started with him to go at least as far as Kuruman. This second Zambesi
expedition lasted nearly six years, and as Livingstone stood on the
shores of Lake Nyasa, he was able to feel that he stood where no white
man had ever stood before him. Three years later, Bishop Mackenzie and
six missionaries followed him here, but among the many sorrows which
fell upon him about this time, was the death of the "good bishop" from
fever, the death of his own wife, and the growing feeling that the
extreme unhealthiness of the district would make anything like
colonisation impossible. His third great journey, commenced in 1866,
was his last, and when more than three years passed by without any
tidings of him, owing to his long stay in the country of the cannibal
Manyema, the editor of the _New York Herald_ equipped an expedition to
go in search of him the man in charge of it being Henry Stanley, whose
orders were "to find Livingstone, living or dead." It was in 1871 that
the two men met face to face at Tanganyika, and the relieving party
found the object of their search almost alone, worn out, fever-stricken,
cut off from all news of his children, and as near to despair as was
possible to one of his strong faith and brave nature. But when Stanley,
after many attacks of fever, returned to Europe, he could not persuade
his companion to leave the country, which held him as a magnet. He was
determined to find the sources of the Nile, and the determination cost
him his life. The district through which he fought his way has been
described as "one vast sponge," and was poisonous to the last degree.
His strength failed, and though his faithful natives bore him along on a
litter with the utmost tenderness, his sufferings were terrible. He
died on the first of May 1873, alone save for his natives, "the greatest
and best man who ever explored Africa." Believing that to labour is to
pray, if the work be done for God's glory and not for self-advancement,
David Livingstone's life had been one long prayer, and throughout those
lonely dangerous journeyings the sense of God's Presence had been his
stay and comfort. Around the last hours of the brave man a veil is
drawn. But who can doubt that the love of God overshadowed him, and
made even that desolate, marsh-like place a road of light, along which
the worn-out traveller passed to Him, his one true goal?
His native servants behaved with beautiful devotion, and would not leave
him alone in death. His heart they buried where he died, but as best
they could they embalmed his body, and by slow stages made their way
towards the coast with their precious burden, which they were determined
somehow to get to England. At one time every one of them was stricken
down by the terrible fever, but on they went for many a month, through
swamp and desert and through hostile lands. Nothing could daunt them.
Their master must lie in his home, far away, over the seas. When at
last they reached Zanzibar and handed over the trust they had so loyally
guarded, they barely received a word of thanks. But one friend of
Livingstone's came forward just in time, and undertook to pay all
expenses for two of their number to go to England and be present at the
funeral. Susi and Chuma, two of the slaves the Doctor had freed, and his
most devoted attendants, were chosen to go with their master till the
end of his journey. It was almost a year after his death when the great
traveller was borne into the Abbey, and those two stood there among the
mourners, awe-struck but contented. Their task was accomplished; the
white man who had been their deliverer lay among his own people.
A very simple inscription, ending with the words, "Other sheep I have
which are not of this fold. Them also must I bring," marks the place in
the nave where, with a curious significance, Livingstone, an architect
of the Empire, lies close to other architects, Sir Charles Barry, Sir
Gilbert Scott, and John Pearson, whose works are to be seen in the
Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Westminster Hall.
We cannot leave these lovers of humanity without one glance at the
statue of the good Earl of Shaftesbury, the friend of little children
and of all those who were desolate and oppressed. Possessed of all that
could make life attractive to him, he devoted himself to his dying day
to the service of his fellows, and his name will go down to history as
the liberator of the white slaves in England. For, as Wilberforce
championed the negro, Shaftesbury fought long and steadily in the cause
of the women and children employed in factories and collieries, who
worked sometimes for thirty-six hours at a time under the most appalling
conditions. At last he forced Parliament to take action, and to pass
the Ten Hours' Bill, besides insisting that factory inspectors were
appointed to see that all workers were protected as the law intended
they should be. That was his greatest work, but to tell of all that he
did would fill a volume with a record of golden deeds. Ever ready to
lead an unpopular cause; an enthusiast without being a fanatic; strong,
clear-headed, steadfast, reliable, and single-hearted, he stands out a
noble figure in the social history of the nineteenth century. Just
before his death, in 1885, his friend, Dean Stanley, in writing to him,
spoke of Westminster Abbey as the place where he should rest. But the
old man shook his head and begged to be buried in his country home.
However, the Abbey could not altogether refrain from doing him honour,
and through streets lined with people, many of them the poorest in the
land, most of them wearing some outward sign of mourning, a bit of black
ribbon or a scrap of crape, followed by deputations from almost every
charitable association, the coffin was carried to Westminster. Around
it stood high and low, rich and poor. The wreaths sent by royal princes
lay Bide by side with the tributes from the flower-girls and the boys on
the training-ships. A mighty volume of sound ascended to the vaulted
roof, as the familiar hymn was sung--
"Let saints on earth in concert sing,
With those whose rest is won,
For all the servants of our King
In earth and heaven are one!"
Then the organ ceased, the Blessing was given, and the great procession
left the Abbey to the march of the coster-mongers' band, to the tramp of
thousands of feet, whose way in life he had made more easy and more
blessed.
In the north aisle of the nave rest three great men, builders in another
way, who have served the world by their thoughts--Newton, Herschel, and
Darwin.
Sir Isaac Newton made one of the most wonderful discoveries in the world
of science and nature, the law of gravitation, and also invented a
method by which the whole course of a comet could be calculated. On his
monument you will see a globe, covered with constellations and the path
of a comet, while below are groups of children weighing the sun and the
moon. The long Latin epitaph was one which greatly offended Dr.
Johnson, who said that "none but philosophers could understand it."
Sir John Herschel was the son of a distinguished father, and from his
boyhood he resolved to follow in his father's footsteps. "To put my
shoulders to the wheel, and to leave the world a little better than I
found it," was the ideal he set before himself whilst at Cambridge, and
in this spirit he carried on the work of making a careful study of the
stars in the southern hemisphere, which had never been done before.
Besides astronomy he was devoted to books, especially to poetry, and
translated many of Schiller's poems, as well as parts of the "Iliad,"
into English. "Give a man," he said, "once the taste for reading good
books, and you place him in contact with the best society in every
period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the
bravest, and the purest of characters who have adorned humanity. You
make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages."
His eyes were fixed on the stars; his heart was ever set on those things
that are above. These are the beautiful words in which he has described
the object and the end of all his study:--
"To spring even a little way aloft, to carol for awhile in bright and
sunny regions--to open the doors of the human mind to let in light and
knowledge, always sure that right will come right at last--to rise to
the level of our strength, and if we must sink again, to sink not
exhausted but exercised, not dulled in spirit, but cheered in
heart--such may be the contented and happy lot of him who can repose
with equal confidence on the bosom of the earth, or ride above the mists
of earth into the empyrean day."
He died loaded with honours in 1871, though no man sought fame or honour
less.
"Enough if cleansed at last from earthly stain,
My homeward step be firm, and pure my evening sky."
Thus had he written, and how could longing soar higher?
[Illustration: CHARLES DARWIN.]
Charles Darwin was perhaps the greatest man of the three, for after long
years of patient hard work, bravely carried on through bad health, he
produced as the result of his experiments a wonderful book called "The
Origin of Species," in which he explained how the world, instead of
being created all at once as it is to-day, has grown slowly and very
gradually, through many processes, just as we ourselves, our minds, and
all our powers have developed from a state of savagery into our present
state of civilisation. When first Darwin published his work explaining
all this, some people were frightened and horrified, and declared that
he wanted to upset all the old ideas about God and religion. But thus
they had said whenever a new discovery had been made, and yet with each
new discovery we have only learnt more and more how great God is, and
how--
"He moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."
So all such great discoverers as Newton, Herschel, and Darwin give us in
reality the same message, which is never to be afraid of truth, for
truth comes from God, and the only danger is when we doubt, even for a
moment, that it must come triumphant out of every honest discussion.
*CHAPTER XIX*
*PITT AND THE STATESMEN'S CORNER*
When William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was buried in the north transept at
Westminster Abbey in the year 1778, Parliament having decreed that "he
ought to be brought near to the dust of kings," and not lie in St.
Paul's Cathedral, earnestly though the City of London begged for this
favour, he drew to that part of the Abbey so many distinguished
ministers of the Crown, that it soon received the name of the
Statesmen's Corner, in distinction to the Poets' Corner which Chaucer
had created. Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger, Fox, Canning,
Palmerston, Castlereagh, Grattan, and Gladstone--these are the names
which most closely belong to the Statesmen's Corner, and through their
lives we can catch glimpses of English political life from the reign of
George II. down to our own day.
William Pitt entered Parliament in 1735, and joined the party calling
themselves the Patriots, rallying round the Prince of Wales, who was
always at enmity with the King and Queen. This party naturally included
any one opposed to Walpole, still the all-powerful minister at Court.
The Patriots were young men, talented and vigorous, and their first
signal victory was obtained when they forced Walpole into declaring war
against Spain, that country, they insisted, having systematically
hampered, injured, and insulted British traders, in spite of treaties
and negotiations. Walpole was before all else a peace minister; but the
Patriots, supported by the country, declared that war was necessary if
England was to uphold her position and power on the seas, and Pitt, full
of energy and eloquence, was one of the most powerful, though one of the
youngest, among the Patriots. This war, as Walpole had foreseen, was
but the prelude to a general disturbance; England became involved in
Continental quarrels, and the Stuart party seized this opportunity of
making a final, though unsuccessful attempt to place Prince Charles
Edward on the throne. After nine years a treaty of peace was signed at
Aix-la-Chapelle, and broadly speaking, the result of the war, so far as
this country was concerned, was that we had been successful on the seas,
in Canada, and in India, unsuccessful on the Continent. Walpole had
resigned, Newcastle was a Prime Minister "who had neither judgment nor
ability," and Pitt became more and more the ruling power. The year 1757
saw him virtually Prime Minister, and with his whole might he set
himself to arouse a national spirit in England, to make the people see
that our real future lay not in the Continent, but in the Colonies. "I
can save this country, nobody else can," he said confidently at this
time, and it was no vain boast. The years which followed were glorious
years. In India, France had joined with a powerful native prince to
oust the British traders, and had been utterly defeated at Plassey by
the genius of Clive, who had but a handful of troops as against seventy
thousand. That victory made the British masters of the whole province
of Bengal, and laid the foundations of our Indian Empire. From
henceforward the French power in India rapidly declined. In America an
equal triumph crowned Pitt's policy. In Wolfe he had found a man able
to do in the West what Clive did in the East, and Canada became a
British Colony. Wolfe himself fell in the great struggle for Quebec, as
did Montcalm, his rival French general, and a monument stands in the
north ambulatory of the Abbey to the memory of the gallant young leader,
who died in the hour of his victory. "It is necessary to watch for a
victory every morning for fear of missing one," was the remark of
Walpole's son Horace. And the nation felt that it was Pitt whose policy
and whose power had made all these things possible. Parliament was
entirely in his hands, he swayed the Commons by his eloquence just as he
impressed them by his strength; the King supported him, and the people
adored him.
But in 1760 George II. died, and his second son George, who succeeded
him (Frederick Prince of Wales having died), did not care for a minister
so fearless and independent. Neither was Pitt without enemies. When he
saw that his opponents, supported by the King, were determined to make a
peace with France of which he could not approve, he resigned, after
making a powerful speech though he was very ill at the time. His words
concluded thus: "It is because I see in this treaty the seeds of a
future war that it meets with my most hearty disapprobation. The peace
is insecure, because it restores the enemy to his former greatness; the
peace is inadequate, because the places gained are no equivalent for the
places surrendered." Before a year was over, all that Pitt foretold had
come to pass, and England was again at war with Spain. Bute, who had
been virtually Prime Minister since Pitt gave up office, now resigned,
leaving in power Grenville, the leader in the House of Commons, and in a
very short time Grenville brought forward a measure concerning America,
which was so short-sighted and so opposed to the colonial spirit, that
it could only have a disastrous ending. Practically all North America
was in British hands, and it was divided into thirteen different States,
besides Canada. Those States had their own Colonial Assemblies, but the
supreme power rested with the British Parliament. In 1765 Grenville
brought in the Stamp Act, by which American colonists had to use legal
paper stamped in England for all their agreements, and this was carried
without the consent of the colonists, as they had no representatives in
Parliament, so that besides imposing a tax on them, Parliament had
really tampered with one of their most sacred rights as British
subjects. The Act was very badly received in America, and relations
became so strained that Pitt, to whom any matter affecting the Colonies
was very dear, came out of his retirement to protest against the Act,
and brought all his splendid fearless eloquence to bear on the subject.
"This kingdom has no right to tax the Colonies," he argued, and he went
on to declare--
"I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead
to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would
have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.... The Commons of
America have ever been in possession of their constitutional right of
giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they
had not enjoyed it.... A gentleman asks, 'When were the Colonies
emancipated?' I desire to know when were they made slaves? ... I stand
up for this kingdom. I maintain that our legislative power over the
Colonies is sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government
and legislation. But taxation is no part of the governing or
legislative power. Taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons
alone. When therefore in this House we give and grant, we give and
grant what is our own. But in an American tax what do we do? We, your
Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your
Majesty--what? Our own property? No; we give and grant to your Majesty
the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity
in terms. I beg leave to move that the Stamp Act be repealed
absolutely, totally, and immediately; that the reason for the repeal be
assigned because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same
time let the sovereign authority of this country over the Colonies be
asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, that we exercise every
power except that of taking their money out of their pockets without
their consent."
Pitt still held his sway over the House of Commons, and the Act was
repealed. A few months later he was again Prime Minister, but now no
longer as William Pitt, the great Commoner. He had accepted a title, to
the disappointment of many of his followers, who had revered him in the
past for his entire independence; and after he sat in the Lords as Earl
of Chatham, his influence never made itself felt in the same way.
Besides, his health continually broke down, bravely though he struggled
against it, and he was often laid aside for many months at a time.
During one of these periods, another irritating Act was passed, taxing
all the tea, glass, and paper imported into America, and as this
occurred just when the sore feelings over the Stamp Act had been
allayed, it was particularly unfortunate. The Colonists looked on it as
an act of revenge for their victory and determined to resist it, while
the King was unfortunately surrounded by a party, of which Lord North
was the chief, who urged him, whatever the cost might be, to force
America into submission. Lord North becoming Prime Minister was the
signal for an outbreak of public feeling in America; riots occurred, and
some tea-laden ships in Boston harbour were boarded, the tea being all
thrown into the water. Again Chatham raised his voice on the side of
consideration, of common sense, and of conciliation.
"My Lords," he said, after he had used one telling argument after
another to prove how useless and irritating had been the action of the
Government, driving these loyal sons of the old country into actions
which were the result of despair, and which in cooler moments they would
heartily regret, "I am an old man, and I plead for a gentle mode of
governing America, for the day is not far distant when America may vie
with these kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also.... If we take
a transient view of those motives which induced the ancestors of our
fellow-subjects in America to leave their native country to encounter
the innumerable difficulties of the unexplored regions of the western
world, our astonishment at the present conduct of their descendants will
naturally subside. There was no corner of the world into which men of
their free and enterprising spirit would not fly with alacrity rather
than submit to the slavish and tyrannical principles which prevailed at
that period in their native country. And shall we wonder, my Lords, if
the descendants of such illustrious characters spurn with contempt the
hand of unconstitutional power, that would snatch from them the
dearly-bought privilege they now contend for? My Lords, proceed like a
kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly loves.
Instead of these harsh and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on their
youthful errors; clasp them once more in fond, affectionate arms, and I
venture to affirm you will find them children worthy of their sire."
But his powerful pleading fell on deaf ears. All in vain did he urge
that though the Government might be revenged on America, no Government
could conquer it. In 1775 war, terrible as a civil war, broke out
between the old country and the new. The Congress raised an army, and
set at the head of it George Washington. "The man first in war, first
in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," solemnly declared that
from henceforth the United Colonies would be free and independent
States, and carried on the campaign with the utmost success, assisted by
France. Dismayed at last and astonished, Lord North and his ministers
began to talk of conciliation. But it was too late. Two British
forces, each of about four thousand men, had been forced to surrender to
the American troops. No longer was it possible for England to make
terms.
At home there was consternation, irresolution, and a sense of deep
resentment against the Government which had so blundered. Chatham was a
dying man, but he yet had something to say. Weakness, irresolution, or
fear were unknown words to him, even though now he admitted--
"I tremble for this country; I am almost led to despair that we shall
ever be able to extricate ourselves."
On the 7th of April 1778 he lifted up his voice for the last time, this
time against an ignominious surrender, which the discomfited Government,
terrified by the action of France, were all too ready to accept.
Conscious himself of his fast-ebbing strength, Chatham, the Imperialist
minister of the eighteenth century, summoned all his old fire and
eloquence to his aid, and spoke with intense feeling, rejoicing, he
said, "that the grave had not yet closed on him, pressed down as he was
by the hand of infirmity."
Panic-stricken, the Government were inclined to offer absolute
independence to all the Colonies. Chatham vigorously opposed the idea.
"His Majesty," he declared, "succeeded to an empire as great in extent
as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this
nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest
possessions? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived whole and
entire the Danish degradations, the Scottish invasion, the Norman
Conquest, that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada,
now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? Shall a people that
seventeen years ago was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to
tell its ancient and insatiate enemy, 'Take all we have: only give us
peace.' In God's name, if it be absolutely necessary to declare for
peace or war, and the former cannot be preserved with honour, why is not
the latter commenced without hesitation? My Lords, any state is better
than despair. Let us at least make an effort; and if we must fall, let
us fall like men!"
With this brave appeal Chatham sat down exhausted. A few moments later
he was carried fainting out of the House, which at once adjourned. And
within a month, he who has been described as "the first Englishman of
his time," had passed from the troubled arena of politics.
[Illustration: WILLIAM PITT FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.]
His monument in the Abbey shows him to us as he must often have looked
when, wearing his Parliamentary robes, he addressed the House in that
clear, sweet voice of his, which he could use with such wonderful
effect, and the sculptor has well caught the expression of his fearless
strength. Near him stand Prudence and Fortitude; below is Britannia,
Mistress of the Seas; and the inscription tells how, under his
administration, Great Britain was exalted to a height of prosperity and
glory, unknown in any former age.
His second son, William, was born in 1759, the year that was perhaps the
most successful in his father's life, and as he was too delicate to go
to school, the older man personally supervised the early education of
this his favourite child. When quite small, Chatham began to give him
lessons in public speaking, making him stand on a platform to recite
poetry or speeches, and later on teaching him to argue their points.
With such a teacher and such a ready pupil, it is not surprising to hear
of excellent progress made.
Little Willy Pitt, as he was called, soon showed in which direction his
inclinations lay. "I am glad I am not the eldest son," he remarked,
when he was seven, "as I want to speak in the House of Commons like
papa."