ I replied; ‘but tell him that in France we do not fire at
so short a distance.’ I measured fifty paces. He watched me with
astonishment. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘tell him that, with the first shot, I will
hit the target nearer the centre than he has done; and with the second I
will cut the stick that sustains it.’
“In my turn I took a careful aim; I had not come to Africa to leave a
wrong prospectus; and, having declared my game, I was bound to play it
well. The first ball sped, and broke the seal. The second followed
almost immediately, and cut the stick. The Arab threw his gun on his
shoulder, and walked away, without claiming the six charges of powder he
was entitled to. It was evident he felt crushed under the weight of his
inferiority, and that, at that moment, he doubted of everything, even of
the Prophet. He followed the circular road along the beach, leading to
Tangiers, and reached the town, I am certain, without having once turned
his head. Two or three Arabs, who in the meanwhile had crossed the Oued,
and who had witnessed the trial of skill, departed as silently, and
almost in as great consternation, as their countryman. All Morocco was
humiliated in the person of its representative.”
Mr Urquhart and Mr Dumas each made some stay at Tangiers, but, as will
easily be understood, they employed their time very differently, and
have scarcely an idea in common on the subject. The one talks politics,
dissects languages and makes antiquarian investigations; the other,
after the shooting match above detailed, and some rather high-flown
attempts at description of scenery, goes fishing and boar-hunting,
attends a Jewish wedding, and purchases half the stock in trade of David
Azencot, an honest Israelite, and a wealthy dealer in sabres, burnous,
scarfs, lamps, chibouks, and a thousand and one other Moorish
curiosities. The Scot is didactic and dull; the Frenchman frivolous, but
amusing. Of course they both visit Gibraltar, and devote a chapter to
that remarkable fortress; and here we must say that M. Dumas carries it
hollow, as far as pleasant tone and good taste go. As is customary with
him, he is flippant and good-humouredly impertinent; but he shows
himself grateful for a hospitable reception, and does not rake up old
stories to the disadvantage of the dead. He begins with the notable
discovery that Gibraltar has a foggy atmosphere. The English, he says,
being used to a fog in their own country, have manufactured one, by the
help of sea-coal, upon the coast of Spain. The English, he affirms,
strive against and vanquish nature herself. “They have produced dahlias
that smell like pinks, cherries without stones, gooseberries without
grains, and they are now rearing oxen without legs. Behold, for
instance, those of the county of Durham; they have but one joint, and
walk almost upon their belly. Soon they will have no joints at all, and
will walk quite upon their belly. Thus it is with the fog. There was no
fog at Gibraltar before it belonged to the English; but the English were
accustomed to fog, they missed it, and they made it.... On entering
Gibraltar, I felt that I quitted Spain. Tangiers, which we had just
left, was much more Spanish than Gibraltar. Hardly had we passed the
gate, when we were transported into England. No more pointed pavements,
no more latticed houses and green _jalousies_, no more of those charming
_patios_, with marble fountains in the midst of the shops: but
clothiers, cutlers, armourers, hotels with the arms of Great Britain,
flagged footpaths, fair women, red officers, and English horses. Tom
Thumb had lent us his boots, and each step we had taken from the deck of
the Véloce had carried us seven leagues. We entered a _restaurant_. We
ate raw beefsteaks, sandwiches, butter, moistening them with ale and
porter; but when, after breakfast, we asked for a glass of Malaga, they
were obliged to send out for it. On the other hand, the tea was
irreproachable.” This is a very fair skit on the Englishman’s habit of
carrying his country’s usages into climates for which they are totally
unadapted. Although feeling, according to his own account, far from at
his ease in this British military colony, of whose warlike aspect and
regulations he sketches a ludicrous caricature, M. Dumas would not leave
it without paying a visit to the governor; and, lest the anonymous lady
to whom his African letters are addressed should be unable to comprehend
this unusual (?) desire on his part to make the acquaintance of those in
high places, he beguiles the time, till the governor returns from his
ride, by telling the story of Lavalette. No matter that it has been
pretty often told; related _à la Dumas_, that is to say, with a
superabundance of detail, it covers a few pages, and explains his wish
for an interview with the English general. “Sir Robert Wilson, a
magnificent old man, sixty-six or sixty-eight years of age, who still
breaks his own horses, and rides ten leagues every day, gave me a
charming reception. I was so imprudent as to express my admiration of
some Moorish pottery-wares upon his sideboard, and I found them in my
cabin on returning to the Véloce. If anything could have induced me to
remain another day at Gibraltar, it would have been the pressing
invitation Sir Robert Wilson was kind enough to give me. Impressed with
a lively sentiment of admiration, I left this noble and loyal-hearted
man. May God grant long and happy days to him, to whom another man was
indebted for long days of happiness.” All his admiration of Lavalette’s
saviour was insufficient to detain him in Gibraltar, which he declares
himself to have quitted with as strong a sensation of relief as
Napoleon’s ex-aide-de-camp can have felt when, thanks to Sir Robert
Wilson’s chivalry, he safely set foot across France’s frontier. French
and English are now well used to each other’s jocular sarcasm, and are
never the worse friends for it, because it is the interest of both to
remain in amity. There is no venom in M. Dumas’ playful satire, which
one glances over with a smile, quitting it with regret for the croakings
of Mr Urquhart. This gentleman has some very peculiar notions respecting
Gibraltar, whose restoration to Spain he strongly advocates, and to
whose retention by Great Britain he ascribes a frightful catalogue of
evils, including sundry European wars, fifty-five millions sterling
unprofitably sunk, and the undying hatred of Spain towards this
country—bringing no less a witness than Napoleon to the truth of this
last assertion. The fifty-five millions are “suggested as a rough guess”
at the actual outlay; and besides them, we are assured, hundreds of
millions have been spent on wars entailed by our possession of
Gibraltar. All this is too vaguely put, seriously to challenge argument
or refutation; and as to the “undying hatred,” why, the anti-English
party in Spain may occasionally bluster about the hole in the national
honour, and so forth; but the great majority of the nation never bestow
a thought upon the matter, and the smuggling portion of the community—no
uninfluential class—find Gibraltar exceedingly convenient for their
contraband traffic. But Mr Urquhart’s statements on this head are very
loose, and some of them very fallacious; and he attains the climax of
absurdity and misrepresentation when he says, that “the fiscal
regulations of Spain, which sustain this (contraband) traffic, would
long since have fallen but for its (Gibraltar’s) retention by England.
We therefore lose the legitimate trade of all Spain, for the smuggling
profits (which go to the Spaniards) at this port.” The sort of jingle of
plausibility in these sentences will impose only upon persons profoundly
ignorant of the subject. The assertion is made in the teeth of notorious
facts, and is opposed alike to truth and to common sense. The more
difficult, dangerous, and expensive smuggling could be rendered, the
less would be its injurious effect on the Spanish revenue, and the less
likely would be a reduction of duties. The smuggling facilities afforded
by Gibraltar, by the Portuguese frontier and the Pyrenean line, (Mr
Urquhart, it has been seen, wholly ignores the two latter channels, and
lays the high-duty system entirely at the door of Gibraltar,) have, by
limiting the custom-house receipts to the merest trifle, contributed,
more than any other cause, to fix the attention of the Spanish
government on the advantage to be derived from reductions in their
monstrous tariff—reductions which the last four months have beheld
carried out, although as yet but to an exceedingly limited extent. This
subject, however, has of late been so fully discussed in our pages that
we shall not here pursue it further, particularly as it is evident that
Mr Urquhart has still to become acquainted with its rudiments. It were
more amusing, although scarcely more profitable, to dwell upon a
subsequent chapter, where, reverting to Gibraltar, the honourable
gentleman tilts at its late governor, and raises the Russian bugbear—a
goblin which he would doubtless always manage to evoke, in whatsoever
part of the world he chanced to find himself. In portentous italics he
tells us as how “a Russian steam-vessel of war was admitted to the quay
of her Majesty’s vessels to get coal, which was furnished her from the
royal stores, while French men-of-war were allowed no such indulgence;
on departing she _was saluted by the fortress with twenty-one guns_!
This I witnessed with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. The
assembled crowd said, ‘_Es loco_’—‘he is mad.’” Is Mr Urquhart certain
to whom the crowd’s exclamation referred? His pet crotchet is by this
time pretty generally recognised; and even his best friends, and a few
partial admirers, cannot choose but smile at the tenacity of his
monomania, and at the moonshine illumination he throws upon Russian
designs and their British abettors. Truly he is a dead hand at a mare’s
nest. With a scuttle of coals and a blank cartridge, he would build up a
powder-plot, and talks darkly and ominously about “the system of
government (in England) by secresy and intrigue.” We do think, however,
he would have done more gracefully to let Sir Robert Wilson alone.
“Since the above was written,” he says, “Sir Robert Wilson has
disappeared from the scene. I do not on that account suppress what I
have written, as I have not brought any charge against him.” No new
charge; but he has revived and dragged forth an old one, wellnigh
forgotten under the moss of years and the laurels of the departed
veteran. It is no generous hand that will approach, otherwise than
kindly and with reverence, the memory of the gallant soldier of the
Peninsula, the brave defender of Portugal, the stout fighter by Dresden,
of whom it has so truly been said, that “he ever was foremost where
danger was to be encountered or glory won.”[8]
Totally dissimilar in character as are the two works under examination,
the transitions from the one to the other are yet astonishingly easy.
Thus Mr Urquhart’s Muscovite nightmare leads us, in the most natural
manner possible, to a tale of a cotton nightcap, related by his witty
contemporary. At Tunis, M. Dumas was quite confounded by the prevalence
of this unpoetical but comfortable head-dress, which he constantly met
with in the streets and on the quays. Puzzled at its naturalisation in a
clime so remote from its native country, (an honour which he claims for
France,) and being of an inquisitive turn of mind, he instituted
inquiries, and received for explanation an anecdote, which we shall here
transcribe, as nearly as possible, in his own phraseology. We feel that
we neglect Mr Urquhart, and ought by right to give precedence of extract
to his muffin-investigation; but really the nightcap story is much more
amusing, and quite as important, although it may possibly owe more to
its narrator’s imagination.
About twenty years ago, according to M. Dumas, under the reign of a
former Bey, a ship bound from Marseilles to Gibraltar, with a cargo of
cotton nightcaps, was driven by a gale into Tunis roads. At that period
a duty was levied on vessels availing themselves of the port of Tunis;
and this duty, depending on the caprice of the Raïa-marsa, or captain of
the port, was very arbitrary. The Marseilles captain was naturally
subjected to this impost; still more naturally the Raïa-marsa fixed it
at an exorbitant sum. There was, however, no alternative but to pay: the
unlucky speculator in nightcaps lay beneath the paw of the lion. With
the loss of part of his skin, he slipped between the beast’s claws, and
ran to throw himself at the feet of the Bey. The Bey hearkened to the
complaint of the Giaour. When he had heard it, and had satisfied himself
that the amount of extortion had been rightly stated by its victim, he
said:—
“Do you desire Turkish justice or French justice?”
After long reflection, the Marseillese, with a confidence that did
honour to the legislation of his native land, replied:
“French justice.”
“’Tis good,” replied the Bey; “return to thy ship and wait.”
The seaman kissed his highness’s papooshes, returned to his ship, and
waited. He waited one month, two months, three months. At the end of the
third month, finding the time rather long, he went ashore, and watched
for the Bey to pass by. The Bey appeared: the captain threw himself at
his feet.
“Highness,” said he, “you have forgotten me?”
“By no means,” replied the Bey; “you are the captain of the French ship
who complained to me of the Raïa-marsa?”
“And to whom you promised justice!”
“Yes; but French justice.”
“Certainly.”
“Well, of what do you now complain?”
“Of having waited three months for it.”
“Listen,” said the Bey. “Three years ago your consul treated me with
disrespect; I complained to your king, claiming justice at his hands,
and three years have I waited for it: come back in three years, and we
will see.”
“The deuce!” exclaimed the captain, who began to understand; “and is
there no means of abridging the delay, your highness?”
“You asked for French justice.”
“But if I had asked for Turkish justice?”
“That were different: it had been done you on the instant.”
“Is it too late to change my mind?”
“It is never too late to do wisely.”
“Turkish justice then, highness—grant me Turkish justice!”
“’Tis good. Follow me.”
The captain kissed the Bey’s papooshes, and followed him to his palace.
Arrived there: “How much did the Raïa-marsa exact from you?” inquired
the Bey.
“Fifteen hundred francs.”
“And you consider that sum too large?”
“Highness, such is my humble opinion.”
“Too large by how much?”
“By at least two-thirds.”
“’Tis just; here are fifteen hundred piastres, making exactly a thousand
francs.”
“Highness,” said the captain, “you are the balance of divine justice,”
and he kissed the papooshes of the Bey, and was about to depart. The Bey
stopped him.
“Have you no other claim to prefer?” he said.
“One I certainly have, highness, but I dare not.”
“Dare, and speak.”
“It seems to me that I deserve compensation for the time I have lost,
whilst awaiting the memorable decision your highness has just
pronounced.”
“’Tis just.”
“The rather,” continued the captain, emboldened by the Bey’s
approbation, “that I was expected at Gibraltar in the beginning of the
winter, which is now over, and the favourable season for the sale of my
cargo is past.”
“And of what does thy cargo consist?” demanded the Bey.
“Highness, of cotton nightcaps.”
“What are cotton nightcaps?”
The captain took from his pocket a specimen of his goods, and presented
it to the Bey.
“For what purpose is this utensil?” said the latter.
“To cover the head,” replied the captain. And joining example to
precept, he put on the nightcap.
“It is very ugly,” quoth the Bey.
“But very comfortable,” retorted the captain.
“And you say that my delay to do you justice has occasioned you a loss?”
“Of ten thousand francs, at least, highness.”
The Bey called his secretary. The secretary entered, crossed his hands
upon his breast, and bowed to the ground. Then he took his pen, and the
Bey dictated to him a few lines, which, being in Arabic, were totally
unintelligible to the captain. When the secretary had done writing:
“’Tis good,” said the Bey; “let this decree be proclaimed throughout the
city.” Again the secretary crossed his hands upon his breast, bent
himself to the earth, and departed.
“Craving your highness’s pardon,” said the captain, “may I venture to
inquire the substance of that decree?”
“Certainly; it is an order to all the Jews in Tunis to cover their
heads, within twenty-four hours from this time, with a cotton nightcap,
under penalty of decapitation.”
“Ah! _tron de l’air_!” exclaimed the Marseillese; “I understand.”
“Then if you understand, return to your ship, and make the best profit
you can of your goods; you will soon have customers.” The captain threw
himself at the feet of the Bey, kissed his papooshes and returned to his
ship. Meanwhile, by sound of trumpet, and in all the streets of Tunis,
the following proclamation was made.
“Praises to Allah, the universal, to whom all things return!
“The slave of Allah glorified, who implores his pardon and absolution,
the Mouchir Sidi-Hussein-Pacha, Bey of Tunis:
“Forbids every Jew, Israelite, or Nazarene, to appear in the streets of
Tunis without a cotton nightcap upon his accursed and infidel head.
“This, under pain of decapitation.
“Giving to the unbelievers twenty-four hours to provide themselves with
the said covering.
“To this order all obedience is due.
“Written under date of the 20th April, in the year 1243 of the Hegira.
(Signed,) “SIDI HUSSEIN.”
You may fancy the sensation excited in Tunis by such a proclamation
as this. The twenty-five thousand Jews who compose the Israelite
population of the city looked aghast, and asked each other what was
this eighth plague which thus descended upon the people chosen of
the Lord. The most learned Rabbis were appealed to, but not one of
them had a clear notion of what a cotton nightcap was. At last a
_Gourni_—it is thus the Leghorn Jews are named—remembered to have
once seen the crew of a Norman ship enter that port with the
head-dress in question. It was something to know the article
required; the next thing to be ascertained was, where it could be
procured. Twelve thousand cotton nightcaps are not to be picked up
at every street corner. The men wrung their hands, the women tore
their hair, the children ate the dust upon the highway. Just when
the cries of anguish were most piercing, and the desolation at its
climax, a report spread through the multitude. It said that a ship
laden with cotton nightcaps was then in the port. Inquiry was made.
It was, said rumour, a three-master from Marseilles. The question
was, would there be nightcaps enough? Were there twelve thousand of
them—a cotton nightcap for everybody? There was a rush to the water
side; in an instant a flotilla of boats, crowded almost to sinking,
covered the lake, and it was a hot race out to the roads. At the
Goulette there was fouling, and four or five boats were capsized;
but as there are but four feet of water in the lake of Tunis, nobody
was drowned. They cleared the narrow passage, and approached the
good ship _Notre Dame de la Garde_, whose captain was upon deck
expecting their arrival. Through his telescope he had beheld the
embarkation, the race, the accidents—everything in short. In less
than ten minutes three hundred boats surrounded his vessel, and
twelve thousand throats vociferated, “Cotton nightcaps! cotton
nightcaps!” The captain signed with his hand for silence, and the
noisy mob were mute as mice.
“You want cotton nightcaps?” said he.
“Yes! yes! yes!” was the reply on every side.
“All very well,” said the captain; “but you are aware, gentlemen, that
cotton nightcaps are just now in great request. My letters from Europe
advise a rise in the article.”
“We know that,” said the same voices—“we know that, and ve vill make a
sacrifice.”
“Listen to me,” said the captain; “I am an honest man.”
The Jews trembled. The captain’s words were their invariable exordium
when about to rob a Christian.
“I will not take advantage of your position to impose upon you.”
The Jews turned pale.
“The cotton nightcaps cost me two francs apiece, one with the other.”
“Vell, it ish not too dear,” muttered the Jews in their beards.
“I will be satisfied with a hundred per cent profit,” continued the
captain.
“Hosannah!” cried the Jews.
“At four francs apiece, cotton nightcaps!” said the captain, and twelve
thousand hands were extended. “Order!” he continued; “come up on the
larboard side, and go down on the starboard.” Every Jew crossed the
vessel in turn, carried away a nightcap, and left four francs. The
captain’s receipts were forty-eight thousand francs, whereof thirty-six
thousand were clear profit. The twelve thousand Jews returned to Tunis,
every man plus a cotton nightcap, and minus four francs.
The next day the captain presented himself at the palace of the Bey, at
whose feet he prostrated himself, and kissed his papooshes.
“Well?” said the Bey.
“Your highness,” said the captain, “I come to thank you.”
“You are satisfied?”
“Delighted.”
“And you prefer Turkish justice to French justice?”
“There is no comparison between them.”
“This is not all,” said the Bey. And, turning to his secretary, he bade
him take his pen and write at his dictation. The writing was a second
decree, forbidding the Jews, under pain of death, to appear in the
streets of Tunis with cotton nightcaps on their heads, and granting them
twenty-four hours to dispose of their recent purchases as advantageously
as possible.
“Do you understand?” said the Bey to the captain.
“Oh, highness!” cried the Marseillese in an ecstasy of delight, “you are
the greatest of all Beys, past, present, and to come.”
“Return to your vessel, and wait.”
Half an hour later, the trumpets sounded in the streets of Tunis, and
the town’s-people thronged to the unusual summons. Amongst the listeners
the Jews were easily recognised by their triumphant air, and by their
cotton nightcaps cocked over one ear. The decree was read in a loud and
intelligible voice. The Jews’ first impulse was to throw their nightcaps
into the fire. On reflection, however, the head of the synagogue saw
that twenty-four hours were allowed to get rid of the proscribed
articles. The Jew is essentially a calculating animal. The Jews of Tunis
calculated that it was better to lose one half, or even three quarters,
than to lose the whole. Having twenty-four hours to turn in, they began
by driving a bargain with the boatmen, who on the previous occasion had
abused their haste, and overcharged them. Two hours later, the French
ship was again surrounded by boats.
“Captain! captain!” cried twelve thousand voices. “Cotton nightcaps to
shell! cotton nightcaps to shell!”
“Pooh!” said the captain.
“Captain, itsh a bargain; captain, you shall have them sheap.”
“I have received a letter from Europe,” said the captain.
“Vell! vell!”
“It advises a great fall in cotton nightcaps.”
“Captain, ve vill looshe upon them.”
“So be it,” said the captain. “I can only give you half price.”
“Ve vill take it.”
“I bought them at two francs. Let those who will give them for one come
on board by the starboard gangway, and depart by the larboard.”
“Oh, captain!”
“It’s to take or to leave, as you like.”
“Captain.”
“All hands to make sail!” shouted the captain.
“Vat are you doing, captain? vat are you doing?”
“Lifting my anchor, to be sure.”
“Ah now, captain, can’t you shay two francs?”
The captain continued to give orders for sailing.
“Vell, captain, ve must shay thirty sous.”
The mainsail expanded its folds, and the capstan began to creak.
“Captain, captain! ve vill take your franc!”
“Stop,” cried the captain.
One by one the Jews ascended the starboard side and descended to
larboard, leaving their cotton nightcaps, and receiving a franc apiece.
For a miserable three francs they had twice saved their heads: it was
not dear. As to the captain, he had got back his goods, and made a clear
profit of thirty-six thousand francs. As he was a man who knew how to
behave, he put eighteen thousand francs in his boat, went ashore, and
presented himself before the Bey, at whose feet he again prostrated
himself, and whose papooshes he once more kissed.
“I come to present my humble thanks to your highness.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Overjoyed.”
“Do you consider the indemnity sufficient?”
“Too much. And I come to offer your highness half my net profit of
thirty-six thousand francs.”
“Nonsense!” said the Bey. “Have you forgotten that I promised you
Turkish justice?”
“I perfectly remember.”
“Well, Turkish justice is done gratis.”
“_Tron de l’air!_” cried the captain: “in France a judge would not have
been contented with half; he would have taken at least three quarters.”
“You mistake,” said the Bey; “he would have taken the whole.”
“Aha!” exclaimed the captain, “I see you know France as well as I do.”
And once more he went down into the dust to kiss the Bey’s papooshes,
but the Bey gave him his hand. The captain returned to his ship, and a
quarter of an hour later he left the African coast under press of sail.
He feared lest the Bey might change his mind.
Their brief experience of the nightcap convinced the Tunisian Jews of
its superiority to the yellow caps and black turbans with which they
were wont to cover their infidel heads; and upon the death of the Bey
they obtained permission from his successor to adopt the cotton
covering, whose wear previously entailed decapitation. Such, at least,
is the explanation given by the ingenious M. Dumas of the naturalisation
of Paris nightcaps on the Barbary coast.
Incidentally, and rather as things told him than of his own knowledge,
Mr Urquhart gives some brief details of the celebrated French campaign
against Morocco, in which Marshal Bugeaud won his dukedom, and Admiral
Joinville immortalised his name. His account of the affair of Isly is
contemptuous enough, and will assuredly entail upon him the indignation
of France, or at least of that portion of Frenchmen who believe, or
affect to believe, that there was a battle and a victory—not a surprise
and a scamper, unexpected by the assailed, and bloodless to the
assailants. “On the 14th August,” says Mr Urquhart, “the son of the
sultan is awakened by an alarm, ‘_The French army is in sight_.’ He
tells his people the marshal is coming to pay him a visit, before his
departure; and after giving orders for a tent to be pitched, and
coffee—which he knew the French liked—to be sought for and prepared, he
again assumed, to use the phraseology of Antar, ‘the attitude of
repose.’ He is again awakened—‘_The French are on us_’—and the French
_were_ on them—found _the coffee ready_, and, instead of drinking, spilt
it. The loss of the Moors was eight hundred men by _suffocation_.”
Compare this statement with the reflection of Alexander Dumas, on
approaching the mountains of Djema-r’ Azaouat. “Behind yonder hills,” he
fervently exclaims, “are two great mementos, equal to Thermopylæ and
Marathon—the combat of Sidi-Ibrahim, and the battle of Isly.” Funny Mr
Dumas! how gravely he says these droll things. How many persons, out of
France, remember to have heard of this modern Thermopylæ? We seriously
suggest to Mr Dumas, whose indefatigable pen, although more particularly
devoted to romance and the drama, occasionally flies at history, to
write that of the conquest and colonisation of Algeria, in which would
naturally be included the episode of the campaign against the Moors. We
are quite sure his account of the battle of Isly will differ widely from
that of Mr Urquhart: as widely as, or still more so than that of Admiral
Bruat, which was addressed to the inhabitants of the Society Islands, in
a proclamation quoted as a note to _The Pillars of Hercules_, and which
Mr Urquhart declares, with much truth, to be highly deserving of a place
in history. M. Dumas seems to us to be exactly cut out for the historian
of his countrymen’s African exploits. The razzias and crop-burnings, the
bloody skirmishes of Zouaves and Bedouins, the constant pursuit and many
narrow escapes of the Emir, will acquire additionally romantic interest
from the picturesque handling of the author of the _Mousquetaires_, who
declares, in the pages of _Le Véloce_, that he is not only a soldier’s
son, but himself a soldier at heart. With what glowing eloquence will he
refute the various charges brought against his countrymen in Africa! “If
Abd-el-Kader,” says Mr Urquhart, “had not been playing a game, at all
events a game was played in his person. He was necessary to the French
military system of Algiers. He is known to have been three times in
their hands, and to have been suffered to escape.” This accusation has
frequently been brought against the French generals in Africa. If such
collusion existed, it was not subscribed to, according to M. Dumas, by
Colonel Montagnac, who commanded, in the year 1845, the garrison of
Djema-r’ Azaouat, and who had repeatedly sworn to take the Emir or lose
his life. One day an Arab presented himself at the colonel’s quarters.
He came from the chief of the neighbouring tribe of Souhalias, who was,
he said, more devoted than ever to the French cause; and who sent word
that, if the garrison would make a sortie, and place themselves in
ambuscade on the territory of his tribe, he engaged to deliver
Abd-el-Kader into their hands. Confiding in the Arab’s promise,
Montagnac issued forth at the head of four hundred and eight men and
twelve officers, including sixty-five cavalry. But on the second day he
found he was betrayed, and that the promised capture was but a bait to
lure him from his stronghold. The little band retraced their steps, and
were within five leagues of Djema-r’ Azaouat, when they were menaced by
an overwhelming force of Arabs and Kabyles; and in the distance the Emir
himself, his banner displayed at the head of his regulars, was seen
descending the hills. Two companies of French riflemen remained to guard
the baggage; and the others, with the cavalry, advanced against the foe.
After a desperate struggle, the main body was cut to pieces, or made
prisoners; and a company, advancing from the bivouac to its support, was
surrounded and exterminated. Of these combats, Mr Dumas gives a minute
account, introducing dramatic dialogues between the men and officers,
and imparting to the whole scene his usual vivid and animated colouring.
Thus, when the company from the baggage-guard is marching up, only sixty
strong, to the assistance of its comrades, and is suddenly surrounded,
we find the following graphic account of its proceedings:—
“The commanding officer had but just time to order formation of square.
The manœuvre was executed under the fire of ten thousand Arabs (!) as it
would have been in the Champ-de-Mars. Of all these men, only one showed
signs of regret—none of fear. This was a young rifleman, twenty years
old, named Ismaël.
“‘Oh, _commandant_!’ he exclaimed, ‘we are lost!’
“The commandant smiled upon the poor lad; he understood that at twenty
years of age he knew so little of life that he had a right to regret it.
“‘How old are you?’ he asked of the young soldier.
“‘One-and-twenty,’ was the reply.
“‘Well, you will have eighteen years less to suffer than I have had;
look at me, and learn how to die with firm heart and head erect.’
“He had scarcely spoken, when a bullet struck his forehead, and he fell
as he had promised to fall. Five minutes later, Captain Burgaud had
likewise fallen.
“‘Come, my friends,’ said the non-commissioned adjutant Thomas, ‘one
step forward: let us die upon the bodies of our officers.’
“These were the last distinct words that were heard; the death-rattle
followed them, then the silence of the grave. In its turn, the second
company had disappeared. All that now remained was the company under
Captain de Géreaux, left in charge of the camp.”
Mr Dumas’ habit of writing melodrama renders him very effective in this
sort of romantic military chronicle, which is pretty well received in
France, where people are used to the style. It is compounded upon the
plan of all his historical romances and romantic histories, with the
sole difference that, in these, he frequently audaciously perverts
historic truth; whilst the African business is so recent that he cannot
venture to be unfaithful to the outline, and confines himself to filling
up and extending with his own fantastic details. Having been on the
spot, and one of the first to welcome the few survivors of the prisoners
taken in the above bloody affair, when they were ransomed from the
Arabs, he doubtless picked up a number of the tales that always
circulate in such cases; and these he has very cleverly amalgamated and
patched up into a consecutive narrative—perhaps the most amusing section
of those two volumes of _Le Véloce_ which alone as yet have reached us.
His account of the fate of the last company—the one that stopped with
the baggage—is the best bit of all, although certainly very French, and
strongly impregnated with that peculiar flavour of theatrical
fanfaronade which is inseparable from the character of our vain and
volatile neighbours, which they cannot see, and consequently are not
likely to lose, and which stirs the gall of prejudiced and untravelled
Englishmen, and brings a smile to the lip of those who, with greater
justice and in a better spirit, will not allow peculiarities of tone and
manner to blind them to the good qualities of a gallant and ingenious
nation, whose soldiers, although of late years they have more than once
been employed in wars and expeditions unworthy of their prowess, have
never lost an opportunity of proving that, in valour at least, they are
no way degenerate from their fathers who fought under the banners of
Napoleon the Great. And although one cannot but be amused at the
ambitious comparison with Thermopylæ, the affair of Sidi-Ibrahim was
unquestionably most honourable to the handful of brave fellows who
defended the Marabout of that name against fifty times their number. The
term _Marabout_ is applied, in Africa, not only to a saint, but to the
small, round-roofed, stone edifice which serves as his mausoleum after
death, and, not unfrequently, as his habitation during life. In a
building of this description, after driving out the Arabs that occupied
it, and when the cessation of the musketry warned them that their
comrades were slain or prisoners, the last company of Colonel
Montagnac’s ill-fated detachment took refuge, under the orders of its
captain, de Géreaux, and there withstood the fierce and reiterated
attacks of a host of Arabs and Kabyles. Abd-el-Kader himself approached
the little fortress, and was wounded in the cheek by a French bullet. He
offered quarter on surrender: it was refused. Thrice he summoned the
handful of beleaguered warriors, who spurned his proposals, and would
not trust themselves to the word of an Arab. Then the combat recommenced
and lasted till night, whose arrival found the French still in
possession of their post. At daybreak, hostilities were resumed, and
continued till ten o’clock in the forenoon, when Abd-el-Kader took his
departure, and the Arabs, whose loss was very heavy, converted the siege
into a blockade. Night returned, and Captain de Géreaux, who was on the
watch, saw an Arab creeping stealthily towards the Marabout. He awoke Dr
Rosagutti, the interpreter; they called to the Arab, who came to them;
they gave him all the money they had about them, and a letter to take to
the camp of Lalla Maghrnia. The Arab was faithful; he delivered the
letter; but none knew the signature of Captain de Géreaux; a stratagem
was suspected, and no relief was sent. Hope of succour, however, buoyed
up the spirits of the besieged of Sidi-Ibrahim, and they waited another
day, without bread or water, almost without ammunition, their gaze fixed
in the direction of Lalla Maghrnia. But the next morning at six o’clock,
despairing of relief, they resolved to sally forth and cut their way to
Djema-r’Azaouat. There were four leagues to get over, and thousands of
Arabs were echeloned along the route. With desperate courage, the
fifty-five or sixty Frenchmen repulsed numerous attacks, forming square
when hard pressed, receiving many wounds, marking their track with
corpses, but still, by their steadiness and deadly fire, keeping the
undisciplined Arabs at bay. Some five-and-twenty succeeded in arriving
within half a league of Djema-r’Azaouat, but then their ammunition was
expended; the Arabs pressed upon them, and a volley at twenty paces
stretched half their number, including the brave de Géreaux, lifeless in
the dust. The remainder dispersed, and sought concealment and safety
amongst the copsewood and bushes. Three of them reached the lines of
Djema-r’Azaouat, told the sad tale, and died, unwounded, of mere
exhaustion. A sortie was made, and five or six men, who had escaped the
Kabyle sabres, were brought in. Eight men were all that survived of the
gallant eighth battalion of the Chasseurs of Orleans. The disaster,
however, was signally revenged. The Arabs who had brought it about, by
the false message sent to Colonel Montagnac—the tribe of the
Beni-Snanen—were cooped up by General Cavaignac on a narrow projection
of the coast, and driven into the sea or put to the sword, to the number
of four or five thousand. “The furious soldiers gave no quarter,” adds
M. Dumas, “and General Cavaignac perilled his popularity with the army
by saving a remnant of this unfortunate tribe. The trumpeter, Roland,
the only survivor of the massacre of the m’Louïa, (when the prisoners
taken by Abd-el-Kader were put to death in cold blood,) was in this
affair: he had a terrible revenge to take, and he took it, and declared
himself satisfied, for he had slain with his own hand more than thirty
Arabs.”
Great as is the press of more important matter, and prolonged though
this paper has been by the extracts to which the diverting Dumas has
tempted us, we yet cannot close it without a glance at Mr Urquhart’s
remarkable chapter, entitled “THE BATH.” On this subject his notions and
prepossessions are completely Oriental. His residence in the East has
given him a distaste for the modes of washing customary in Western
Europe, and which he styles “dabbling in dirty water.” Nothing less than
the running stream can come up to his standard of cleanliness. And as it
is not always practicable to have fountains in dwelling-houses, he tells
us how he manages without one. “I find the most convenient substitute a
vase holding about two gallons of water, with a spout like that of a
tea-urn, only three times the length, placed on a stand about four feet
high, with a tub below: hot or cold water can be used; the water may be
very hot, as the stream that flows is small. It runs for a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes.” This is his plan in the West, we understand;
but when the member for Stafford gets amongst Mussulmans, oh, how he
revels in the shampoo! The gusto of his descriptions positively makes us
shudder. The bathman, we are told, “stands with his feet on the thighs
and on the chest, and slips down the ribs; then up again three times;
and, lastly, doubling your arms one after the other on the chest, pushes
with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then putting an arm
under the back and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, _rolls on
you across till you crack_. You are now turned on your face, and, in
addition to the operation above described, he works his elbow round the
edges of your shoulder-blade, and with the heel plies hard the angle of
the neck; he concludes by hauling the body half up by each arm
successively, while he stands with one foot on the opposite thigh. You
are then raised for a moment to a sitting posture, and a contortion
given to the small of the back, and a jerk to the neck by the two hands
holding the temples.” This has rather a dislocating, formidable, and
certainly a most disgusting sound; but Mr Urquhart assures us the
process is delightful, and particularly gentle compared with the mode of
operation in a Moorish bath, where, practised bather though he is, he
shrieked under the rough usage of his manipulator. The conclusion of
this latter bath he describes as follows:—“Thrice taking each leg and
lifting it up, he placed his head under the calf, and raising himself,
scraped the leg as with a rough brush, _for his shaved head had the
grain downwards. The operation concluded by his biting my heel._” We
should like to see any human being, whether Turk, Pagan, Jew, or
Christian, attempt such revolting liberties with our person. By the
bones of Belshazzar! we would brain him with the bath-brush. The member
for Stafford should be ashamed of himself. He positively makes us
scunner. We have a firm and wholesome faith in the efficacy and
cleanliness of a British spunging-bath and rough towel; we repel with
abhorrence Mr Urquhart’s manipulatory innovations, and feel intense
disgust at the Mahometan kneading, pummelling, trampling, sweating,
soaping, and scraping, which he dwells upon with such nauseous
minuteness, and whose results he describes as so wonderfully salubrious
and delightful. We really hesitate at transferring to our page any more
of his nasty details. We venture, however, to present him to our readers
in the character of Marsyas, undergoing the flaying process which, it
appears, forms an essential stage of the Turkish bathing operation. With
a glove of camel’s hair, the bathman “commences from the nape of the
neck in long sweeps down the back till he has started the skin; _he
coaxes it into rolls_, keeping them in and up, till within his hand they
gather volume and length; he then successively strikes and brushes them
away, and they fall right and left as if spilt from a dish of macaroni.
The dead matter which will accumulate in a week forms, when dry, _a ball
of the size of the fist. I once collected it and had it dried—it is like
a ball of chalk._” Well may the honourable gentleman declare the human
body “a fountain of impurities,” when he can back the assertion by such
a startling statement of the weekly amount of his own cuticular
incrustations. No wonder he commiserates the condition of the unwashed
portion of his countrymen, and urges the establishment of public baths
on a scale more magnificent than practicable. Cleanliness is so nearly a
virtue, that all deserve well of their country who efficaciously promote
its spread amongst classes by whom it is too often neglected. But the
carrying out of such plans must devolve upon philanthropists of a more
practical stamp than this fantastical theorist and crotchety M.P. It
were ridiculous to suppose that all the advantages would be realised
which he predicts, from the adoption in this country of a universal
system of bathing; but so manifold and enormous are they, that, if only
a tithe of them were guaranteed, it would suffice to make us sigh for
the days when in London there should be “no gin palaces, but a thousand
baths!”
GOLDSMITH.
PART II.
From the character of the man, we turn to the character of the
author—from the life to the works of Goldsmith. What we said of the
well-known events of his career would apply equally to his writings; it
would be a tedious and superfluous office to pass in formal review
performances so familiar, and which appear to be as justly appreciated
as they are widely circulated. All that we propose doing, is to add a
few miscellaneous observations, hints, and fragments of criticism, which
may be interesting to those who like to examine also, as well as to
admire. For these we could find no space in our previous Number: we
throw them together here in the best order their miscellaneous nature
permits.
In the _Citizen of the World_, Goldsmith tells us of a man who earned
his livelihood by making wonders—curiosities of nature or of art—and
exhibiting them to the world. “His first essay in this way was to
exhibit himself as a wax-work figure, behind a glass door at a
puppet-show. Thus, keeping the spectators at a proper distance, and
having his head adorned with a copper crown, he looked extremely
natural, and very like the life itself.” This would be no bad
illustration of what his critics have often pointed out as Goldsmith’s
own proceeding, in the manufacture of his literary wonders and
curiosities. When he wanted a fictitious character for his novel, or his
play, he sate himself down behind the glass door, with some copper
crown, or other slight disguise upon his head, and all the world
confessed that it “looked extremely natural, and very like the life
itself!”
His Good-natured Man, in the comedy of that name; Young Marlow in _She
Stoops to Conquer_, the Philosopher Vagabond, the Man in Black, and
others that could be named, are all Goldsmith sitting behind the glass
door. There is a strong personal resemblance in all his characters; they
are portraits of himself, drawn with the features widened into broad
humour, or elongated into saturnine wisdom. His Beau Tibbs seems to have
been created by looking at, and magnifying, some of his own foibles; his
Dr Primrose, by drawing forth those grave and kindly feelings, which,
notwithstanding those foibles, lay, he knew, at the bottom of his heart.
The incidents of his life, too, supplied very often the plot or story;
and memory took the place of invention. Yet, in this respect,
considering the varied and adventurous nature of his life, we are rather
surprised that he did not draw more copiously from himself, and from his
past history. We should have thought that the curious scenes he must
have witnessed in that wild journey of his—footing it through Europe,
now as medical student, now as itinerant musician, at one time playing
the tutor (he the tutor!) to some junior scapegrace; at another,
furbishing up all the Latin and logic he was master of, to dispute at
Padua for bed and supper—would have supplied him with many an incident
for a novel. We are persuaded, that if he had lived in these days, when
the value of an incident is better known, and it is more the fashion
than it was formerly to put to literary profit the experience and events
of private life, he would have made much greater use than he has done of
such materials.
But it is not only thus that we trace the life of Goldsmith in his
writings. We trace the influence of his career in the formation of his
intellectual character. Travel had stood with him in the place of
philosophy. It had enlarged his sphere of thought, had broken up
national prejudices, and given him an insight into many a matter which
otherwise would never have attracted his attention. But travel is far
more effective in dispersing error or prejudice, than in lending
assistance to the formation of settled opinions. It confirmed him in a
desultory mode of thinking, uncertain and undecided. His horizon was
extended, but his vision was not distinct. Yet as Goldsmith was never
devoted to the discipline of philosophy, and would never, perhaps, have
pursued any systematic study, he was, upon the whole, a great gainer by
his varied vagrant life, and the cosmopolitan temper it had generated. A
philosopher he never would have been: it was something to feel as a
citizen of the world.
Goldsmith was of a quick apprehensive intellect, open to receive
impressions, with ready faculty to give them forth again; but to
continuous thought, to close and prolonged examination of any subject,
he was by no means addicted. With him the philosophers were more talked
of than read. Abstract thinking and severe reasoning were not his
vocation. It thus happens that the solitary observation, simply
asserted, is often excellent, and carries with it our cordial assent. He
only discovers his weakness when he undertakes to convince us by his
reasoning. On those occasions when he puts forth a thesis, and solemnly
begins to demonstrate it, his thesis may be good, but it will stand none
the firmer for his argument.
Let us give an instance of this from the _Vicar of Wakefield_. Nothing
could be more just, or more happily expressed, than the opening
observation we are about to quote. The reasoning which follows, and is
intended to support it, is as weak and fantastical as, on so beaten a
subject, it well could be.
“And it were highly to be wished,” says the Vicar, “that legislative
power would thus direct the law rather to reformation than severity;
that it would seem convinced that the work of eradicating crimes is
not by making punishment familiar, but formidable. Then instead of our
present prisons, which find or make men guilty, which enclose wretches
for the commission of one crime, and return them, if returned alive,
fitted for the perpetration of thousands—we should see, as in other
parts of Europe, places of penitence and solitude, where the accused
might be attended by such as could give them repentance, if guilty, or
new motives to virtue, if innocent. And this, but not the increasing
punishment, is the way to mend a state.”
Now, if the good Vicar had stopped here, he would have expressed a truth
much needed at the time, in a simplicity and elegance of language which
could not be improved. But the Vicar enters into abstract reasoning to
prove his thesis, grows argumentative, and, at the same time, grows
weak.
“Nor can I,” he continues, “avoid even questioning the validity of
that right which social combinations have assumed of capitally
punishing offences of a slight nature. In cases of murder their right
is obvious, as it is the duty of us all, from the law of self-defence,
to cut off that man who has shown a disregard for the life of another.
Against such all nature rises in arms; but it is not so against him
who steals my property. Natural law gives me no right to take away his
life, as by that the horse he steals is as much his property as mine.
If, then, I have any right, it must be from a compact made between us,
that he who deprives the other of his horse shall die. _But this is a
false compact; because no man has a right to barter his life any more
than to take it away, as it is not his own. And, besides, the compact
is inadequate, and could be set aside even in a court of modern
equity, as there is a great penalty for a trifling inconvenience,
since it is far better that two men should live than that one man
should ride._ But a compact that is false between two men is equally
so between a hundred and a hundred thousand; for as ten millions of
circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot
lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.”
Logic such as this, even if set forth in Latin, would hardly have earned
him his supper and his bed in the University of Padua.
We are told that at Dublin University Goldsmith manifested great
repugnance to the study of mathematics. The conduct towards him of the
mathematical tutor did not tend to diminish this aversion. In one of his
miscellaneous essays, he thus revenges himself on the science and on its
professors:—
“A youth incapable of retaining one rule of grammar, or of acquiring
the least knowledge of the classics, may nevertheless make great
progress in mathematics; _nay, he may have a strong genius for the
mathematics without being able to comprehend a demonstration of
Euclid_; because his mind conceives in a peculiar manner, and is so
intent upon contemplating the object in one particular point of
view, that it cannot perceive it in any other. We have known an
instance of a boy who, while his master complained that he had not
capacity to comprehend the properties of a right-angled triangle,
had actually, in private, by the power of his genius, _formed a
mathematical system of his own_; discovered a series of curious
theorems, and even applied his deductions to practical machines of
surprising construction.”—_Essay on Taste._
But although Goldsmith could commit the most surprising blunders when he
invades the region of abstract or severe reasoning, yet the credit must
be given to him of _thinking for himself_. With undisciplined powers,
and but slenderly equipped for the task, we still see him engaging in
the solution of social and political problems. He does not merely repeat
from books the ideas of others; nor is he a thoughtless spectator of the
world. One subject especially our homeless wanderer, who had looked up
at society from the last round of the ladder, is frequently observed to
be canvassing. His opinions on it are far from settled; his conclusions
are often diametrically opposed; his reasonings never very clear; but he
is, at all events, seen from time to time pondering it with great
interest. It is the subject of luxury—the gratifications and pleasures
of the wealthy in a state of civilisation. The rule admits of
exceptions; but, in general, he condemns luxury in his poetry, and
defends it in his prose. In neither case is he very successful in his
reasonings. When he assails, he appears to be under the influence of a
mere sentiment; when he defends it, he seems to be dealing with a
half-learned philosophy, and such as is generally understood to be
rather a native of France than of England.
“Examine,” says the _Citizen of the World_, “the history of any
country remarkable for opulence and wisdom, you will find that they
would never have been wise had they not been first luxurious: you will
find poets, philosophers, and even patriots, marching in luxury’s
train. The reason is obvious. _We then only are curious in knowledge,
when we find it connected with sensual happiness._ The senses ever
point out the way, and reflection comments upon the discovery. Inform
a native of the desert of Kobi of the exact measure of the parallax of
the moon, he finds no satisfaction at all in the information; he
wonders how any could take such pains, and lay out such treasures, in
order to solve so useless a difficulty; but connect it with his
happiness by showing that it improves navigation—that by such an
investigation he may have a warmer coat, a better gun, or a finer
knife, and he is instantly in raptures at so great an improvement. In
short, we only desire to know when we desire to possess; and, whatever
we may talk against it, luxury adds the spur to curiosity, and gives
us a desire of becoming more wise.”—Letter XI.
Not true, Dr Goldsmith!—only a mere fragment of the truth; and your
astronomical illustration singularly unfortunate. For the science of
astronomy has been all along a labour of love—from the time when
Chaldæan shepherds, quite heedless of navigation, watched the stars, and
marked out the planet (the _wanderer_) amongst the fixed and stationary
lights, to these our own days, when the profound _mathematician_,
calculating, in the midst of revolutionary Paris, his disturbances on
the remote boundaries of our planetary system, writes to the skilful
_observer_, and bids him direct his great tube to a certain spot in the
heavens, and he will find a new _wanderer_ there, as yet unseen and
unsuspected. The observer points his telescope as he is told, and
discovers it that very night, in that very spot.
Still less will his reasoning hold together, or prove
“refutation-tight,” when, as in the _Deserted Village_, he finds that
the wealth of our merchants has occasioned the desertion of the country,
and the depopulation of the land. “In regretting,” he says, in the
preface to that poem, “the depopulation of the land, I inveigh against
the increase of our luxuries.” Happily no one, in reading that poem,
thinks of the political economy of the _Deserted Village_. Happily,
also, there is often a greater truth in the poet’s general enunciations,
than he himself is able to explain, or accurately to develop. The reader
may adopt his language, and apply it to a more correct conception than
was present to the author’s mind. The very paragraph which might be
quoted for its manifest blunder in the rudiments of political science,
opens with these admirable lines, which every one, in a sense of his
own, will readily adopt:—
“Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey
The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay,
’Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.”
What follows will not easily bear a wise interpretation. Goldsmith
speaks of commerce as if ships came in laden with nothing but gold—with
“loads of freighted ore”—and finds that this imported wealth converts
the ploughed fields into parks and pleasure-grounds. The writer of a
history of England might have called to mind the Forest Laws, and the
wide tracts of country kept waste, and, in some cases, _laid waste_ by
our rude ancestors, for their rude sports.
There is amongst the essays of Goldsmith a tale or allegory, which our
readers may remember to have read in their youth, in some Speaker, or
collection of Elegant Extracts. We are quite sure they have no
acquaintance with it of a later date. This tale we will venture to
revive. It belongs to so old-fashioned a species of literature, that it
must needs be a novelty. We would quote it as an instance illustrative
of the remarks we have made on the intellectual character of Goldsmith.
It is wrong—argumentatively and logically wrong—yet no man would say
that he was a mere repeater of other men’s words, who wrote _Asem, an
Eastern Tale; or a Vindication of the Wisdom of Providence in the moral
government of the World_. No one can read it without being prompted to
think, which is good proof that the author thought when he wrote
it—though he did not think very accurately.
In the time of Goldsmith, the fashion was not extinct of seeing moral
visions, and dreaming sagacious dreams. Wisdom delighted to speak in
allegory. There were still to be found in those days, here and there,
retired hermits, with long beards, hiding in solitary caves, and living
on the simplest herbs—cold water and a salad; and there were still
lingering on the earth genii, or other stupendous and supernatural
beings, who occasionally visited these favoured mortals, teaching them
surpassing wisdom, and illustrating their lessons in the most marvellous
manner. Asem was such a hermit. Yet, all hermit and Mussulman as he was,
he bears a strong resemblance to the Goldsmith family. “From the
tenderness of his disposition, he exhausted all his fortune in relieving
the wants of the distressed.” Having reduced himself to want, he is
shocked to find that one who comes to beg, is not so welcome as when he
came to give. Accordingly, he turns with wrath from an ungrateful world.
“He began to view mankind in a very different light from that in which
he had before beheld them; he perceived a thousand vices he had never
before suspected to exist; wherever he turned, ingratitude,
dissimulation, and treachery contributed to increase his detestation
of them. Resolved, therefore, to continue no longer in a world which
he hated, and which repaid his detestation with contempt, he retired
to a region of sterility, in order to brood over his resentment in
solitude, and converse with the only honest heart he knew—namely, his
own.”
But the contemplation of this only honest heart was not sufficient
consolation for that prospect of a wicked world which perpetually
haunted him, and which filled him with doubts on the wisdom or the
beneficence of Allah. He finally resolved on suicide. He was about to
plunge into the lake, when—
“He perceived a most majestic being walking on the surface of the
water, and approaching the bank on which he stood!
“‘Son of Adam!’ cried the Genius, ‘stop thy rash purpose: the Father
of the Faithful has seen thy justice, thy integrity, thy miseries, and
hath sent me to afford and administer relief. Give me thine hand, and
follow without trembling wherever I shall lead. In me behold the
Genius of Conviction, kept by the Great Prophet, to turn from their
errors those who go astray, not from curiosity, but a rectitude of
intention. Follow me, and be wise!’”
Such an invitation, and from so imposing a personage, was not to be
declined. The Genius of Conviction conducts Asem along the surface, and
to the centre of the lake: here the waters open, and close on them; they
descend into another world, where human foot had never trod before.
“‘The rational inhabitants of this world,’ the Genius tells him, ‘are
formed agreeably to your own ideas; they are absolutely without vice.
If you find this world more agreeable than that you so lately left,
you have free permission to spend the remainder of your days in it.’
“‘A world without vice! Rational beings without immorality!’ cried
Asem in a rapture. ‘I thank thee, Allah!—thou hast at length heard my
petitions: this—this, indeed, will produce happiness, ecstasy, and
ease. Oh for an immortality to spend it among men who are incapable of
ingratitude, injustice, fraud, violence, and a thousand other crimes
that render society miserable!’
“‘Cease thine exclamations!’ replied the Genius. ‘Look around thee.’
“They soon gained the utmost verge of the forest, and entered the
country inhabited by men without vice; and Asem anticipated in idea
the rational delight he hoped to experience in such an innocent
society. But they had scarcely left the confines of the wood, when
they beheld one of the inhabitants flying with hasty steps, and terror
in his countenance, from an army of squirrels that closely pursued
him. ‘Heavens!’ cried Asem, ‘why does he fly? What can he fear from
animals so contemptible?’ He had scarcely spoken, when he perceived
two dogs pursuing another of the human species, who, with equal terror
and haste, attempted to avoid them. ‘This,’ cried Asem to his guide,
‘is truly surprising; nor can I conceive the reason for so strange an
action.’—‘Every species of animals,’ replied the Genius, ‘has of late
grown very powerful in this country; for the inhabitants, at first,
thinking it unjust to use either fraud or force in destroying them,
they have insensibly increased, and now frequently ravage their
harmless frontiers.’ ‘But they should have been destroyed!’ cried
Asem: ‘you see the consequence of such neglect.’—‘Where is then that
tenderness you so lately expressed for subordinate animals?’ replied
the Genius, smiling; ‘you seem to have forgot that branch of justice.’
‘I must acknowledge my mistake,’ returned Asem. ‘I am now convinced
that we must be guilty of tyranny and injustice to the brute creation,
if we would enjoy the world ourselves. But let us no longer observe
the duty of man to these irrational creatures, but survey their
connexions with one another.’
“As they walked farther up the country, the more he was surprised to
see no vestiges of handsome houses, no cities, nor any mark of elegant
design. His conductor, perceiving his surprise, observed, that the
inhabitants of this new world were perfectly content with their
ancient simplicity; each had a house, which, though homely, was
sufficient to lodge his little family; they were too good to build
houses, which would only increase their own pride and the envy of the
spectator; what they built was for convenience, and not for show. ‘At
least, then,’ said Asem, ‘they have neither architects, painters, nor
statuaries in their society; but these are idle arts, and may be
spared. However, before I spend much more time here, you should have
my thanks for introducing me into the society of some of their wisest
men: there is scarcely any pleasure to me equal to a refined
conversation; there is nothing of which I am so much enamoured as
wisdom.’—‘Wisdom!’ replied his instructor; ‘how ridiculous! We have no
wisdom here, for we have no occasion for it: true wisdom is only a
knowledge of our own duty, and the duty of others to us; but of what
use is such wisdom here? Each intuitively performs what is right in
itself, and expects the same from others. If by wisdom you should mean
vain curiosity and empty speculation, as such pleasures have their
origin in vanity, luxury, or avarice, we are too good to pursue them.’
‘All this may be right,’ said Asem, ‘but I think I observe a solitary
disposition prevail among the people; each family keeps separately
within their own precincts, without society, or without
intercourse.’—‘That, indeed, is true,’ replied the other; ‘here is no
established society, nor should there be any: all societies are made
either through fear or friendship; the people we are among are too
good to fear each other; and there are no motives to private
friendship, where all are equally meritorious.’ ‘Well, then,’ said the
sceptic, ‘if I am to spend my time here—if I am to have neither the
polite arts, nor wisdom, nor friendship in such a world, I should be
glad, at least, of an easy companion, who may tell me his thoughts,
and to whom I may communicate mine.’—‘And to what purpose should
either do this?’ says the Genius. ‘Flattery or curiosity are vicious
motives, and never allowed of here; and wisdom is out of the
question.’
“‘Still, however,’ said Asem, ‘the inhabitants must be happy; each is
contented with his own possessions, nor avariciously endeavours to
heap up more than is necessary for his own subsistence; each has,
therefore, leisure for pitying those that stand in need of his
compassion.’ He had scarcely spoken when his ears were assaulted by
the lamentations of a wretch who sat by the way-side, and, in the most
deplorable distress, seemed gently to murmur at his own misery. Asem
immediately ran to his relief, and found him in the last stage of a
consumption. ‘Strange,’ cried the son of Adam, ‘that men who are free
from vice should thus suffer so much misery without relief!’—‘Be not
surprised,’ said the wretch who was dying; ‘would it not be the utmost
injustice for beings who have only just sufficient to support
themselves, and are content with a bare subsistence, to take it from
their own mouths to put it into mine? They never are possessed of a
single meal more than is necessary; and what is barely necessary
cannot be dispensed with.’ ‘They should have been supplied with more
than is necessary,’ cried Asem. ‘And yet I contradict my own opinion
but a moment before: all is doubt, perplexity, and confusion.’”
After some other attempts to find happiness in this world without vice,
Asem exclaims—“Take me, O my Genius! back to that very world I have
despised!” And hereupon the triumphant Genius, “assuming an air of
terrible complacency, called all his thunders around him, and vanished
in a whirlwind.” Asem found himself at the very place, and (with such
rapidity had these scenes passed in review) almost at the very instant
of time, in which the Genius had at first accosted him. “His right foot
was still advanced to take the fatal plunge, nor had it been yet
withdrawn.”
Who would dare to contend with the _Genius of Conviction_?—who venture
to prescribe laws of reasoning to so majestic a being,—one who walks
upon the waters, calls his thunders about him, and has a whole
subterranean world wherewith to demonstrate his theory of morals?
Nevertheless, if we were quite sure that the Genius were out of hearing,
we should be disposed to question whether he had ever framed an accurate
definition of virtue. If, in a virtuous world, men must be chased by
squirrels, and devoured by dogs, live in penury, and let their
neighbours starve, either we, or the Genius of Conviction, have been in
error all this time as to what virtue really _is_.
As a critic, it is confessed on all hands that Goldsmith lamentably
failed. As a politician, he had this honourable peculiarity, that his
speculations had very little reference to the party feuds of the day. He
had contracted, probably from his Continental travels, a bias in favour
of monarchical power. He seems to have embraced the opinion which Burke
combated in his _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_; namely, that the
houses of parliament, or the aristocracy through their influence in
these houses, were dangerously encroaching on the royal prerogative. At
least this is the best explanation we can give of the expressions that
he, from time to time, throws out upon this subject.
The only grudge we owe his politics is, that they occasioned the
introduction of the weakest and most confused passage in his noble poem
of _The Traveller_. When discoursing upon foreign countries—on Holland,
France, or Italy—he naturally and wisely restricts himself to certain
general characteristics of the people and of their governments—general
views which admit of vigorous and poetic enunciation, and are not likely
to raise cavil or controversy. But when he lands upon his native
country, these home politics beset him, and he gets entangled in a train
of thought but half made out, of too controversial a character, and
which does not easily lend itself to the harmony of verse, and the
simple force of poetic expression.
“Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms:
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom, when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes where savage nations roam,
Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;
_Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne_.”
Yet the whole passage must be forgiven for the sake of the two last
lines. Of these the second is repeatedly quoted; but there is much
significance and extreme felicity of expression in the preceding line—
“——half a patriot, half a coward grown.”
It is a pity they should be so often separated.
Having mentioned _The Traveller_, let us turn at once to this and to its
exquisite companion—the two poems which give to Goldsmith his secure and
eminent position in the literature of England. Our few detached
criticisms on these old favourites shall not, at all events, be
wearisome by their length. His comedies we design to leave untouched;
they cannot be criticised without some review, however rapid, of the
literature of the stage, and for this we have at present neither space
nor inclination. A glance at _The Citizen of the World_ and _The Vicar
of Wakefield_ will bring our subject to its conclusion.
Every one remembers the anecdote connected with the first line of _The
Traveller_—
“Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.”
Mr Irving shall relate it for us.
“The appearance of _The Traveller_ at once altered Goldsmith’s
intellectual standing in the estimation of society; but its effect
upon the club, if we may judge from the account given by Hawkins, was
almost ludicrous. They were lost in astonishment that a ‘newspaper
essayist,’ and a ‘bookseller’s drudge,’ should have written such a
poem. On the evening of its announcement, Goldsmith had gone away
early, after ‘rattling away as usual;’ and they knew not how to
reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the easy
grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation of his
poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic numbers had flowed
from a man to whom in general, says Johnson, ‘it was with difficulty
they could give a hearing.’ ‘Well,’ exclaimed Chamier, ‘I do believe
he wrote this poem himself; and, let me tell you, that is believing a
great deal.’
“At the next meeting of the club, Chamier sounded the author a little
about his poem. ‘Mr Goldsmith,’ said he, ‘what do you mean by the last
word in the first line of your _Traveller_, “remote, unfriended,
melancholy, _slow_?” Do you mean tardiness of locomotion?’—‘Yes,’
replied Goldsmith inconsiderately, being probably flurried at the
moment. ‘No, sir,’ interposed his protecting friend Johnson, ‘you did
not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind
which comes upon a man in solitude.’—‘Ah!’ exclaimed Goldsmith,
‘_that_ was what I meant.’ Chamier immediately believed that Johnson
himself had written the line, and a rumour became prevalent that he
was the author of many of the finest passages.”
With due deference to the great critic, and to the author himself, he
_did_ mean tardiness of movement; but the epithet, joined as it is with
others, tells us also that this slowness of motion was the result of
heaviness of heart, and indicative of a sad and pensive spirit. It means
all that Dr Johnson said; but it means also, and first of all, the slow
pace of the solitary poet. Goldsmith was more probably “flurried at the
moment,” when he so readily adopted the interpretation of Dr Johnson,
than when he gave his first natural answer. He found the passage
explained for him so authoritatively, and so much to the satisfaction of
those present, that he could not hesitate in accepting the explanation.
But had he taken time and _courage_ to reflect a moment, he would have
seen that there was no discrepancy between his own answer and what Dr
Johnson had added. Take away the image of the slow moving poet, and you
take away all _picture_ from the passage. The pensive sadness is
depicted in what Captain Chamier calls, in seeming imitation of the
great man he is conversing with, “tardiness of locomotion.”
“Remote—unfriended—melancholy—slow.”
Every word comes from the heart. Many a time, without a doubt, had our
wandering poet, at a distance from his country, walked by the side of
some foreign stream—alone—unfriended—with nothing for his portion upon
earth but genius and poverty.
“We cannot, for our part, see the point of Captain Chamier’s question.
He might, with just as much reason, have put the same query to Petrarch,
who opens one of his sonnets in a very similar manner.
“Solo e pensoso, i più deserti campi
Vo misurando, a passi tardi e lenti.”
He would have found here also “tardiness of locomotion,” and the languor
of the pensive man, united in the same description.
“Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell’d fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”
The same image is made use of in the _Citizen of the World_. The reader
may like to contrast the prose with the poetic version. “The farther I
travel,” says Lien Chi Altangi to his correspondent, “I feel the pain of
separation with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native
country and you, are still unbroken. _By every remove I only drag a
greater length of chain._” We prefer the prose. Indeed the metaphor is
not so much to our taste as that we should have thought it worth using a
second time, and in the greater work. It suited Lien Chi Altangi very
well, and with him it might have remained. It is too cumbrous—too
material. What are we to do with this “lengthening chain” which he
“drags” along the earth? and where, in imagination, are we to fasten it?
To his ankle? It would make a felon of him. To his waist? Ridiculous!
But, you will say, we are not to see the chain at all—only to hear it
clank a little in the verse—only to have some dim idea of lengthening
ligature. Very good; and thereupon we honestly respond—if, whilst
reading the line you feel no irresistible tendency to look down upon the
ground for this chain—if you do not see it at all, then to you the
metaphor is quite unobjectionable.
“And find no spot of all the world my own!”
The natural feeling of the homeless, unprovided wanderer, looking over a
great stretch of country. How finely is it contrasted with the sentiment
which follows! No spot his own! It is all his! He has taken sympathetic
possession of the whole.
“Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned;
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round;
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale;
Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale—
For me your tributary stores combine;
_Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!_”
Having thus wrought himself into proper mood for his philosophic
purpose, the poet commences his survey of the several regions of the
earth, and nations of mankind. The train of thought is, at starting,
somewhat perplexed, from the author being occupied with two separate
reflections, which, until they are closely examined, appear
contradictory. We have them in close juxtaposition in the following
lines:—
“Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish amidst the scene to find
_Some spot to real happiness consigned_,
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
But where to find that happiest below—
Who can direct, when _all pretend to know_?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own.”
&c., &c.
So far, then, from the hoard of happiness being small, every country
proclaims itself to be specially and pre-eminently blest. The
philosophic poet has no reason for his sorrow: he wanted one happy spot,
and he has found every spot is happy—supremely happy.
But the apparent incongruity vanishes on a closer examination. Each
nation boasts its pre-eminence over other nations; but man nowhere
boasts much of being man. Every people is proud and self-congratulatory
whilst it compares itself with other people; but its pride and
gratulation are only sustained by this comparison. Every congregation of
men who merely contemplate themselves as with the earth beneath them,
and the sky above, are heard to fill the air with lamentations and
discontent. So that the philosopher, notwithstanding these several
vaunts of every nation, civilised and savage, may still search, if he
thinks fit, for the spot “to happiness consigned.”
Our poet seems to find an equal proportion of good and evil in every
clime, people, and government. Sometimes he is guilty of a little
overcharge in this or that particular, in order to keep the balance
even. Only thus can we account for the very severe language with which
he takes leave of Holland. He had found the people of that country so
very comfortable that it was absolutely necessary to abuse them as—
“A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,”
or the due proportion of evil would not have been preserved.
It is observable, and characteristic of the age in which Goldsmith
wrote, that, beautiful as are his descriptions of the several countries
of Europe, there is very little in them which betrays that he himself
had ever visited those countries. There are few of those picturesque
circumstances which the eye of an observer detects, and which the
memory, or the note-book, preserves. Unfortunately, it was the habit of
the day to trust more to the knowledge acquired from books than to the
eyesight: _learning_ had not lost that undue influence which it
naturally acquired at the restoration of letters; poets chose rather to
describe what had been described before, and adhere to traditional
feelings and classical models, than to consult their own experience. The
descriptions of scenery in _The Traveller_ are so general, and consist
of broad outlines so well known to all educated men, that they might
have been written in Green Arbour Court, by one who had lived there all
his life. Switzerland itself does not provoke him to quit the beaten
track of broad generalities. He even describes what he did _not_ see,
because it harmonises with the ideas obtained from books. Thus,—
—“The bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No produce _here_ the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.”
Switzerland has been long celebrated for the mercenary troops she
supplied to foreign courts; but there is no country where less is seen
of the soldier and his sword; nor can “scanty bread” be said to be the
lot of those who cultivate its soil.
While our eye is on this part of the poem, can we possibly resist
quoting the following half-a-dozen lines? They are perfect:—
—“Those ills that round his mansion rise
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast—
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.”
Perhaps the happiest of all these national portraits is that of France.
He sympathised with the French; his pen is often employed in defending
them from absurd attacks, and combating the prejudices of the John Bull
of his day. The concluding lines are peculiarly happy: there is a
refinement of analysis expressed in the most graceful diction.
—“Honour
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic through the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased; _they give to get esteem_,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.”
His praise of England we must not appear so deficient in patriotism as
to quarrel with. But just as one is curious to know where an artist
stood who has taken some captivating sketch of an old familiar spot,
which never appeared to us so very charming before—so one might feel a
little curious to discover where it was, in town or country, that
Goldsmith took his stand when he saw—
“The lords of human race pass by;
Intent on high design—a thoughtful band.”
Was it on London Bridge or at Temple Bar that he read the marks of “high
design” in the “thoughtful band” that we were rushing past him like a
mill-stream? Or was he far off in the country, and did the squire and
his tenantry sit for the picture?
We already find in _The Traveller_ that strange hallucination which
seems to have haunted him, and which he more fully expressed in the
subsequent poem of _The Deserted Village_—that England was being
depopulated! What could have conducted him to a conclusion so utterly at
variance with the fact, it is useless to inquire. It was his crotchet.
He had probably seen decay in some places, and took no calculation of
the more than proportionate increase of others. For Goldsmith did not
limit himself to the mistaken notion, which many had expressed, that the
towns were growing large at the expense of the country, but
entertained—what to us must seem the strangest of paradoxes—entertained
the conviction that the population of the whole country was wasting
away.
Happily, as we have already remarked, no one thinks of the theory of
depopulation, or over-population, or any other theory of political
economy, whilst reading _The Deserted Village_. We have all learned to
love “Sweet Auburn” long before any idea connected with so crabbed and
distressful a subject entered our minds. Indeed the village, with all
its accessories, is brought with such distinctness before us, that even
the decay of Auburn itself, is not the most prominent impression which
the poem produces. The deserted Auburn is made to live again so vividly
in the imagination, that the desolation in which it lies only occurs
occasionally to the mind, throwing a feeling of sadness and melancholy
over the picture. For ourselves, we can well remember that when we first
became acquainted with the village of Auburn, we always thought of
it—notwithstanding the use of the past tense—as somewhere still
existing. It existed, at all events, very palpably in the imagination.
The scene is English: it is, in the main, a description of an English
village; but because the poet has also drawn materials from the
recollections of his early home, some of his critics have been resolved
to place Auburn in Ireland, and to identify what is clearly an ideal
picture with the definite locality of Lissoy. On this ground they have
even proceeded to convict him of an error for introducing the
nightingale in one of his descriptions, there being no such bird in
Ireland.
This line, in which the nightingale is introduced, we should venture to
quarrel with on quite another ground. Here is the passage. No one will
object to read it again, though he has read it fifty or twice fifty
times.
“Sweet was the sound when oft, at evening’s close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften’d from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog’s voice, that bayed the whispering wind;
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
_These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill’d each pause the nightingale had made_.”
Have not our readers already felt how much better the description would
have been if the last couplet had been omitted? This nightingale takes
us by surprise. We thought we were listening to the sounds of the
distant village, and find that we have been attending to the song of the
nightingale, and that these had only filled up the pauses of her song.
What had been the chief and prominent subject is suddenly reduced to
this subordinate part. But, what is more to the purpose, the description
becomes unfaithful, and ceases to reflect a real experience, when this
nightingale is introduced. If that shy bird were heard singing while the
milkmaid and the schoolboy were still audible, there would be no
pleasing, but a very displeasing effect produced by the mingling of
sounds of so very different a nature. They would by no means harmonise.
We should listen with pleasure to the milkmaid and to the distant
schoolboy, (he must be very distant,) and we should listen with pleasure
to the nightingale, but with very little pleasure to all these at once.
Goldsmith was a genuine lover of nature; but nevertheless he had not
quite escaped that taste of the day which often led to the sacrifice of
the truthfulness of a picture to what was deemed the perfection of the
verse. He too can sometimes desert the _sense_ for the _sound_. And this
word _sound_ reminds us of rather an amusing instance where he
introduces some geographical names for no earthly reason except the
array of sonorous syllables they present. “Farewell,” he exclaims to
poetry,—
“Farewell, and oh! where’er thy voice be tried,
_On Torno’s cliffs, or Pambamarca’s side_.”
Had we been in Captain Chamier’s place at the club, and wished to puzzle
our friend Goldsmith, we should have asked him why he sent the muse to
Pambamarca? and where, indeed, Pambamarca lay? We suspect that Goldsmith
must have answered, that he knew nothing about it, except that it was a
great way off, and sounded very majestically.
There is one instance where the poet has introduced a reminiscence from
Ireland, which we do not recollect to have seen noticed. In the
inimitable description of the village schoolmaster, he says,—
“Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e’en the story ran—_that he could gauge_.”
Now the rustics of an English village were not at all likely to select
this accomplishment of gauging as one to bestow upon their prodigy of
learning. We were tempted to explain this choice in the poet by the
necessity of rhyme, which too often has manifestly determined him in the
selection of his epithets, till it occurred to us that his mind had been
travelling back to the _Irish_ village, where the illicit still may have
brought even to the ragged urchins of the place some rumours of the
science of the exciseman.
In the whole range of English heroic verse, there is nothing more
beautiful or more complete than the description of the village pastor,—
——“The man to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a-year.”
Indeed, of the entire poem, it may be deliberately said, that it has
more tenderness and pathos, gives more of picture to the eye, and of
feeling to the heart, than any other in the language which is written in
the same verse or metre. The polished couplets of Pope are nowhere else
seen united with so much of the genuine essence of poetry. How perfect,
in every way, are such lines as these,—
“But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he pray’d and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.”
One more remark, one other brief quotation, and we quit this most
fascinating poem, which nestles deeper in the English heart than perhaps
any other. What a bland, gentle, loving humour it is which occasionally
steals over the picture of _The Deserted Village_, giving here and there
charming touches, as of gay sunshine breaking out upon the several
points of a shaded landscape, yet never disturbing the sweet serenity
and sadness of the whole. Never did humour wear so gentle an aspect. We
go from the pastor’s house, and the pastor himself, to the village inn,
and there is no abruptness in the transition. What a quiet, observant,
tolerant humour it is that sees those—“broken tea-cups, _wisely kept for
show_.” What else could they serve for? And they may still do to be
looked at.
“Vain transitory splendours! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
Observe it sinks, nor shall it more impart
_An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart_.
Thither no more the peasant shall repair,
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer’s news, the barber’s tale,
No more the woodman’s ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
_Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear_.”
But why continue the quotation, when half our readers could complete it
from their own memory?
We proposed to ourselves a glance at _The Citizen of the World_ and _The
Vicar of Wakefield_. It can only be a glance.
Is this really the same—we are tempted to ask ourselves—is this really
the same _Citizen of the World_ that, on our first introduction to the
acquaintance of books, we read, amongst the _British Essayist_, with so
grave attention, and so implicit a faith? Yes, it is the same; for here
is the Man in Black, and here is the unmistakeable Beau Tibbs. Can we
possibly forget the invitation to dinner—on the first floor down the
chimney—something elegant, a turbot or an ortolan, which finally
resolves itself into “a nice little piece of ox-cheek, piping hot, which
Mrs Tibbs shall dress herself with that sauce the Duke dotes upon,”—and
which dinner, if his hungry guest will but wait, shall be “ready in at
least two hours.” Yes, here is Beau Tibbs as full of life as ever. But
the Chinese philosopher—he is gone;—there is left of _him_, or of China,
nothing but his name, and the suspicious name of his correspondent,
“Fum, the son of Fo.” Instead thereof, we have Oliver Goldsmith writing
his series of clever _Idlers_ and _Spectators_.
Pity this Chinaman ever made his appearance. All the humour and satire
of the piece might have been preserved, if some simple Englishman, some
Parson Adams or Dr Primrose, had been the writer of the letters; and we
should have been spared the constant incongruity of a Chinese who is not
only a palpable European, but a European of the literary class. So
completely versed is this Chinese philosopher in the feuds and vexations
of critics and authors, that we must suppose him commissioned by the
Grub Street of Pekin, to inquire into the condition of distressed poets
and discontented playwrights amongst the “outer barbarians.” We should
have been spared also those episodes, or adventures, which _his_ Eastern
correspondents detail to him, and which, indeed, are neither European
nor Eastern, but very tedious stories.
In vain does the Chinaman assume the prejudices of his country: he may
amuse us; but he cannot even get a momentary credit for the outlandish
taste he affects. He cannot disparage the beauty of Englishwomen,
without insinuating his praise of them. There is as much flattery as
abuse, when he says:—
“I shall never forget the beauties of my native city of Nanfew. How
very broad their faces! how very short their noses! how very little
their eyes! how very thin their lips! how very black their teeth. Here
a lady with such perfections would be frightful: Dutch and Chinese
beauties, indeed, have some resemblance, but Englishwomen are entirely
different; red cheeks, big eyes, and teeth of a most odious whiteness,
are not only seen here, but wished for; and then they have such
masculine feet, as actually serve some for walking.”
That which constitutes the greatest charm of the work is the subdued and
chastened satire one occasionally meets with. Not a rude and boisterous,
a cutting or malicious satire, but such as requires to be read with some
attention before the full force of its sly inuendos, and of slight
circumstances mentioned as if in passing, is fully perceived. Take the
following instance, and note how the effect is heightened by a number of
little details, thrown in as if by accident.
“A few days ago, passing by one of their prisons, I could not avoid
stopping in order to listen to a dialogue which I thought might afford
me some entertainment. The conversation was carried on between a
debtor through the grate of his prison, a porter who had stopped to
rest his burden, and a soldier at the window. The subject was upon a
threatened invasion from France, and each seemed extremely anxious to
rescue his country from the impending danger. ‘For my part,’ cries the
prisoner, ‘the greatest of my apprehension is for our freedom: if the
French should conquer, what would become of English liberty? My dear
friends, liberty is the Englishman’s prerogative; we must preserve
that at the expense of our lives: of that the French shall never
deprive us; it is not to be expected that men who are slaves
themselves, would preserve our freedom should they happen to conquer.’
‘Ay, slaves,’ cries the porter; ‘they are all slaves, fit only to
carry burdens, every one of them. Before I would stoop to slavery, may
this be my poison, (and he held the goblet in his hand,) may this be
my poison—but I would sooner list for a soldier.’
“The soldier, taking the goblet from his friend, with much awe
fervently cried out, ‘It is not so much our liberties as our religion
that would suffer by such a change: ay, our religion, my lads. May the
devil sink me into flames (such was the solemnity of his adjuration)
if the French should come over, but our religion would be utterly
undone.’ So saying, instead of a libation, he applied the goblet to
his lips, and confirmed his sentiments with a ceremony of the most
persevering devotion.”
There are some works so simple in their structure, and so highly
popular, that on both grounds they defy criticism. Their faults lie so
open and undisguised, that the critic who would pertinaciously insist
upon them, would get neither credit nor thanks for his pains. In this
category is _The Vicar of Wakefield_. To expose its improbabilities of
plot or character would be an easy and most ungracious task. We love the
good Vicar, and he shall be allowed to tell his tale to the end of time
just as he pleases. To be sure, this odd notion he entertains, that a
clergyman ought by all means to marry once, and by no means more than
once, is very like a monomania. He is so staunch a _monogamist_, as he
calls it, as to be resolved on convincing his old friend and
fellow-clergyman, Mr Wilmot, who has been married three times. But this,
and all the wonderful things which the Thornhills, nephew and uncle,
contrive to do, who cares to cavil at? The genuine feelings of human
nature are portrayed in the novel,—kind, homely, unpretending feelings
which all can sympathise with—and when the attention is once fixed by
this species of truth, a thousand improbabilities may pass without
challenge. It is always thus. The writer of fiction, whether it be fable
or romance, and whether he deal with man or monster, or spirit of the
air, has always found that if he can present a faithful reflexion of the
human heart, he may give almost any conceivable license to the
imagination.
What most struck us on a late perusal of _The Vicar of Wakefield_, was
the very low level, in point of refinement, on which all the female
characters are placed. The love and the courtship are of the rudest
sort, without the least trace of sentiment or the poetry of the passion.
Mrs Primrose, notwithstanding the excellence of her gooseberry wine, and
the liberality with which she dispenses it, is, we are sorry to say,
decidedly a vulgar personage. That her learning and accomplishments were
those which we should now assign to the housekeeper, rather than to the
wife of a wealthy vicar, (for such is Dr Primrose when we are first
introduced to him,) is no part of our objection; this the difference of
times and systems of education may sufficiently explain. Mrs Primrose is
vulgar _at the heart_. She lacks those feelings of refinement which
sometimes grow up spontaneously even in the peasant’s hut.
Recall to mind the manner in which she receives back her unfortunate
daughter Olivia. Let it be remembered that she had been practising her
petty blundering artifices, her most visible palpable manœuvres, to
catch the rich young squire. It was her plot, her scheme for elevating
the family; in which scheme her daughter was of course to co-operate.
Yet this is her speech upon the occasion. It is true human nature, but
it is human nature of a very vulgar description. “Ah, Madam,” cried her
mother, “this is but a poor place you are come to after so much finery.
My daughter Sophy and I can afford but little entertainment to persons
who have kept company only with people of distinction. Yes, Miss Livy,
your poor father and I have suffered very much of late; but I hope
Heaven will forgive you.”
This Olivia herself is not made interesting to us by any one trait in
her character. Her beauty, and the cruel treatment she meets with from
her coarse and brazen seducer, is all she has to depend upon for any
claim to our sympathy. Affliction has its worst effect upon her, the
effect it has on the selfish and unrefined. “Every tender epithet
bestowed on her sister brought a pang to her heart, and a tear to her
eye; and as one vice, when cured, ever plants others where it has been,
so her former guilt, though driven out by repentance, left jealousy and
envy behind.” It is just as well we do not get more intimate with the
female part of the family, for it is evident that in proportion as we
knew them better, we should like them less.
Had the life of Goldsmith brought him acquainted with no higher
specimens of the sex? Had his fair cousin Jane, the daughter of good
Uncle Contarine, with whom he used to practise music, and talk poetry,
left with him no more refined impression of female society than we see
reflected in _The Vicar of Wakefield_? Or, must we understand his
portraits as fair specimens of the women of his time? Or, shall we seek
a third explanation in the want of refinement in the literature of that
period? We suspect the last has much to do with it.
Here we must bring to a conclusion our necessarily detached and
desultory criticisms on the works of Goldsmith. As a _prose_ writer, it
would be in vain for any too partial biographer or critic to elevate him
to the rank of those who guide or confirm opinion, and teach us to
reason and to judge. But how many a familiar truth has he clothed in
clear and graceful diction! How often, too, the isolated observation,
thrown out as if by happy chance, stimulates the mind to reflection!
What a master he is of _form_—of the pleasing art which moulds the
style! But his two principal _poems_ are the works which raise him to
the rank of _the immortals_. We can easily understand that many ardent
admirers of our contemporaneous poetry—replete as it is with the
philosophic speculations of the age, its subtle and ambitious
thinking—may be disposed to look down with an air of condescension, and
a sort of gentle disdain, upon the poetry of Goldsmith. But time passes
on, and brings new modes of philosophising; the subtleties of one age do
not always charm the next; and it may happen that much which is now held
in highest repute, as the most _poetical_ of poetry, shall have grown
dim and obsolete, whilst mothers shall be still teaching to their
children, and old men still repeating to themselves, the descriptions of
_The Traveller_ and of _The Deserted Village_.
TO BURNS’S “HIGHLAND MARY.”
I.
O loved by him whom Scotland loves,
Long loved, and honoured duly
By all who love the bard who sang
So sweetly and so truly!
In cultured dales his song prevails,
Thrills o’er the eagle’s aëry,—
Ah! who that strain has caught, nor sighed
For Burns’s “Highland Mary?”
II.
I wandered on from hill to hill,
I feared nor wind nor weather;
For Burns beside me trode the moor,
Beside me pressed the heather.
I read his verse—his life—alas!
O’er that dark shades extended:—
With thee at last, and him in thee,
My thoughts their wanderings ended.
III.
His golden hours of youth were thine—
Those hours whose flight is fleetest;
Of all his songs to thee he gave
The freshest and the sweetest.
Ere ripe the fruit, one branch he brake,
All rich with bloom and blossom;
And shook its dews, its incense shook,
Above thy brow and bosom.
IV.
And when his Spring, alas, how soon!
Had been by care subverted,
His Summer, like a god repulsed,
Had from his gates departed;
Beneath the evening star, once more,
Star of his morn and even!
To thee his suppliant hands he spread,
And hailed his love “in heaven.”
V.
And if his spirit in “a waste
Of shame” too oft was squandered,
And if too oft his feet ill-starred
In ways erroneous wandered;
Yet still his spirit’s spirit bathed
In purity eternal;
And all fair things through thee retained
For him their aspect vernal.
VI.
Nor less that tenderness remained
Thy favouring love implanted;
Compunctious pity, yearnings vague
For love to earth not granted;
Reserve with freedom, female grace
Well matched with manly vigour,
In songs where fancy twined her wreaths
Round judgment’s stalwart rigour.
VII.
A mute but strong appeal was made
To him by feeblest creatures;
In his large heart had each a part
That part had found in Nature’s.
The wildered sheep, sagacious dog,
Old horse reduced and crazy,
The field-mouse by the plough upturned,
And violated daisy.
VIII.
In him there burned that passionate glow,
All Nature’s soul and savour,
Which gives its hue to every flower,
To every fruit its flavour.
Nor less the kindred power he felt,
That love of all things human,
Whereof the fiery centre is
The love man bears to woman.
IX.
He sang the dignity of man,
Sang woman’s grace and goodness;
Passed by the world’s half-truths, her lies
Pierced through with lance-like shrewdness.
Upon life’s broad highways he stood,
And aped nor Greek nor Roman;
But snatched from heaven Promethean fire
To glorify things common.
X.
He sang of youth, he sang of age,
Their joys, their griefs, their labours;
Felt with, not for, the people; hailed
All Scotland’s sons his neighbours:
And therefore all repeat his verse—
Hot youth, or graybeard steady,
The boat-man on Loch Etive’s wave,
The shepherd on Ben Ledi.
XI.
He sang from love of song; his name
Dunedin’s cliff resounded:—
He left her, faithful to a fame
On truth and nature founded.
He sought true fame, not loud acclaim;
Himself and Time he trusted:
For laurels crackling in the flame
His fine ear never lusted.
XII.
He loved, and reason had to love.
The illustrious land that bore him:
Where’er he went, like heaven’s broad tent
A star-bright Past hung o’er him.
Each isle had fenced a saint recluse,
Each tower a hero dying;
Down every mountain-gorge had rolled
The flood of foemen flying.
XIII.
From age to age that land had paid
No alien throne submission,
For feudal faith had been her Law,
And freedom her Tradition.
Where frowned the rocks had Freedom smiled,
Sung, mid the shrill wind’s whistle—
So England prized her garden Rose,
But Scotland loved her Thistle.
XIV.
The land thus pure from foreign foot,
Her growing powers thus centred
Around her heart, with other lands
The race historic entered.
Her struggling dawn, convulsed or bright,
Worked on through storms and troubles,
Whilst a heroic line of kings
Strove with heroic nobles.
XV.
Fair field alone the brave demand,
And Scotland ne’er had lost it:
And honest prove the hate and love
To objects meet adjusted.
Intelligible course was hers
By safety tried or danger:
The native was for native known—
The stranger known for stranger.
XVI.
Honour in her a sphere had found,
Nobility a station,
The patriots’ thought the task it sought,
And virtue—toleration.
Her will and way had ne’er been crossed
In fatal contradiction;
Nor loyalty to treason soured,
Nor faith abused with fiction.
XVII.
Can song be mute where hearts are sound?
Weak doubts—away we fling them!
The land that breeds great men, great deeds,
Should ne’er lack bards to sing them.
That vigour, sense, and mutual truth
Which baffled each invader,
Shall fill her marts, and feed her arts,
While peaceful olives shade her.
XVIII.
Honour to Scotland and to Burns!
In him she stands collected.
A thousand streams one river make—
Thus Genius, heaven-directed,
Conjoins all separate veins of power
In one great soul-creation;
And blends a million men to make
The Poet of the nation.
XIX.
Honour to Burns! and her who first
Let loose the abounding river
Of music from the Poet’s heart,
Borne through all lands for ever!
How much to her mankind has owed
Of song’s selectest treasures!
Unsweetened by her kiss, his lips
Had sung far other measures.
XX.
Be green for aye, green bank and brae
Around Montgomery’s Castle!
Blow there, ye earliest flowers! and there,
Ye sweetest song-birds, nestle!
For there was ta’en that last farewell
In hope, indulged how blindly;
And there was given that long last gaze
“That dwelt” on him “sae kindly.”
XXI.
No word of thine recorded stands;
Few words that hour were spoken:
Two Bibles there were interchanged,
And some slight love-gift broken.
And there thy cold faint hands he pressed,
Thy head by dewdrops misted;
And kisses, ill-resisted first,
At last were unresisted.
XXII.
Ah cease!—she died. He too is dead.
Of all her girlish graces
Perhaps one nameless lock remains:
The rest stern Time effaces—
Dust lost in dust. Not so: a bloom
Is hers that ne’er can wither;
And in that lay which lives for aye
The twain live on together.
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART IV.—CHAPTER X.
Next morning, I commenced my regular attendance at the office; all hands
employed in counting money.
“Well, Mr Y—,” said my commanding officer, “I fear you find the
gentleman with whom you lodge rather dull company.”
“Particularly lively, sir; never met with a more pleasant person.”
“Thought he was rather morose,” replied Mr Q—. “That’s the character he
bears amongst his acquaintance here.”
“Quite cheerful and obliging, sir; sings a good song. Yesterday he
invited a couple of friends to meet me at dinner. Does all he can to
make me comfortable, even to his own inconvenience. Last night, as we
were short of blankets, he forced me to take his greatcoat, which he
generally puts upon his own bed. Offered, as a favour, to sell it me, as
I am going up to the army. Only asks ten dollars.”
“Yes, yes; he’s always trying to bargain. That’s what has got him such a
bad name here. Constantly on the look-out to turn a penny. Well, do you
buy the pony?”
“Yes, sir,” said I; “we settled about that this morning at breakfast.
Shall have to trouble you for the needful, as he would like to be paid
in the course of the day.”
“In the course of the day? Oh, very well. The cashier may as well give
it you at once. Stop; I’ll write you an order. At the same time, I feel
it my duty to say this to you; mind and take a receipt. How much will
you draw?”
“I suppose, sir, the usual allowance granted by Government, eighty
dollars. That, he said, of course.”
“What! Eighty dollars for that beast of a pony? Why, Mr Y—, one would
think you had come out direct from England! Saddle and bridle in? Of
course.”
“No, sir; we are to settle about the saddle and bridle to-morrow. Said
he didn’t know what he _ought_ to ask for them.”
“Ought!—a rascal! He knows very well, when you’ve got the pony, you
_must_ have the saddle and bridle. Don’t know of a saddle that would
suit Sancho, in all Passages. Well, Mr Y—; I feel it my duty to say this
to you—it’s a regular take-in. Sixty dollars I should call a high
figure, saddle and bridle included. If you can sell at headquarters for
forty, you may think yourself well off.”
“Hadn’t I better go and pitch into him, sir?”
“Pitch into him? Nonsense. That won’t do here, Mr Y—. Besides, a
bargain’s a bargain, you know. If you have said eighty, it must be
eighty. Have you looked out for a fresh billet?”
“Didn’t know there was any occasion, sir.”
“You don’t expect to pass another night in your present quarters, after
you have paid for Sancho? If you complete the purchase this morning,
depend upon it, you’ll have to get other accommodation before bed-time.”
“I’m rather at a loss how to proceed, sir.”
“Why, let me see. I must consider. Go and tell him—yes—go and tell him,
for that money you ought to have saddle and bridle in. Tell him so, from
me. We must try and be a match for this gentleman. Don’t think it right
that your uncle’s nephew, the moment he joins, should be pigeoned at
this rate. Stop—tell him, at the same time, you can’t purchase till the
day you’re off. Under all the circumstances of the case, I feel it my
duty to say this to you; till then, I shall keep the eighty dollars in
the military chest. While you’re here, he may as well have the bother of
keeping Sancho as you. And, besides, while the bargain’s open—don’t you
see?—you won’t be disturbed in your quarters. If you lose them, the
place is so crowded, ten to one I shall be forced to accommodate you
_myself_.”
Charged with what promised to prove an awkward negotiation, I walked off
to find my friend. Nothing of the kind. He took it all with the greatest
good-humour; consented with alacrity to throw in the saddle and bridle;
and as to the money, why, if it wasn’t forthcoming at once, he could
wait till it was.
Three hands of us, counting dollars till dinner-time, did a good stroke
of work:—only that plaguy “small mixed” was a serious addition to our
labours. Fancy a bag of small silver, a thousand dollars in amount, shot
out before you on the table; a heap of mingled coin, specimens of every
fraction of a dollar, that ever issued in silver from the Spanish mint;
the whole lot to be sorted, counted, and made right. A single bag took
us often two or three hours. As to counting a bag of whole dollars, that
was a far easier job. Count ten; set them on the table in a pile. Ten
such piles in a row make a hundred; ten such rows in a square make one
thousand:—the bag is counted. Unluckily, though, your last pile is
sometimes nine, or eleven, instead of ten. Ah, you’re a greenhorn;
you’ve counted wrong. Then down goes your nose to the edge of the table;
your eye glances over the summit of the piles. Discover, if you can, a
pile higher or lower than the rest: the error is then detected. Should
you fail, there’s no remedy: “Mr Snooks, you had better count the whole
again.” Still wrong? then some older hand is set to count. Can’t he get
it right? Why, then, the bag is wrong. Set it on one side and count
another. Fingers sore, about the third day. With the first day’s
counting they get a little black; on the second, rough, and painful;
third, cracked, and begin to bleed. About this time comes a thundering
letter, blowing up the whole department sky high, for not having the
money ready to pay the troops. What your fingers are, if the counting
goes on a day or two longer, especially with the encouraging
accompaniment of a rap on the knuckles, I leave you to guess. We had a
military guard; four Germans, one of them a corporal. The man on duty as
sentry walked up and down in the passage, while the other three sat over
a small fire in an adjoining room. They could sing in parts—sang well.
One of them struck up, the others followed, the sentry joined in as he
paced the lobby. Sometimes it was a national song, sometimes a hymn.
Nothing, in sacred music, like those German hymns. But then, take
notice, you must have German voices to do them justice. The men of our
guard were quiet, sober, well-conducted fellows; always willing to make
themselves useful; rendered us great assistance in helping the carpenter
to open and close the boxes, and in lifting the bags from the boxes to
the table, and _vice versâ_. Mr Q—, as an acknowledgment, made a
handsome addition to their supper.
Our dinner was strictly departmental, very much to my taste; quite a
sort of family party. No one was present save the gentlemen of our own
office at Passages. Mr Q—, I rather suspect, wanted to give me some idea
of my duties, in the responsible charge of conducting treasure to
headquarters through the enemy’s country. Perhaps he thought a little
chat amongst ourselves would be the best mode of instruction.
Towards the close of the evening, as we sat talking over departmental
matters, each with his tumbler before him—hot,—our conversation was
interrupted by a tap at the door. “Come in,” said Mr Q—.
The door opened; and in the doorway appeared one of our German guard.
With an earnest but somewhat vacant look, and his hand spread out upon
his breast, he stood erect, his appearance that of a man who wants
words, but is very anxious to speak. At length he began: “_Mine haarrt
ist folle._” Just at that moment the corporal appeared behind, seized
the orator by the shoulders, and cut short his harangue by spinning him
round into the passage, and closing the door. “Oh, I see how it is,”
said Mr Q—. “The extra allowance has got into his head. He wants to
return thanks for his supper; that’s all.”
Presently there was a scuffle outside. Again the door opened; and again
the same individual made his appearance, commencing as before, with
pathos and much gravity, “_Mine haarrt ist folle._” The corporal
interposed once more; but another scuffle ensued in the passage,
followed by a third visit, with similar results.
“Better get him to turn in,” said Mr Q—; but that was more English than
the corporal understood. Recollecting a few German words, I contrived to
make the command intelligible; and partly by force, partly by
persuasion, our grateful friend was stowed away for the night; still
exclaiming, from time to time, “_Mine haarrt ist folle_,” and making
strenuous efforts to break away from his comrades, come back, and finish
his oration. When all was quiet, I took my leave for the night. The
sound of my footsteps caught his ear, and set him off again. His voice
grew louder as my distance increased; and “_Mine haarrt ist folle_”
resounded in the street. Next morning he came up to me, looking very
sheepish and compunctious; and commenced a long discourse in German,
expressive of his profound regret. This at his request I interpreted, as
far as able, to his “Excellenz” the “Haupt.”
At length arrived the day, the important day, of my departure to join
the army. It was arranged that the treasure should be conveyed up the
harbour in boats to the bridge of Oyarzun, with a guard of soldiers. At
Oyarzun we were to sleep the first night; and there, also, we were to
meet the rest of our escort, and the mules intended to convey the money.
My friend and I had arranged it together, that he was to bring Sancho to
the office in the course of the morning, saddled and bridled. I was then
to pay the purchase-money, and the pony would be mine. My friend was
punctual to his time; Sancho stood at the door; and I applied to Mr Q—
for the eighty dollars.
“Oh yes, of course,” said he; “may as well give it you at once. Is the
pony at Oyarzun?”
“No, sir; he’s here, at the door.”
“Here at the door? Then how do you mean to get him to Oyarzun?” I had
never thought of that.
“Can’t he go with us, in one of the boats, sir?”
“Oh yes, certainly; yes, yes. If they were horse-boats, of course he
could. But as they are common ship-boats, borrowed for the occasion from
the transports in harbour, how will you get him in, and how will you get
him out? Not to mention that he might take to kicking; and kick out a
plank from the bottom of the boat, as you were pulling up the harbour.
In that case, the treasure would have a short voyage, and you too.”
“Hadn’t I better mention it to my friend, sir?”
“Why, yes; I think you had. Stop; let me see. Suppose you request him to
step in. I’ll speak to him myself.”
I invited my friend into the office. He entered smiling—rubbed his
hands—looked sleeky and resigned—evidently thought he was going to
realise.
“Well, sir,” said Mr Q—, addressing my friend, “this is an awkward
business about the pony. I don’t see how the purchase can be completed.”
“Completed, sir?” said my friend, rather taken aback, and losing his
temper. “I thought it _was_ completed, all but paying the money.”
“Very true, sir,” said Mr Q—; “but that, you know, makes all the
difference. The money is not paid; and, more than that, it’s not issued.
And, sir, under all the circumstances of the case, I feel it my duty to
say this to you; unless I see everything straight, I don’t intend to
issue it.”
“Well, sir,” said my friend, “I conceive everything _is_ straight, so
far as I am concerned. There stands the pony, at the door.”
“Yes, I know he does. But how is he to be got to the head of the
harbour?”
“Of course I supposed Mr Y— would ride him, sir.”
“No, no; that’s out of the question. The treasure goes by water; and of
course, being in charge, Mr Y— must go with it.”
“Well, sir,” replied my friend, “if that’s all, my servant shall take
the pony.”
“Oh, very well, sir,” said Mr Q—, “if you think you can trust your
servant to receive and bring back the purchase-money.”
“No occasion for that, sir; I can receive it here, sir, if you’ve no
objection.”
“None whatever, when I know that the pony is delivered at Oyarzun. Not
before delivery, of course.”
My friend was seized with a fit of musing;—looked rather at a loss. At
length he found his tongue.
“The long and the short of it is, I think, sir, I had better ride the
pony to Oyarzun myself, and make the delivery in person.”
“Very well, sir,” said Mr Q—. “I think so too. Then, on receiving the
pony at Oyarzun, Mr Y— will pay you the eighty dollars. Will you favour
us with your company? We are just going to lunch.”
“Thank you, sir; much obliged. Think I had better be off at once. Mr Y—
will not reach Oyarzun till late; and it’s out of the question my
returning to Passages after dark, especially on foot, and with a lot of
dollars.”
“Oh, certainly; and by such a horrid, cut-throat, out-of-the-way road,
too. You’d certainly be robbed and murdered; that is, if you get safe
there. Better secure a night’s lodging at Oyarzun, if there’s one to be
had, sir.”
“Yes, and come back to-morrow by daylight. Well, the sooner I’m off the
better. Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, sir.” My friend mounted Sancho at the door, and set off
forthwith to Oyarzun.
Mr Q—, laughing heartily, then handed me my route, made out in due form.
While I was making the necessary arrangements for my start in the
afternoon, Mr Q— summoned me into his private apartment. He had doffed
his blue frock with black velvet collar, and now appeared in full fig,
departmental coat, epaulet on his shoulder, staff-hat on the table. His
manner was serious, but friendly.
“You are probably aware, Mr Y—,” said he, “that the Allied army is not
likely to resume active operations for some days.”
“So I have understood, sir,” said I.
“I presume, however, you are not acquainted with the cause of this
temporary inactivity.”
“Can’t say I am, sir.”
“It is, I believe I may venture to inform you, principally the want of
money. That deficiency your arrival will supply. You will readily
perceive, then, how much depends on your conducting the treasure safely,
and delivering it by the time when it is looked for. Your route lies
through the enemy’s country; but the population is now comparatively
quiet; the date of your departure is known at headquarters, and, I have
no doubt, every requisite arrangement has been made to secure the safety
of your convoy. All such arrangements, however, proceed, and must
proceed, on one supposition—namely, that the officer in charge is, on
his part, competent to the task committed to him, obeys his orders, and
does his duty properly. You will readily perceive, then, that some
measure of responsibility rests upon your own shoulders.”
“Yes, sir; and, in the course of the last few days, I have been thinking
on that subject more than once.”
“All the better. Mr Y—, if you had ever discharged this duty before, I
should now merely wish you a pleasant journey, and send you off. But
this is your first expedition; it is one, to speak candidly, of greater
risk than any that has hitherto fallen to our department. The army is
considerably in advance in the French territory; you have before you six
or seven days’ march upon French ground; it will, of course, be
discovered that you carry money—there is no concealing that; a convoy
like yours will naturally excite the cupidity of partisans and
marauders; from St Jean de Luz to headquarters you will not find a
single officer of our department to give you the benefit of his
experience; and, under all the circumstances of the case, I feel it my
duty to say this to you—mind what you are about; on no account separate
from your convoy; let nothing induce you to deviate from the written
route; always reach the specified station at the specified time; keep
your escort sober, if you can; keep your muleteers in good-humour; keep
your mules well together on the line of march; and, if you are asked
questions, don’t be lavish of information. The French, Mr Y—, though an
inquisitive people, are not apt to interrogate official persons out of
mere curiosity. If, therefore, any individual should pester you with
inquiries, depend upon it he has a motive.”
“I suppose, sir,” said I, “in such a case, it will be as well to return
some sort of a general reply, just to avoid the appearance of mystery.”
“Exactly that,” said Mr Q—. “When a gentleman makes an inquiry, you are
bound, by etiquette, to give him a _reply_. Whether you give him an
_answer_ is optional, and a matter of discretion.
“By the bye,” added Mr Q—, after a pause, “I shouldn’t wonder if you
missed the pony, after all—no great harm if you do. To be sure, you must
march on foot, the first day or two; but you won’t mind that; and you
will have your eighty dollars. Put twenty to them, and I shouldn’t
wonder if you pick up a very tolerable mule, which will answer your
purpose far better. Then, if at headquarters you wish to come out well
mounted, and choose to buy a horse, a mule, you know, will always fetch
its value.”
“I hope, sir,” said I, “we shall have a good escort.”
“Oh, yes—the escort. That is one of the subjects I wish to mention.
Well, Mr Y—, you must do the best you can with them. Your escort
consists of twenty men; not, I am sorry to say, twenty men of any one
corps, but twenty men of twenty different regiments; men who have been
in hospital at Vittoria, sick or wounded—have recovered, and are now on
their return to headquarters—not exactly the guard I should have wished
to provide, but the best I could get for you. The worst is, I have seen
the officer who is to command them, and don’t like him at all. Hope you
will like him better than I do. Hope he won’t give you trouble, or prove
incompetent. Should he turn out not quite the person you wish, or should
your escort appear insufficient, say nothing till you reach St Jean de
Luz, up to which point I consider you as safe as if travelling in
England. Then wait upon old Colonel B—, the commandant; state your case
to him; and he, I have no doubt, will make the best arrangements in his
power, for the security of your subsequent progress. Come, Mr Y—, after
dinner, we’ll see you into the boat.”
“Perhaps, sir,” said I, “you will oblige me with a line to the
commandant, to be presented if the case requires.”
“No need of that,” said he, “I wrote to the Colonel yesterday, after
seeing the gentleman who goes with you.”
Before leaving the room, I very heartily thanked my commanding officer
for all his good advice, forethought, and kind attentions. We then shook
hands upon it, in the usual English style; and I held by the paw as
worthy a little man as ever trod shoe-leather, and as smart an officer
as ever drew rations.
The dinner was again departmental, and so was the talk. “It is the boast
of our department,” said Mr Q—, “that, since we have served in the
Peninsula under our present commander-in-chief, no treasure in our
keeping, not even a single mule’s load of specie, has ever been captured
by the enemy. Recollect that, Mr Y—, and keep up our character.”
“Didn’t we once lose a box of papers, sir?” said one of my
fellow-clerks.
“We did,” said Mr Q—; “but, two days after, it was recaptured, and all
the papers found right. That was on the retreat, subsequent to the
battle of Talavera. I see nothing of the boats,” he added, rising, and
walking to the balcony. “Hope they’ll be here in time.”
“Get him to tell about that campaign,” whispered the senior of my
fellow-clerks, winking to the junior. “Did you ever hear him tell it, Mr
Y—?”
“I think, sir, in the course of that campaign,” said the junior,
addressing Mr Q—, on his return to the table, “the whole department
together, chest and all, had a narrow escape from being captured.”
“Not exactly,” said Mr Q—, “because we obeyed orders. Had we not, we
should have had no escape at all: we must have been taken, every man of
us. The boats are not in sight, so I’ll just tell you how it was.
Gentlemen, try this Madeira. We halted one evening, after a weary march,
in a village. The rain was coming down in torrents. We unloaded the
treasure, and housed it, glad enough to get a little rest. Just at that
moment, Mr Y—, an order came to your uncle, to load again, and be ready
to move on at a moment’s warning, but not to stir till further notice.
Well, sir, we made ready again, with all expedition; the night closed
in; the rain fell, heavier than ever; and an anxious time we had of it.
Parties of stragglers, one after the other, came hurrying through the
village—one set assuring us the enemy were close at their heels, another
telling us we had better be off, another warning us, if we stayed there,
we should all be taken, and serve us right. I own I felt rather nervous;
but the Governor would not budge. He had got his directions, he said,
not to proceed without further orders; and there he should wait,
treasure and all, till the orders came. Presently, in a mighty bustle,
up rode a general officer. Begged to know, in a tone of authority, why
we were waiting there. The Governor replied as before. ‘Well, but it was
perfectly absurd. The enemy were close at hand—on our flanks, right and
left.’ Couldn’t move the Governor. The general grew angry, swore, almost
threatened. ‘Will you move on, sir, or will you not?’ Then clapped spurs
to his horse, in a towering passion, and rode away with a wave of his
hand, as if saying, ‘I leave you to your fate.’ Well, gentlemen, we
waited, waited till midnight. No order came. Waited on till morning
dawned. Then, at length, came a staff-officer, with a message from his
lordship, directing us to proceed. We did so; and found the general
quite right in one thing—the French had been on our flanks. But not only
that; they had been in our front. During the night, they had occupied in
force the very road by which we were to pass. Had we started sooner, we
should have walked right into them.”
The boats now made their appearance, and were soon alongside the jetty.
A working party embarked the treasure, packed, as before, in boxes. I
then said farewell, and took my seat. With three boat-loads of treasure,
and a guard of a corporal and six soldiers, we pulled away for the
bridge of Oyarzun. There we found three individuals expecting our
arrival—Captain Rattler, who was appointed to command our escort, my
friend, and Sancho.
I completed the purchase of Sancho, by handing over to my friend the
eighty dollars, and receiving an acknowledgment of the same, which he
had brought in his pocket. Just at that moment, my attention was called
from my friend, by something in the boats. The next instant I turned, to
resume our conversation—he had vanished! By the dim ray of evening at
length I caught sight of him in the distance, walking down the road
towards the town. My friend! My jolly, good-humoured, hospitable friend!
My friend, who could sing a good song! My friend, who laughed
indiscriminately and immoderately at all my jokes! He had got his money.
It was all he wanted. He was off, without staying to say “Good night!”