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Every one knows that men in masses, whether the same be called boards,
committees, aggregate, or repeal meetings, will be capable of atrocities
and iniquities, to which, as individuals, their natures would be firmly
repugnant. The irresponsibility of a number is felt by every member, and
Curran was not far wrong when he said, a “corporation was a thing that
had neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned.”
It is, indeed, a melancholy fact, that nations partake much more
frequently of the bad than the good features of the individuals
composing them, and it requires no small amount of virtue to flavour
the great caldron of a people, and make its incense rise gratefully to
heaven. For this reason, we are ever ready to accept with enthusiasm
anything like a national tribute to high principle and honour. Such
glorious bursts are a source of pride to human nature itself, and we
hail with acclamation these evidences of exalted feeling, which make
men “come nearer to the gods.” The greater the sacrifice to selfish
interests and prejudices, the more do we prize the effort. Think for a
moment what a sensation of surprise and admiration, wonderment, awe, and
approbation it would excite throughout Europe, if, by the next arrival
from Boston, came the news that “the Americans had determined to pay
their debts!” That at some great congress of the States, resolutions
were carried to the effect, “that roguery and cheating will occasionally
lower a people in the estimation of others, and that the indulgences
of such national practices may be, in the end, prejudicial to national
honour;” “that honesty, if not the best, may be good policy, even in
a go-a-head state of society;” “that smart men, however a source of
well-founded pride to a people, are now and then inconvenient from the
very excess of their smartness;” “that seeing these things, and
feeling all the unhappy results which mistrust and suspicion by foreign
countries must bring upon their com-merce, they have determined to pay
something in the pound, and go a-head once more.” I am sure that such an
announcement would be hailed with illuminations from Hamburg to Leghorn.
American citizens would be cheered wherever they were found; pumpkin
pie would figure at royal tables, and twist and cocktail be handed
round with the coffee; our exquisites would take to chewing and its
consequences; and our belles, banishing Rossini and Donizetti, would
make the air vocal with the sweet sounds of Yankee Doodle. One cannot at
a moment contemplate what excesses our enthusiasm might not carry us
to; and I should not wonder in the least if some great publisher of
respectable standing might not start a pirated reprint of the _New York
Herald_.
Let me now go back and explain, if my excitement will permit me, how I
have been led into such extravagant imaginings. I have already remarked,
that nations seldom gave evidence of noble bursts of feeling; still
more rarely, I regret to say, do they evince any sorrow for past
misconduct--any penitence for by-gone evil.
This would be, indeed, the severest ordeal of a people's greatness;
this, the brightest evidence of national purity. Happy am I to say such
an instance is before us; proud am I to be the man to direct public
attention to the feet. The following paragraph I copy verbatim from the
_Times_.
“On the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, a black
flag was hoisted by the Belgians at the top of the monument erected on
the field where the battle was fought.”
A black flag, the emblem of mourning, the device of sorrow and regret,
waves over the field of Waterloo! Not placed there by vanquished France,
whose legions fought with all their chivalry; not hoisted by the proud
Gaul, on the plain where, in defeat, he bit the dust; but in penitence
of heart, in deep sorrow and contrition, by the Belgians who ran--by the
people who fled--by the soldiers who broke their ranks and escaped in
terror.
What a noble self-abasement is this; how beautifully touching such an
instance of a people's sorrow, and how affecting to think, that while
in the halls of Apsley House the heroes were met together to commemorate
the glorious day when they so nobly sustained their country's honour,
another nation should be in sackcloth and ashes, in all the trappings
of woe, mourning over the era of their shame, and sorrowing over their
degradation. Oh, if a great people in all the majesty of their power,
in all their might of intellect, strength, and riches, be an object of
solemn awe and wonder, what shall we say of one whose virtues partake
of the humble features of every-day life, whose sacrifice is the tearful
offering of their own regrets? Mr. O'Connell may declaim, and pronounce
his eight millions the finest peasantry in the world--he may extol their
virtues from Cork to Carrickfergus--he may ring the changes over their
loyalty, their bravery, and their patriotism; but when eulogising the
men who assure him “they are ready to die for their country,” let him
blush to think of the people who can “cry” for theirs.