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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
* * * * *
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
Edinburgh
MAGAZINE.
VOL. LXV.
JANUARY--JUNE, 1849.
[Illustration: Buchanan]
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;
AND
37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
1849.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCXCIX. JANUARY, 1849. VOL. LXV.
CONTENTS.
THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS, 1
FRENCH CONQUERORS AND COLONISTS, 20
THE CAXTONS. PART IX., 33
THE WHITE NILE, 47
ART AND ARTISTS IN SPAIN, 63
THE DODO AND ITS KINDRED, 81
THE SWORD OF HONOUR: A TALE OF 1787, 98
MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE, 112
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE
NO. CCCXCIX. JANUARY, 1849. VOL. LXV.
THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS.
"No great state," says Hannibal, "can long remain quiet: if it
ceases to have enemies abroad, it will find them at home--as
powerful bodies resist all external attacks, but are wasted away
by their own internal strength."[1] What a commentary on the
words of the Carthaginian hero does the last year--THE YEAR OF
REVOLUTIONS,--afford! What enthusiasm has it witnessed, what
efforts engendered, what illusions dispelled, what misery produced!
How bitterly have nations, as well as individuals, within its
short bounds, learned wisdom by suffering--how many lessons has
experience taught--how much agony has wickedness brought in its
train. Among the foremost in all the periods of history, this
memorable year will ever stand forth, a subject of undying interest
to succeeding generations, a lasting beacon to mankind amidst the
folly or insanity of future times. To it the young and the ardent
will for ever turn, for the most singular scenes of social strife,
the most thrilling incidents of private suffering: to it the aged
will point as the most striking warning of the desperate effects of
general delusion, the most unanswerable demonstration of the moral
government of the world.
[1] "Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest si foris hostem non
habet, _domi invenit_--ut prævalida corpora ab extremis causis tuta
videntur, sed suis ipsa viribas onerantur. Tantum, nimirum, ex
publicis malis sentimus, quantum ad res privatas pertmet; nec in eis
quicquam aerius, quam pecuniæ damnun, stimulat."--LIVY, xxx. 44.
That God will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children was
proclaimed to the Israelites amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai,
and has been felt by every succeeding generation of men. But
it is not now upon the third or the fourth generation that the
punishment of transgression falls--it is felt in its full bitterness
by the transgressors themselves. The extension of knowledge, the
diffusion of education, the art of printing, the increased rapidity
of travelling, the long duration of peace in consequence of the
exhaustion of former wars, have so accelerated the march of events,
that what was slowly effected in former times, daring several
successive generations, by the gradual development of national
passions, is now at once brought to maturity by the fervent spirit
which is generally awakened, and the vehement passions which are
everywhere brought into action.
Everything now goes on at the gallop. There is a railway speed in
the stirring of the mind, not less than in the movement of the
bodies of men. The social and political passions have acquired
such intensity, and been so widely diffused, that their inevitable
results are almost immediately produced. The period of seed-time and
harvest has become as short in political as it is in agricultural
labour. A single year brings its appropriate fruits to maturity in
the moral as in the physical world. Eighty years elapsed in Rome
from the time when the political passions were first stirred by
Tiberius Gracchus, before its unruly citizens were finally subdued
by the art, or decimated by the cruelty of Octavius. England
underwent six years of civil war and suffering, before the ambition
and madness of the Long Parliament were expelled by the purge of
Pride, or crushed by the sword of Cromwell: twelve years elapsed
between the convocation of the States-general in 1789, and the
extinction of the license of the French Revolution by the arm of
Napoleon. But, on this occasion, in one year, all, in the meantime
at least, has been accomplished. Ere the leaves, which unfolded
in spring amidst the overthrow of thrones, and the transports of
revolutionists over the world, had fallen in autumn, the passions
which had convulsed mankind were crushed for the time, and the
triumphs of democracy were arrested. A terrible reaction had set in;
experience of suffering had done its work; and swift as the shades
of night before the rays of the ascending sun, had disappeared
the ferment of revolution before the aroused indignation of the
uncorrupted part of mankind. The same passions may again arise; the
same delusions again spread, as sin springs up afresh in successive
generations of men; but we know the result. They will, like the ways
of the unrighteous, be again crushed.
So rapid was the succession of revolutions, when the tempest
assailed the world last spring, that no human power seemed capable
of arresting it; and the thoughtful looked on in mournful and
impotent silence, as they would have done on the decay of nature
or the ruin of the world. The Pope began the career of innovation:
decrees of change issued from the Vatican; and men beheld with
amazement the prodigy of the Supreme Pontiff--the head of the
unchangeable Church--standing forth as the leader of political
reform. Naples quickly caught the flame: a Sicilian revolution
threatened to sever one-half of their dominions from the Neapolitan
Bourbon; and internal revolt seemed to render his authority merely
nominal in his own metropolis. Paris, the cradle in every age of
new ideas, and the centre of revolutionary action, next felt the
shock: a reform banquet was prepared as the signal for assembling
the democratic forces; the national guard, as usual, failed at the
decisive moment: the King of the Barricades quailed before the
power which had created him; the Orleans dynasty was overthrown,
and France delivered over to the dreams of the Socialists and the
ferocity of the Red Republicans. Prussia soon shared the madness:
the population of Berlin, all trained to arms, according to the
custom of that country, rose against the government; the king had
not energy enough to permit his faithful troops to act with the
vigour requisite to uphold the throne against such assailants, and
the monarchy of Frederick the Great was overthrown. Austria, even,
could not withstand the contagion: neither its proud nobility, nor
its light-hearted sensual people, nor its colossal army, nor its
centuries of glory, could maintain the throne in its moment of
peril. The Emperor was weak, the citizens of Vienna were infatuated;
and an insurrection, headed by the boys at the university and the
haberdashers' apprentices in the streets, overturned the imperial
government, and drove the Emperor to seek refuge in the Tyrol. All
Germany caught the flame: the dreams of a few hot-headed enthusiasts
and professors seemed to prevail alike over the dictates of wisdom
and the lessons of experience; and, amidst the transports of
millions the chimera or German unity seemed about to be realised by
the sacrifice of all its means of independence. The balance of power
in Europe appeared irrevocably destroyed by the breaking up of its
central and most important powers,--and England, in the midst of the
general ruin, seemed rocking to its foundation. The Chartists were
in raptures, the Irish rebels in ecstasy: threatening meetings were
held in every town in Great Britain; armed clubs were organised in
the whole south and west of Ireland; revolution was openly talked of
in both islands, and the close of harvest announced as the time when
the British empire was to be broken up, and Anglian and Hibernian
republics established, in close alliance with the great parent
democracy in France. Amidst such extraordinary and unprecedented
convulsions, it was with difficulty that a few courageous or
far-seeing minds preserved their equilibrium; and even those who
were least disposed to despair of the fortunes of the species, could
see no end to the succession of disasters with which the world
was menaced but in a great exertion of the renovating powers of
nature, similar to that predicted, in a similar catastrophe, for the
material world, by the imagination of the poet.
"Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time!
Near and more near your beaming cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach.
Flowers of the sky! ye, too, to Fate must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field;
Star after star, from heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush;
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Dark, and Night, and Chaos, mingle all;
Till, o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same."[2]
[2] DARWIN, _Botanic Garden_.
But the destiny of man, not less than that of the material world,
is balanced action and reaction, not restoration from ruin. Order
is preserved in a way which the imagination of the poet could
not have conceived. Even in the brief space which has elapsed
since the convulsions began in Italy in January last, the reality
and ceaseless action of the preserving laws of nature have been
demonstrated. The balance is preserved in social life by contending
passions and interests, as in the physical world by opposite
forces, under circumstances when, to all human appearance, remedy
is impossible and hope extinguished. The orbit of nations is traced
out by the Wisdom of Providence not less clearly than that of the
planets; there are centripetal and centrifugal forces in the moral
as well as in the material world. As much as the vehement passions,
the selfish desires, the inexperienced zeal, the expanding energy,
the rapacious indigence, the mingled virtues and vices of man, lead
at stated periods to the explosions of revolution,--do the desire
of tranquillity, the interests of property, the horror at cruelty,
the lessons of experience, the force of religion, the bitterness of
suffering, reinduce the desire of order, and restore the influence
of its organ, government. If we contemplate the awful force of the
expansive powers which, issuing from the great mass of central heat,
find vent in the fiery channels of the volcano, and have so often
rent asunder the solid crust of the earth, we may well tremble to
think that we stand suspended, as it were, over such an abyss,
and that at no great distance beneath our feet the elements of
universal conflagration are to be found.[3] But, strong as are the
expansive powers of nature, the coercive are still stronger. The
ocean exists to bridle with its weight the fiery gulf; the arch of
the earth has been solidly constructed by its Divine architect; and
the only traces we now discover, in most parts of this globe, of
the yet raging war of the elements, are the twisted strata, which
mark, as it were, the former writhings of matter in the terrible
grasp of its tormentors, or the splintered pinnacles of mountains,
which add beauty to the landscape, or the smiling plains, which
bring happiness to the abodes of man. It is the same in the moral
world. Action and reaction are the law of mind as well as matter,
and the equilibrium of social life is preserved by the opposite
tendency of the interests which are brought into collision, and
the counter-acting force of the passions which are successively
awakened by the very convulsions which seem to menace society with
dissolution.
[3] "Thirty-five miles below the surface of the earth, the central
heat is everywhere so great, that granite itself is held in
fusion."--HUMBOLDT, _Cosmos_, i. 273.
A year has not elapsed since the revolutionary earthquake began to
heave in Italy, since the volcano burst forth in Paris; and how
marvellous is the change which already has taken place in the state
of Europe! The star of Austria, at first defeated, and apparently
about to be extinguished in Italy, is again in the ascendant.
Refluent from the Mincio to the Ticino, her armies have again
entered Milan,--the revolutionary usurpation of Charles Emanuel has
been checked almost as soon as it commenced; and the revolutionary
rabble of Lombardy and Tuscany has fled, as it was wont, before
the bayonets of Germany. Radetzky has extinguished revolution in
northern Italy. If it still lingers in the south of the peninsula,
it is only because the strange and tortuous policy of France and
England has interfered to arrest the victorious arms of Naples
on the Sicilian shores. Paris has been the theatre of a dreadful
struggle, blood has flowed in torrents in its streets, slaughter
unheard-of stained its pavements, but order has in the end prevailed
over anarchy. A dynasty has been subverted, but the Red Republicans
have been defeated, more generals have perished in a conflict of
three days than at Waterloo; but the Faubourg St Antoine has been
subdued, the socialists have been overthrown, the state of siege
has been proclaimed; and, amidst universal suffering, anguish, and
woe, with three hundred thousand persons out of employment in Paris,
and a deficit of £20,000,000 in the income of the year, the dreams
of equality have disappeared in the reality of military despotism.
It is immaterial whether the head of the government is called a
president, a dictator, or an emperor--whether the civic crown is
worn by a Napoleon or a Cavaignac--in either case the ascendant of
the army is established, and France, after a brief struggle for a
constitutional monarchy, has terminated, like ancient Rome, in an
elective military despotism.
Frankfort has been disgraced by frightful atrocities. The chief seat
of German unity and freedom has been stained by cruelties which
find a parallel only in the inhuman usages of the American savages;
but the terrible lesson has not been read in vain. It produced a
reaction over the world; it opened the eyes of men to the real
tendency and abominable iniquity of the votaries of revolution in
Germany; and to the sufferings of the martyrs of revolutionary
tortures on the banks of the Maine, the subsequent overthrow of
anarchy in Vienna and Berlin is in a great degree to be ascribed.
They roused the vacillating cabinets of Austria and Prussia--they
sharpened the swords of Windischgratz and Jellachich--they nerved
the souls and strengthened the arms of Brandenberg and Wrangel--they
awakened anew the chord of honour and loyalty in the Fatherland.
The national airs have been again heard in Berlin; Vienna has been
regained after a desperate conflict; the state of siege has been
proclaimed in both capitals; and order re-established in both
monarchies, amidst an amount of private suffering and general
misery--the necessary result of revolutions--which absolutely
sickens the heart to contemplate. England has emerged comparatively
unscathed from the strife; her time-honoured institutions have
been preserved, her monarchy saved amidst the crash of nations.
Queen Victoria is still upon the throne; our mixed constitution
is intact; the dreams of the Chartists have been dispelled; the
rebellion of the Irish rendered ridiculous; the loyalty of the
great body of the people in Great Britain made manifest. The period
of immediate danger is over; for the attack of the populace is
like the spring of a wild beast--if the first onset fails, the
savage animal slinks away into its den. General suffering indeed
prevails, industry languishes, credit is all but destroyed, a woful
deficiency of exports has taken place--but that is the inevitable
result of popular commotions; and we are suffering, in part at
least, under the effects of the insanity of nations less free and
more inexperienced than ourselves. Though last, not least in the
political lessons of this marvellous year, the papal government
has been subverted--a second Rienzi has appeared in Rome; and the
Supreme Pontiff, _who began the movement_, now a fugitive from his
dominions, has exhibited a memorable warning to future ages, of the
peril of commencing reforms in high places, and the impossibility
of reconciling the Roman Catholic religion with political
innovation.
But let it not be imagined that, because the immediate danger is
over, and because military power has, after a fierce struggle,
prevailed in the principal capitals of Europe, that therefore the
ultimate peril is past, and that men have only to sit down, under
the shadow of their fig-tree, to cultivate the arts and enjoy the
blessings of peace. Such is not the destiny of man in any, least of
all in a revolutionary age. We are rather on the verge of an era
similar to that deplored by the poet:--
"Bella per Emathios plusquam civilia campos,
Jusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem
In sua victrici conversum viscera dextrâ;
Cognatasque acies; et rupto f[oe]dera regni
Certatum totis concussi viribus orbis,
In commune nefas."[4]
[4] LUCAN, i. 1-6.
Who can tell the immeasurable extent of misery and wretchedness,
of destruction of property among the rich, and ruin of industry
among the poor, that must take place before the fierce passions,
now so generally awakened, are allayed--before the visions of a
virtuous republic by Lamartine, or the dreams of communism by
Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin, or the insane ideas of the Frankfort
enthusiasts have ceased to move mankind? The fire they have let
loose will burn fiercely for centuries; it will alter the destiny
of nations for ages; it will neither be quenched, like ordinary
flames, by water, nor subdued, like the Greek fire, by vinegar:
blood alone will extinguish its fury. The coming convulsions may
well be prefigured from the past, as they have been recently drawn
by the hand of a master:--"All around us, the world is convulsed
by the agonies of great nations; governments which lately seemed
likely to stand during ages, have been on a sudden shaken and
overthrown. The proudest capitals of western Europe have streamed
with civil blood. All evil passions--the thirst of gain and the
thirst of vengeance--the antipathy of class to class, of race to
race--have broken loose from the control of divine and human laws.
Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces, and depressed the hearts
of millions; trade has been suspended, and industry paralysed;
the rich have become poor, and the poor poorer. Doctrines hostile
to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all domestic
charity--doctrines which, if carried into effect, would in thirty
years undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind, and
would make the fairest provinces of France or Germany as savage
as Guiana or Patagonia--have been avowed from the tribune, and
defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation
by barbarians, compared with whom the barbarians who marched under
Attila or Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest friends of
the people have with deep sorrow owned, that interests more precious
than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might be
necessary to sacrifice even liberty to save civilisation."[5]
[5] MACAULAY's _History of England_, vol. ii. p. 669.
It is now just a year since Mr Cobden announced, to an admiring
and believing audience at Manchester, that the age of warfare
had ceased; that the contests of nations had passed, like the
age of the mastodon and the mammoth; that the steam-engine had
caused the arms to drop from her hands, and the interests of free
trade extinguished the rivalries of nations; and that nothing now
remained but to sell our ships of war, disband our troops, cut
twenty millions off our taxation, and set ourselves unanimously to
the great work of cheapening everything, and underselling foreign
competitors in the market of the world. Scarcely were the words
spoken, when conflicts more dire, battles more bloody, dissensions
more inextinguishable than had ever arisen from the rivalry of
kings, or the ambition of ministers, broke out in almost every
country of Europe. The social supplanted the national passions.
Within the bosom of society itself, the volcano had burst forth. It
was no longer general that was matched against general, as in the
wars of Marlborough, nor nation that rose up against nation, as in
those of Napoleon. The desire of robbery, the love of dominion, the
lust of conquest, the passion for plunder, were directed to domestic
acquisitions. Human iniquity reappeared in worse, because less
suspected and more delusive colours. Robbery assumed the guise of
philanthropy; spoliation was attempted, under colour of law; plunder
was systematically set about, by means of legislative enactments.
Revolution resumed its old policy--that of rousing the passions by
the language of virtue, and directing them to the purposes of vice.
The original devil was expelled; but straightway he returned with
seven other devils, and the last state of the man was worse than the
first. Society was armed against itself; the devastating passions
burned in its own bosom; class rose against class, race against
race, interest against interest. Capital fancied its interest was
to be promoted by grinding down labour; labour, that its rights
extended to the spoliation of capital. A more attractive object
than the reduction of a city, or the conquest of a province, was
presented to indigent cupidity. Easier conquests than over rival
industry were anticipated by moneyed selfishness. The spoliation of
the rich at their own door--the division of the property of which
they were jealous, became the dream of popular ambition; the beating
down of their own labourers by free-trade, the forcible reduction
of prices by a contraction of the currency--the great object of the
commercial aristocracy. War reassumed its pristine ferocity. In the
nineteenth century, the ruthless maxim--_Væ victis!_ became the
war-cry on both sides in the terrible civil war which burst forth in
an age of general philanthropy. It may be conceived what passions
must have been awakened, what terrors inspired, what indignation
aroused by such projects. But though we have seen the commencement
of the _era of social conflicts_, is there any man now alive who is
likely to see its end?
Experience has now completely demonstrated the wisdom of the Allied
powers, who placed the lawful monarchs of France on the throne in
1815, and the enormous error of the liberal party in France, which
conspired with the republicans to overthrow the Bourbon dynasty in
1830. That fatal step has bequeathed a host of evils to Europe: it
has loosened the authority of government in all countries; it has
put the very existence of freedom in peril by the enormity of the
calamities which it has brought in its train. All parties in France
are now agreed that the period of the Restoration was the happiest,
and the least corrupted, that has been known since the first
Revolution. The republicans of the present day tell us, with a sigh,
that the average budgets of the three last years of Charles X. were
900,000,000 francs, (£36,000,000;) that the expenditure was raised
by Louis Philippe at once to 1500,000,000 francs, (£60,000,000;)
and that under the Republic it will exceed 1800,000,000 francs,
(£72,000,000.) There can be no doubt of the fact; and there can
be as little, that if the Red Republicans had succeeded in the
insurrection of June last, the annual expenditure would have
increased to £100,000,000--or rather, a universal spoliation of
property would have ensued. Louis Blanc has given the world, in
his powerful historical work, a graphic picture of the universal
corruption, selfishness, and immorality, in public and private
life, which pervaded France during the reign of Louis Philippe.[6]
Though drawn by the hand of a partisan, there can be no doubt that
the picture is too faithful in most of its details, and exhibits
an awful proof of the effects of a successful revolution. But the
misery which Louis Blanc has so ably depicted, the corruptions he
has brought to light, under the revolutionary monarchy, have been
multiplied fourfold by those which have prevailed during the last
year in the republic established by Louis Blanc, himself!
[6] LOUIS BLANC, _Histoire de Dix Ans de Louis Philippe_, iii. 321,
_et seq._
Paris, ever since the suppression of the great insurrection in
June last, has been in such a state, that it is the most utter
mockery to call it freedom. In truth, it is nothing but the most
unmitigated military despotism. A huge statue of liberty is placed
in the National Assembly; but at every six paces bayonets are to be
seen, to remind the bystanders of the rule of the sword. "Liberté,
Egalité, Fraternité," meet the eye at every turn in the streets; but
the Champs Elysées, the Place de Grève, the Carrousel, and Place
Vendôme, are crowded with soldiers; and the Champ de Mars is white
with tents, to cover part of the 40,000 regular troops which form
the ordinary garrison of Paris. Universal freedom of discussion has
been proclaimed by the constitution; but dozens of journals have
been suppressed by the authority of the dictator; and imprisonment
notoriously hangs over the head of every one who indulges in the
freedom of discussion, which in England and America is universal.
The state of siege has been raised, after having continued four
months; but the military preparations for _another siege_ continue
with unabated vigour on both sides. The constitution has been
adopted by a great majority in the Assembly; but the forts are all
armed, and prepared to rain down the tempest of death on the devoted
city. Universal suffrage is established; but menacing crowds are in
the streets, threatening any one who votes against their favourite
candidates. The Faubourg St Antoine, during the late election, was
in a frightful state of agitation; infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
were traversing the streets in all directions; and conflicts not
less bloody than those of June last were anticipated in the struggle
for the presidency, and prevented only by the presence of _ninety
thousand soldiers_ in the capital: a force greater than that
which fought on either side at Austerlitz or Jena. It is evident
that republican institutions, in such a state of society, are a
mere name; and that supreme despotic power is really invested in
France, as in ancient Rome under the emperors, in the nominee of a
victorious body of soldiery. The Prætorian guards will dispose of
the French as they did of the Roman diadem; and ere long, gratuities
to the troops will perhaps be the passport to power in Paris, as
they were in the Eternal City.
Nor have the social evils, which in France have followed in the
wake of successful revolution, been less deplorable than the entire
destruction of the rights of freemen and security of property which
has ensued. To show that this statement is not overcharged, we
extract from a noted liberal journal of Paris, _La Reforme_, of
November 17, 1848, the following statement:--
"Property, manufactures, and commerce are utterly destroyed in
Paris. Of the population of that great city, the capital of
France, there are 300,000 individuals wanting the necessaries
of life. One half at least of those earned from 3f. to 5f. a
day previous to the revolution, and occupied a number of houses
in the faubourgs. The proprietors of those houses receiving no
rent, and having taxes and other charges to pay, are reduced
to nearly as deep distress as their tenants. In the centre of
Paris, the same distress exists under another form. The large
and sumptuous apartments of the fashionable quarters were
occupied before the revolution by wealthy proprietors, or by
persons holding lucrative employments in the public offices,
or by extensive manufacturers, but nearly all those have
disappeared, and the few who remain have insisted upon such a
reduction of rent that the proprietor does not receive one-half
of the amount to which he is entitled. Should a proprietor of
house property endeavour to raise a sum of money by a first
mortgage, to defray his most urgent expenses, he finds it
impossible to do so, even at a most exorbitant rate of interest.
Those who possess ready money refuse to part with it, either
through fear, or because they expect to purchase house property
when it must be sold at 50 per cent less than the value."--_La
Reforme_, November 17, 1848.
It is certainly a most remarkable thing, in the history of the
aberrations of the human mind, that a system of policy which has
produced, and is producing, such disastrous results--and, above
all, which is inflicting such deadly and irreparable wounds on
the interests of the poor, and the cause of freedom throughout
the world--should have been, during the last eighteen years, the
object of unceasing eulogy by the liberal party on both sides of the
Channel; and that the present disastrous state of affairs, both in
this country and on the Continent, is nothing more than the natural
and inevitable result of the principles that party has everywhere
laboured to establish. The revolution of 1830 was hailed with
enthusiasm in this country by the whole liberal party: the Irish are
not more enamoured now of the revolution of 1848, than the Whigs
were, eighteen years ago, of that of 1830. The liberal government
of England did all in their power to spread far and wide the
glorious example. Flanders was attacked--an English fleet and French
army besieged Antwerp; and, by a coalition of the two powers, a
revolutionary throne was established in Belgium, and the king of the
Netherlands prevented from re-establishing the kingdom guaranteed
to him by all the powers of Europe. The Quadruple Alliance was
formed to revolutionise Spain and Portugal; a sanguinary civil
war was nourished for long in both kingdoms; and at length, after
years of frightful warfare, the legitimate monarch, and legal order
of succession, were set aside in both countries; queens were put
on the thrones of both instead of kings, and England enjoyed the
satisfaction, for the diffusion of her revolutionary propagandism,
of destroying the securities provided for the liberties of Europe by
the treaty of Utrecht, and preparing a Spanish princess for the hand
of a Bourbon prince.
Not content with this memorable and politic step, and even after
the recent disasters of France were actually before their eyes, our
rulers were so enamoured of revolutions, that they could not refrain
from encouraging it in every _small_ state within their reach.
Lord Palmerston counseled the Pope, in a too celebrated letter, to
plunge into the career which has terminated so fatally for himself
and for Italy. Admiral Parker long prevented the Neapolitan force
from embarking for Sicily, to do there what Lord Hardinge was nearly
at the same time sent to do in Ireland. We beheld the Imperial
standards with complacency driven behind the Mincio; but no sooner
did Radetzky disperse the revolutionary army, and advance to Milan,
than British and French diplomacy interfered to arrest his march,
and save their revolutionary protégé, the King of Piedmont, from the
chastisement which his perfidious attack on Austria in the moment of
her distress merited. The Ministerial journals are never weary of
referring to the revolutions on the Continent as the cause of all
the distress which has prevailed in England, since they broke out
in last spring: they forget that it was England herself which first
unfurled the standard of revolution, and that, if we are suffering
under its effects, it is under the effects of our own measures and
policy.
Strange and unaccountable as this perverted and diseased state
of opinion, in a large part of the people of this country,
undoubtedly is, it is easily explained when the state of society,
and the channel into which political contests have run, are taken
into consideration. In truth, our present errors are the direct
consequence of our former wisdom; our present weakness, of our
former strength; our present misery, of our former prosperity.
In the feudal ages, and over the whole Asiatic world at the present
time, the contests of parties are carried on for _individuals_. No
change of national policy, or of the system of internal government,
is contemplated on either side. It is for one prince or another
prince, for one sultaun or another sultaun, that men draw their
swords. "Under which King, Bezonian?--speak or die!" is there
the watch-word of all civil conflict. It was the same in this
country during the feudal ages, and down to a very recent period.
No man in the civil wars between Stephen and Henry II., or of the
Plantagenet princes, or in the wars of the Roses, contemplated or
desired any change of government or policy in the conflict in which
they were engaged. The one party struck for the Red, the other for
the White Rose. Great civil and social interests were at issue in
the conflict; but the people cared little or nothing for these.
The contest between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians was a great
feud between two clans which divided the state; and the attachment
to their chiefs was the blind devotion of the Highlanders to the
Pretender.
The Reformation, which first brought the dearest objects of thought
and interest home to all classes, made a great change in this
respect, and substituted in large proportion general questions for
the adherence to particular men, or fidelity to particular families.
Still, however, the old and natural instinct of the human race to
attach themselves to men, not things, continued, in a great degree,
to influence the minds of the people, and as many buckled on their
armour for the man as the cause. The old Cavaliers, who periled
life and lands in defence of Charles I., were as much influenced
by attachment to the dignified monarch, who is immortalised in the
canvass of Vandyke, as by the feelings of hereditary loyalty; and
the iron bands which overthrew their ranks at Marston Moor, were as
devoted to Cromwell as the tenth legion to Cæsar, or the Old Guard
to Napoleon. In truth, such individual influences are so strongly
founded in human nature, that they will continue to the end of the
world, from whatever cause a contest may have arisen, as soon as
it has continued for a certain time, and will always stand forth
in prominent importance when a social has turned into a military
conflict, and the perils and animosities of war have endeared their
leaders to the soldiers on either side. The Vendeans soon became
devoted to Henri Larochjaquelein, the Republicans to Napoleon;
and in our own times, the great social conflict of the nineteenth
century has been determined by the fidelity of the Austrian
soldiers to Radetzky, of the French to Cavaignac, of the German to
Windischgratz.
But in the British empire, for a century past, it has been
thoroughly understood, by men of sense of all parties, that a change
of dynasty is out of the question, and that there is no reform worth
contending for in the state, which is not to be effected by the
means which the constitution itself has provided. This conviction,
long impressed upon the nation, and interwoven as it were with the
very framework of the British mind, having come to coincide with the
passions incident to party divisions in a free state, has in process
of time produced the strange and tortuous policy which, for above a
quarter of a century, has now been followed in this country by the
government, and lauded to the skies by the whole liberal party on
the Continent. Deprived of the watchwords of men, the parties have
come to assume those of things. Organic or social change have become
the war-cry of faction, instead of change of dynasty. The nation is
no longer drenched with blood by armies fighting for the Red or the
White Rose, by parties striving for the mastery between the Stuart
and Hanover families, but it was not less thoroughly divided by
the cry of "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,"
at one time, and that of "Free-trade and cheap corn" at another.
Social change, alterations of policy, have thus come to be the great
objects which divide the nation; and, as it is ever the policy of
Opposition to represent the conduct of Government as erroneous,
it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the main efforts of
the party opposed to administration always have been, since the
suppression of the Rebellion in 1745, to effect, when in opposition,
a change in general opinion, and, when in power, to carry that
change into effect by a change of policy. The old law of nature
is still in operation. Action and reaction rule mankind; and in
the efforts of parties mutually to supplant each other in power, a
foundation is laid for an entire change of policy at stated periods,
and an alteration, as great as from night to day, in the opinions
and policy of the ruling party in the same state at different times.
The old policy of England--that policy under which, in the words
of Macaulay, "The authority of law and the security of property
were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and
of individual action never known before; under which form, the
auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which
the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; under which
our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to
the place of umpire among European powers; under which her opulence
and martial glory grew together; under which, by wise and resolute
good faith, was gradually established a public credit, fruitful
of marvels which, to the statesmen of any former age, would have
appeared incredible; under which a gigantic commerce gave birth to
a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power,
ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; under which Scotland,
after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not mere by
legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection;
under which, in America, the British colonies rapidly became far
mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro
added to the dominions of Charles V.; under which, in Asia, British
adventurers founded an empire not less splendid, and more durable,
than that of Alexander,"[7]--was not the policy of any particular
party or section of the community, and thence its long duration and
unexampled success.
[7] MACAULAY's _History_, i. 1-2.
It was not introduced--it grew. Like the old constitution, of which
it was the emanation, it arose from the wants and necessities of
all classes of men during a long series of ages. It was first
proclaimed in energetic terms by the vigour of Cromwell; the cry of
the national representatives for markets to native industry, of the
merchants, for protection to their ships, produced the Navigation
Laws, and laid the foundation of the colonial empire of England.
Amidst all his _insouciance_ and folly in the drawing-room of the
Duchess of Portsmouth, and the boudoirs of the Duchess of Cleveland,
it was steadily pursued by Charles II. James II. did not lose sight
of this same system, amidst all his infatuation and cruelty; when
directing the campaign of Jeffreys in the west, he was as steadily
bent on upholding and extending the navy as when, amidst the
thunders of war, he combated de Ruyter and van Tromp on the coast
of Holland. William III., Anne, and the Georges, pursued the same
system. It directed the policy of Somers and Godolphin; it ruled the
diplomacy of Walpole and Chatham; it guided the measures of Bute
and North; it directed the genius of Pitt and Fox. It was for it
that Marlborough conquered, and Wolfe fell; that Blake combated, and
Hawke destroyed; that Nelson launched the thunderbolt of war, and
Wellington carried the British standard to Madrid and Paris.
It was the peculiar structure of the English constitution, during
this century and a half of prosperity and glory, that produced so
remarkable a uniformity in the objects of the national policy. These
objects were pursued alike by the Republicans and the Royalists; by
the Roundheads and the Cavaliers; by the Whigs, during the seventy
years of their rule that followed the Revolution, and the Tories,
during the sixty years that succeeded the accession of George III.
The policy was that of _protection to all the national interests,
whether landed, commercial, colonial, or manufacturing_. Under this
system they all grew and prospered, _alike and abreast_, in the
marvellous manner which the pencil of Macaulay has sketched in the
opening of his History. It was hard to say whether agriculture,
manufactures, colonies, or shipping throve and prospered most
during that unique period. The world had never seen anything like
it before: it is doubtful if it will ever see anything like it
again. Under its shelter, the various interests of the empire were
knit together in so close a manner, that they not only all grew
and prospered together, but it was universally felt that their
interests were entirely dependent on each other. The toast "The
plough, the loom, and the sail," was drunk with as much enthusiasm
in the farmers' club as in the merchant's saloon. As varied as the
interests with which they were charged, the policy of government was
yet perfectly steady in following out one principle--the protection
of the _productive classes_, whether by land or water, whether at
home or abroad.
The legislature represented and embodied all these interests, and
carried out this policy. It gave them a stability and consistency
which had never been seen in the world before. Nominally the
representatives of certain towns and counties in the British
islands, the House of Commons gradually became really the
representatives of the varied interests of the whole British empire.
The nomination boroughs afforded an inlet alike to native talent
and foreign interests. Gatton and Old Sarum, or similar close
boroughs, afforded an entrance to the legislature, not only to the
genius of Pitt and Fox, of Burke and Sheridan, but to the wealth
of Jamaica, the rising energy of Canada, the aged civilisation of
Hindostan. Experienced protection reconciled all interests to a
government under which all prospered; mutual dependence made all
sensible of the necessity of common unanimity. The statute-book
and national treaties, from the Revolution in 1688 to the close
of the war with Napoleon in 1815, exhibit the most decisive proof
of the working of these varied, but not conflicting interests, in
the national councils. If you contemplate the general protection
afforded to agriculture and the landed interest, you would imagine
the House of Commons had been entirely composed of squires. If you
examine the innumerable enactments, fiscal and prohibitory, for the
protection of manufactures, you would suppose it had been entirely
under the government of manufacturers. If you contemplate the steady
protection invariably given to the mercantile navy, you would
suppose it had been chiefly directed by shipowners. If you cast your
eyes on the protection constantly given by discriminating fiscal
duties to colonial industry, and the vast efforts made, both by sea
and land, in the field and in the cabinet, to encourage and extend
our colonial dependencies, you would conclude, not only that they
were represented, but that their representatives had a majority in
the legislature.
The reason of this prodigy was, that all interests had, in the
course of ages, and the silent effects of time, worked their
way into the legislature, and all enjoyed in fair proportion a
reasonable influence on government. Human wisdom could no more _ab
ante_ have framed such a system, than it could have framed the
British constitution. By accident, or rather the good providence
of God, it grew up from the wants of men during a series of
generations; and its effects appeared in this, that--except in the
cases of the American war, where unfortunate circumstances produced
a departure from the system; of the Irish Celts, whom it seems
impracticable to amalgamate with Saxon institutions; and of the
Scottish Highlanders, whom chivalrous honour for a short period
alienated from the established government--unanimity unprecedented
during the whole period pervaded the British empire. All foreign
colonies were desirous to be admitted into the great protecting
confederacy; the French and Dutch planters in secret prayed for
the defeat of their defenders when the standard of St George
approached their shores. The Hindoos, with heroic constancy, alike
in prosperous and adverse fortune, maintained their fidelity: Canada
stood firm during the most dangerous crisis of our history; and the
flame of loyalty burned as steadily on the banks of the St Lawrence,
on the mountains of Jamaica, and on the shores of the Ganges, as in
the crowded emporiums of London, or the smiling fields of Yorkshire.
But there is a limit imposed by nature to all earthly things.
The growth of empires is restrained, after they have reached a
certain stature, by laws as certain as those which arrest that of
individuals. If a state does not find the causes of its ruin in
foreign disaster, it will inevitably find it in internal opinion.
This arises so naturally and evidently from the constitution of the
human mind, that it may be regarded as a fixed law of nature in all
countries where intellectual activity has been called forth, and
as one of the most powerful agents in the government, by supreme
Wisdom, of human affairs. This principle is to be found in the
tendency of _original_ thought to differ from the current opinion
with which it is surrounded, and of party ambition to decry the
system of those by whom it is excluded from power.
Universally it will be found that the greatest exertions of human
intellect have been made in _direct opposition_ to the current of
general opinion; and that public thought in one age is in general
but the echo of solitary meditation in that which has preceded
it. Illustrations of this crowd on the reflecting mind from every
period of history. The instances of Luther standing forth alone to
shake down, Samson-like, the pillar of the corrupted Romish faith;
of Bacon's opening, amid all the despotism of the Aristotelian
philosophy, his inductive philosophy; of Galileo maintaining the
motion of the earth even when surrounded by the terrors of the
Italian Inquisition; of Copernicus asserting the true system of
the heavens in opposition to the belief of two thousand years;
of Malthus bringing forward the paradox of the danger of human
increase in opposition to the previous general opinion of mankind;
of Voltaire combating alone the giant power of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy; of Rousseau running a course against the whole ideas
of his age--will immediately occur to every reader. Many of these
great men adopted erroneous opinions, and, in consequence, did as
much evil to their own or the next age as others did good; but they
were all characterised by one mark. Their opinions were _original_,
and directly adverse to public opinion around them. The close of
the nineteenth century was no exception to the general principle.
Following out those doctrines of freedom from restraint of every
kind, which in France had arisen from the natural resistance of
men to the numerous fetters of the monarchy, and which had been
brought forward by Turgot and the Economists, in the boudoirs of
Madame Pompadour and the coteries of Paris,--Adam Smith broached the
principle of Free Trade, with the exceptions of grain and shipping.
The first he excepted, because it was essential to national
subsistence; the second, because it was the pillar of national
defence. The new philosophy was ardently embraced by the liberal
party, who, chagrined by long exclusion from office, were rejoiced
to find a tangible and plausible ground whereon to attack the whole
existing system of government. From them it gradually extended to
nearly all the ardent part of the community, ever eager to embrace
doctrines at variance with previous and vulgar belief, and not yet
enlightened by experience as to the effect of the new system. It was
soon discovered that for a century and a half we had been proceeding
on false principles. The whole policy of government since the days
of Cromwell had been erroneous; in politics, in social government,
in diplomacy, in the colonies, in war, in peace, at home and abroad,
we had been running blindfold to destruction. True, we had become
great, and glorious, and free under this abominable system; true, it
had been accompanied by a growth of national strength, and an amount
of national happiness, unparalleled in any former age or country;
but that was all by accident. Philosophy had marked it with the
sign of reprobation--prosperity had poured upon us by chance in the
midst of universal misgovernment. By all the rules of calculation
we should have been destroyed, though, strange to say, no symptoms
of destruction had yet appeared amongst us. According to every
principle of philosophy, the patient should long ago have been dead
of the mortal disease under which he laboured: the only provoking
thing was, that he was still walking about in robust and florid
health.
Circumstances occurred at the same time, early in this century,
which had the most powerful effect in exasperating the Opposition
party throughout the country, and inducing them to embrace,
universally and ardently, the new philosophy, which condemned in
such unmeasured terms the whole system of government pursued by
their antagonists. For half a century, since the long dominion of
the Whigs was terminated in 1761 by George III., the Tories had
been, with the exception of a few months, constantly in office.
Though their system of government in religion, in social affairs,
in foreign relations, was nothing but a continuation of that which
the Whigs had introduced, and according to which the government had
been conducted from 1688 to 1760, yet, in the ardour of their zeal
for the overthrow of their adversaries, the liberal party embraced
on every point the opposite side. The descendants of Lord Russel
became the advocates of Roman Catholic emancipation; the followers
of Marlborough and Godolphin, the partisans of submission to France;
the successors of Walpole and Chatham, the advocates of free trade
and colonial neglect. These feelings, embraced from the influence of
a determination to find fault with government in every particular,
were worked up to the highest pitch by the glorious result of the
war with France, and the apparently interminable lease of power
acquired by their adversaries from the overthrow of Napoleon. That
memorable event, so opposite to that which they had all so long
in public predicted, so entirely the reverse of that which many
had in secret wished, produced a profound impression on the Whig
party. Their feelings were only the more acute, that, amidst the
tumult of national exultation, they were forced to suppress them,
and to wear the countenance of satisfaction, when the bitterness of
disappointment was in their hearts. To the extreme asperity of these
feelings, and the universal twist which they gave to the minds of
the whole liberal party in Great Britain, the subsequent general
change in their political principles is to be ascribed; and, in the
practical application of these principles, the real cause of our
present distressed condition is to be found.
While one set of causes thus prepared, in the triumph of
Conservative and protective principles, the strongest possible
reaction against them, and prognosticated, at no distant period,
their general banishment from popular thought, another, and a
not less powerful set, flowing from the same cause, gave these
principles the means of acquiring a political supremacy, and ruling
the government of the state. The old policy of England, it has
been already observed, for a hundred and fifty years, had been to
take care of the producers, and let the consumers take care of
themselves. Such had been the effects of this protective policy,
that, before the close of the Revolutionary war, during which it
received its full development, the producing classes, both in town
and country, had become so rich and powerful, that it was easy
to see they would ere long give a preponderance to urban over
rural industry. The vast flood of agricultural riches poured for
expenditure into towns; that of the manufacturers and merchants
seldom left it. The great manufacturing and mercantile places,
during a century, had advanced in population tenfold, in wealth
thirty-fold. The result of this change was very curious, and in
the highest degree important. Under the _shadow of protection_ to
industry in all its branches, riches, both in town and country, had
increased so prodigiously, that the holders of it had _acquired
a preponderance over the classes in the state yet engaged in the
toilsome and hazardous work of production_. The owners of realised
capital had become so numerous and weighty, from the beneficial
effects of the protective system under which the country had so long
flourished, that they formed an important _class apart, which began
to look to its separate interests_. The consumers had become so
numerous and affluent, that they were enabled to bid defiance to the
producers. The maxim became prevalent, "Take care of the consumer,
and let the producer take care of himself." Thence the clamour for
free trade. Having passed the labour of production, during which
they, or their fathers, had strenuously supported the protective
principles, by which they were making their money, the next thing
was to support the opposite principles, by which the value of the
_made money might be augmented_. This was to be done by free trade
and a contracted currency. Having made millions by protection, the
object now was to add a half to every million by raising its value.
The way to do this seemed to be by cheapening the price of every
other article, and raising the price of money: in other words, the
system of cheapening everything without reference to its effect on
the interests of production.
Parliamentary reform, for which the Whigs, disappointed by long
exclusion from office, laboured strenuously, in conjunction with
the commercial and moneyed classes, enriched by protection, gave
them the means of carrying both objects into execution, because
it made two-thirds of the House of Commons the representatives of
burghs. The cry of cheap bread was seductive to all classes in
towns:--to the employer, because it opened the prospect of reducing
the price of labour, and to the operative, because it presents that
of lowering that of provisions. To these two objects, accordingly,
of raising the value of money and lowering the remuneration of
industry, the Reform parliament, the organ of the moneyed interest
and consuming classes, has, through all the changes of party, been
perfectly steady. It is no wonder it has been so, for it was the
first-born of those interests. Twenty years before the cry for
reform convulsed the nation--in 1810--the Bullion Committee brought
forward the principle of a metallic, and, consequently, a contracted
currency; and they recommended its adoption in the very crisis of
the war, when Wellington lay at Torres Vedras, and when the monetary
crisis to which it must have led would have made us a province of
France. Reform was the consequence of the change in the currency,
not its cause. The whole time from 1819 to 1831, with the exception
of 1824 and 1825, was one uninterrupted period of suffering. Such
was the misery it produced that the minds of men were prepared
for any change. A chaos of unanimity was produced by a chaos of
suffering.
Thus, by a singular and most interesting chain of causes and
effects, it was the triumph of Conservative and protective
principles in the latter years of the war, and the entire
demonstration thus afforded of their justice and expedience,
which was the immediate cause of their subsequent abandonment,
and all the misery which has thence arisen, and with which we
are still everywhere surrounded. For it at once turned all the
intellectual energies of the great liberal party to oppose, in
every particular, the system by which their opponents had been
glorified, and concentrated all the energies of the now powerful
moneyed classes to swell, by a change of policy, the fortunes on
which their consequence depended, and which had arisen from the
long prevalence of the opposite system. For such is the tendency to
action and reaction, in all vigorous and intellectual communities,
that truth itself is for long no security against their occurrence.
On the contrary, so vehement are the passions excited by a great
and lasting triumph of one party, even though in the right, that
the victory of truth, whether in politics or religion, is often
the immediate cause of the subsequent triumph of error. The great
Roman Catholic reaction against the Reformation, which Ranke has so
clearly elucidated, and Macaulay has so powerfully illustrated, has
its exact counterpart in the great political reaction of the Whig
party, of which Macaulay is himself the brightest ornament.
That this is the true explanation of the strange and tortuous
policy, both in domestic and foreign affairs, under which the
nation has so long suffered, is apparent on the slightest survey of
political affairs in the last and present century.
The old principle of the English constitution, which had worked
itself into existence, or grown up from the necessities of men,
during a long course of years, was, that the whole _interests_ of
the state should be represented, and that the House of Commons
was the assembly in which the representatives of all those varied
interests were to be found. For the admission of these varied
interests, a varied system of electoral qualifications, admitting
all interests, noble, mercantile, industrial, popular, landed, and
colonial, was indispensable. In the old House of Commons, all these
classes found a place for their representatives, and thence the
commercial protection it afforded to industry. According to the new
system, a vast majority of seats was to be allotted to _one class
only_, the householders and shopkeepers of towns. That class was the
moneyed and consuming class; and thence the whole subsequent course
of British policy, which has been to sacrifice everything to their
interests.
The old maxim of government, alike with Whigs and Tories, was, that
native industry of all sorts, and especially agricultural industry,
was to be protected, and that foreign competition was to be admitted
only in so far as was not inconsistent with this primary object.
The new philosophy taught, and the modern liberals carried into
execution, a different principle. They went on the maxim that the
interests of the consumers alone were to be considered: that to
cheapen everything was the great object; and that it mattered not
how severely the producers of articles suffered, provided those
who purchased them were enabled to do so at a reduced rate. This
policy, long lauded in abstract writings and reviews, was at length
carried into execution by Sir R. Peel, by the tariff of 1842 and
the free-trade measures of 1846.
To protect and extend our colonial dependencies was the great object
of British policy, alike with Whigs and Tories, from the time of
Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon. In them, it was thought our
manufacturers would find a lasting and rapidly increasing market for
their produce, which would, in the end, enable us equally to defy
the hostility, and withstand the rivalry of foreign states. The new
school held that this was an antiquated prejudice: that colonies
were a burden rather than a blessing to the mother country: that the
independence of America was the greatest blessing that ever befell
Great Britain; and that, provided we could buy colonial produce a
little cheaper, it signified nothing though our colonies perished by
the want of remuneration for their industry, or were led to revolt
from exasperation at the cruel and unnatural conduct of the mother
country.
The navy was regarded by all our statesmen, without exception, from
Cromwell to Pitt, as the main security of the British empire; its
bulwark in war; the bridge which united its far-distant provinces
during peace. To feed it with skilled seamen, the Navigation
Laws were upheld even by Adam Smith and the first free-traders,
as the wisest enactments which were to be found in the British
statute-book. But here, too, it was discovered that our ancestors
had been in error: the system under which had flourished for two
centuries the greatest naval power that ever existed, was found to
have been an entire mistake; and provided freights could be had ten
per cent cheaper, it was of no consequence though the fleets of
France and Russia blockaded the Thames and Mersey, and two-thirds of
our trade was carried on in foreign bottoms.
To provide a CURRENCY equal to the wants of the nation, and
capable of growth in proportion to the amount of their numbers
and transactions, was one main object of the old policy of Great
Britain. Thence the establishment of banks in such numbers in
every part of the empire during the eighteenth century, and the
introduction of the suspension of the obligation to pay in gold in
1797, when the necessities of war had drained nearly all that part
of the currency out of the country, and it was evident that, unless
a substitute for it in sufficient quantities was provided, the
nation itself, and all the individuals in it, would speedily become
bankrupt. The marvels of British finance from that time till 1815,
which excited the deserved astonishment of the whole world, had no
effect in convincing the impassioned opponents of Mr Pitt, that
this was the true system adapted for that or any similar crisis. On
the contrary, it left no doubt in their minds that it was entirely
wrong. The whole philosophers and liberal school of politicians
discovered that the very opposite was the right principle; that
gold, the most variable in price and evanescent, because the
most desired and portable of earthly things, was the only safe
foundation for a currency; that paper was worthless and perilous,
unless in so far as it could be instantly converted into that
incomparable metal; and that, consequently, the more the precious
metals were withdrawn from the country, by the necessities of war
or the effects of adverse exchanges, the more the paper circulation
should be contracted. If the last sovereign went out, they held
it clear the last note should be drawn in. The new system was
brought into practice by Sir R. Peel, by the acts of 1844 and 1845,
simultaneously with a vast importation of grain under the free-trade
system--and we know the consequence. We were speedily near our last
sovereign and last note also.
To establish a sinking fund, which should secure to the nation
during peace the means of discharging the debt contracted amidst
the necessities of war, was one of the greatest objects of the old
English policy, which was supported with equal earnestness by Mr
Pitt and Mr Fox, by Mr Addington and Lord Henry Petty. So steadily
was this admirable system adhered to through all the dangers
and necessities of the war, that we had a clear sinking fund of
£15,000,000 a-year, when the contest terminated in 1815, which, if
kept up at that amount, from the indirect taxes from which it was
levied during peace, would, beyond all question, as the loans had
ceased, have discharged the whole debt by the year 1845. But the
liberals soon discovered that this was the greatest of all errors:
it was all a delusion; the mathematical demonstration, on which it
was founded, was a fallacy; and the only wisdom was to repeal the
indirect taxes, from which the sinking fund was maintained, and
leave posterity to dispose of the debt as they best could, without
any fund for its discharge. This system was gradually carried into
effect by the successive repeal of the indirect taxes by different
administrations; until at length, after thirty-three years of peace,
we have, instead of the surplus of fifteen millions bequeathed to us
by the war, an average _deficit_ of fifteen hundred thousand pounds;
and the debt, after the longest peace recorded in British history,
has undergone scarcely any diminution.
Indirect taxation was the main basis of the British finance in
old times--equally when directed by the Whigs as the Tories.
Direct taxes were a last and painful resource, to be reserved for
a period during war, when it had become absolutely unavoidable.
So efficacious was this system proved to be by the event, when
acting on a nation enjoying protected industry, and an adequate and
irremovable currency, that, before the end of the war, £72,000,000
was, amidst universal prosperity, with ease raised from eighteen
millions of people in Great Britain and Ireland. This astonishing
result, unparalleled in the previous history of the world, had no
influence in convincing the modern liberals that the system which
produced it was right. On the contrary, it left no doubt in their
minds that it was entirely wrong. They introduced the opposite
system: in twenty-five years, they repealed £40,000,000 of indirect
taxes; and they reintroduced the income tax as a permanent burden
during peace. We see the result. The sinking fund has disappeared;
the income tax is fixed about our necks; a deficit of from a million
and a half to two millions annually incurred; and it is now more
difficult to extract fifty-two millions annually from twenty-nine
millions of souls, than, at the close of the war, it was to raise
seventy-two millions from eighteen millions of inhabitants.
To discourage revolution, both abroad and at home, and enable
industry, in peace and tranquillity, to reap the fruits of its
toil, was the grand object of the great contest which Pitt's wisdom
bequeathed to his successors, and Wellington's arm brought to a
glorious termination. This, however, was ere long discovered to be
the greatest error of all. England, it was found out, had a decided
interest in promoting the cause of revolution all over the world.
So enamoured did we soon become of the propagandist mania, that we
pursued it in direct opposition to our planned national interests,
and with the entire abrogation of our whole previous policy, for
which we had engaged in the greatest and most costly wars, alike
under Whig and Tory administrations. We supported revolutions in
the South American states, though thereby we reduced to a half of
its former amount the supply of the precious metals throughout the
globe; and, in consequence, increased immensely the embarrassment
which a contracted paper currency had brought upon the nation:
we supported revolution in Belgium, though thereby we brought
the tricolor standard down to Antwerp, and surrendered to French
influence the barrier fortresses won by the victories of Marlborough
and Wellington: we supported it during four years of carnage and
atrocity in Spain, though thereby we undid the work of our own
hands, in the treaty of Utrecht, surrendered the whole objects
gained by the War of the Succession, and placed the female line upon
the throne, as if to invite the French princes to come and carry off
the glittering prize: we supported revolutions in Sicily and Italy,
though thereby we gave such a blow to our export trade, that it sank
£1,400,000 in the single month of last May, and above £5,000,000 in
the course of the year 1848.
To abolish the slave trade was one of the objects which Whigs and
Tories had most at heart in the latter years of the old system;
and in that great and glorious contest Mr Pitt, Mr Fox, and Mr
Wilberforce stood side by side. But this object, so important
in its results, so interesting to humanity from its tendency to
alleviate human suffering, ere long yielded to the enlightened
views of modern liberals. It was discovered that it was much more
important to cheapen sugar _for a time_[8] than to rescue the
African race from perdition. Free trade in sugar was introduced,
although it was demonstrated, and, indeed, confessed, that the
effect of it would be to ruin all the free-labour colonies,
and throw the supply of the world into the hands of the slave
states. Provided, for a few years, you succeeded in reducing the
average retail price of sugar a penny a pound, it was deemed of
no consequence though we extinguished the growth of free-labour
sugar--destroyed colonies in which a hundred millions of British
capital were invested, and doubled the slave trade in extent, and
quadrupled it in horror, throughout the globe.
[8] Observe, _for a time_! We shall see anon what the price of
sugar will be when the English colonies are destroyed and the slave
plantations have the monopoly of the market in their hands.
It had been the constant policy of the British government, under all
administrations, for above a century and a half, to endeavour to
reclaim the Irish population by introducing among them colonies of
English who might teach them industry, and Protestant missionaries
who might reclaim them from barbarism. The Irish landlords and
boroughs were the outposts of civilisation among a race of savages;
the Irish Church the station of Christianity amidst the darkness
of Romish slavery. So effectual was this system, and so perfectly
adapted to the character of the Celtic race--capable of great
things when led by others, but utterly unfit for self-government,
and incapable of improvement when left to itself,--that even in
the ruthless hands of Cromwell, yet reeking with the slaughter of
stormed cities, it soon spread a degree of prosperity through the
country then unknown, and rarely if ever since equalled in that
ill-starred land.[9] But the experience of the utter futility of
all attempts, during a century and a half, to leave the native
Irish Celts to themselves or their own direction, had no effect
whatever in convincing our modern liberals that they were incapable
of self-direction, and would only be ruined by Saxon institutions.
On the contrary, it left no doubt in their minds that the absence
of self-government was the sole cause of the wretchedness of the
country, and that nothing was wanting but an entire participation in
the privileges of British subjects, to render them as industrious,
prosperous, and loyal as the yeomen of Kent or Surrey. In pursuance
of those principles, Catholic Emancipation was granted: the Whigs
had effected one revolution in 1688, by coalescing with the whole
Tories to exclude the Catholics from the government; they brought
about another revolution, in 1829, by coalescing with a section
of the Tories to bring them in. In furtherance of the new system,
so plausible in theory, so dangerous in practice, of extending to
all men, of all races, and in all stages of political advancement,
the same privileges, the liberals successively gave the Irish
the command of their boroughs, the abridgment of the Protestant
Church, and the abolition of tithes as a burden on the tenant.
They encouraged agitation, allowed treason to be openly spoken in
every part of the country, and winked at monster meetings, till
the community was wellnigh thrown into convulsions. Meanwhile,
agriculture was neglected--industry disappeared--capital was
scared away. The land was run out, and became unfit for anything
but lazy-beds of potatoes. The people became agitators, not
cultivators: they were always running about to meetings--not
frequenting fairs. The potato-blight fell on a country thus prepared
for ruin, and the unparalleled misery of 1847, and the rebellion of
1848, were the consequence.
[9] "Cromwell supplied the void made by his conquering sword,
by pouring in numerous colonies of the Anglo-Saxon blood and of
the Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that iron rule the
conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity.
Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where the
first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the
Red Men, _were in a few years transformed into the likeness of
Kent and Norfolk_. New buildings, roads, and plantations were
everywhere begun. The rent of estates rose fast: and some of the
English landowners began to complain that they were met in every
market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting
laws."--MACAULAY'S _History_, i., 130.
It would be easy to carry these illustrations farther, and to trace
the working of the principles we have mentioned through the whole
modern system of government in Great Britain. Enough has been
said to show that the system is neither founded on the principles
contended for by the old Whigs, nor on any appreciation of, or
attention to, the national interests, or the dictates of experience
in any respect. It has arisen entirely from a blind desire of
change, and an opposition to the old system of government, whether
of Whig or Tory origin, and a selfish thirst for aggrandisement on
the part of the moneyed and commercial classes, whom that system
had elevated to riches and power. Experience was not disregarded
by this school of politicians; on the contrary, it was sedulously
attended to, its lessons carefully marked. But it was considered
as a beacon to be avoided, not a light to be followed. Against its
conclusions the whole weight of declamation and shafts of irony
were directed. It had been the _cri de guerre_ of their enemies,
the standard of Mr Pitt's policy; therefore the opposite system
was to be inscribed on their banners. It was the ruling principle
of their political opponents; and, worst of all, it was the system
which, though it had raised the country to power and greatness, had
for twenty years excluded themselves from power. Thence the modern
system, under which the nation has suffered, and is suffering, such
incalculable misfortunes. It has been said, by an enlightened Whig
of the old school, that "this age appears to be one in which _every
conceivable folly_ must be believed and _reduced to practice_ before
it is abandoned." It is really so; and the reason is, it is an age
in which the former system of government, founded on experience and
brought about by necessity, has been supplanted by one based on a
systematic and invariable determination to change the old system in
every particular. The liberals, whether factious or moneyed, of the
new school, flattered themselves they were making great advances in
political science, when they were merely yielding to the same spirit
which made the Calvinists stand up when they prayed, because all
the world before them had knelt down, and sit still during psalms,
because the Roman Catholics had stood up.
But truth is great, and will prevail; experience is its test,
and is perpetually contradicting the theories of man. The year
1848 has been no exception to the maxims of Tacitus and Burke.
Dreadful indeed in suffering, appalling in form, are the lessons
which it has read to mankind! Ten months have not elapsed, since,
by a well-concerted urban tumult, seconded by the treachery of
the national guard, the throne of the Barricades was overturned
in France--and what do we already see on the continent of Europe?
Vienna petitioning for a _continuation_ of the state of siege, as
the only security against the tyranny of democracy: Berlin hailing
with rapture the dissolution of the Assembly, and reappearance
of the king in the capital: Milan restored to the sway of the
Austrians: France seeking, in the _quasi_ imperial crown of Prince
Louis Napoleon, with 90,000 soldiers in its capital, a refuge from
the insupportable evils of a democratic republic. The year 1848 has
added another to the numerous proofs which history affords, that
popular convulsions, from whatever cause arising, can terminate
only in the rule of the sword; but it has taught two other lessons
of incalculable importance to the present and future tranquillity
of mankind. These are, that soldiers who in civil convulsions
fraternise with the insurgents, and violate their oaths, are the
_worst enemies_ of the people, for they inevitably induce a military
despotism, which extinguishes all hopes of freedom. The other is,
that the institution of a national guard is in troubled times of all
others the most absurd; and that, to put arms into the hands of the
people, when warmed by revolutionary passions, is only to light the
torch of civil discord with your own hand, and hand over the country
to anarchy, ruin, and slavery.
Nor has the year been less fruitful of civil premonitions or lessons
of the last importance to the future tranquillity and prosperity of
Great Britain. Numerous popular delusions have been dispelled during
that period. The dreams of Irish independence have been broken;
English Chartism has been crushed. The revolutionists see that the
people of Great Britain are not disposed to yield their property
to the spoiler, their throats to the murderer, their homes to the
incendiary. Free trade and a fettered currency have brought forth
their natural fruits--national embarrassment, general suffering,
popular misery. One half of the wealth of our manufacturing towns
has been destroyed since the new system began. Two years of free
trade and a contracted currency have undone nearly all that twenty
years of protection and a sufficient currency had done. The great
mercantile class have suffered so dreadfully under the effect of
their own measures, that their power for good or for evil has
been essentially abridged. The colossus which, for a quarter of a
century, has bestrode the nation, has been shaken by the earthquake
which itself had prepared. Abroad and at home, in peace and in
war, delusion has brought forth suffering. The year of revolutions
has been the NINTH OF THERMIDOR, OF LIBERAL PRINCIPLES, for it has
brought them to the test of experience.
FRENCH CONQUERORS AND COLONISTS.
The extraordinary deficiency recently exhibited by a great
Continental nation in two qualities eminently prized by
Englishmen--in common consistency, namely, and in common sense--has
cast into the shade all previous shortcomings of the kind, making
them appear remote and trivial. A people of serfs, ruled for
centuries with an iron rod, pillaged for their masters' profit,
and lashed at the slightest murmur, were excusable if, on sudden
emancipation from such galling thraldom, their joyful gambols
exceeded the limits prescribed by public decorum, and by a due
regard to their own future prosperity. They might be forgiven
for dancing round maypoles, and dreaming of social perfection.
It would not be wonderful if they had difficulty in immediately
replacing their expelled tyrants by a capable and stable government,
and if their brief exhilaration were succeeded by a period of
disorganisation and weakness. Such allowances cannot be made for the
mad capers of republican France. The deliverance is inadequate to
account for the ensuing delirium. The grievances swept away by the
February revolution, and which patience, prudence, and moderation,
could not have failed ultimately to remove--as thoroughly, if less
rapidly--were not so terrible as to justify lunacy upon redress.
Nevertheless, since then, the absurdities committed by France, or
at least by Paris, are scarcely explicable save on the supposition
of temporary aberration of intellect. Unimaginative persons have
difficulty in realising the panorama of events, alternately
sanguinary and grotesque, lamentable and ludicrous, spread over the
last ten months. Europe--the portion of it, that is to say, which
has not been bitten by the same rabid and mischievous demon--has
looked on, in utter astonishment, at the painful spectacle of a
leader of its civilisation galloping, with Folly on its crupper,
after mad theories and empty names, and riding down, in the furious
chase, its own prosperity and respectability.
We repeat, then, that these great follies of to-day eclipse the
minor ones of yesterday. When we see France destroying, in a few
weeks, her commerce and her credit, and doing herself more harm
than as many years will repair, we overlook the fact, that for
upwards of fifteen years she has annually squandered from three
to five millions sterling upon an unproductive colony in North
Africa. France used not to be petty in her wars, or paltry in her
enterprises. If she was sometimes quarrelsome and aggressive,
she was wont at least to fasten on foes worthy of her power and
resources. Since 1830 she has derogated in this particular. A
complication of causes--the most prominent being the vanity
characteristic of the nation, the crooked policy of the sovereign,
and the morbid love of fighting bequeathed by the warlike period of
the Empire--has kept France engaged in a costly and discreditable
contest, whose most triumphant results could be but inglorious,
and in which she has decimated her best troops, and deteriorated
her ancient fame, whilst pursuing, with unworthy ferocity and
ruthlessness, a feeble and inoffensive foe. This is no partial or
malicious view of the character of the Algerine war. Deliberately,
and after due reflection, we repeat, that France has gravely
compromised in Africa her reputation as a chivalrous and clement
nation, and that she no longer can claim--as once she was wont to
do--to be as humane in victory as she is valiant in the fight. For
proof of this we need seek no further than in the speeches and
despatches of French generals, of men who themselves have served
and commanded in Africa. We will judge France by the voices of her
own sons, of those she has selected as worthiest to govern her
half-conquered colony, and to marshal her legions against a handful
of Arabs. More than one of these officers testify, voluntarily or
unwittingly, to the barbarity of the system pursued in Africa. What
said General Castellane, in his well-known speech in the Chamber
of Peers, on the 4th July 1845? "We have reduced the country by an
arsenal of axes and phosphorus matches. The trees were cut down,
the crops were burned, and soon the mastery was obtained of a
population reduced to famine and despair." And elsewhere in the same
speech: "Few soldiers perish by the hand of the enemy in this war--a
sort of _man-hunt_ on a large scale, in which the Arabs, ignorant
of European tactics, having no cannon-balls to exchange against
ours, do not fight with equal arms." Monsieur A. Desjobert, long a
deputy for the department of the Lower Seine, is the author of a
volume, and of several pamphlets, upon the Algerine question. In the
most recent of these we find the following remarkable note:--"In
February 1837, General Bugeaud said to the Arabs, 'You shall not
plough, you shall not sow, nor lead your cattle to the pasture,
without our permission.' Later, he gives the following definition
of a razzia: 'A sudden irruption, having for its object to surprise
the tribes, in order to kill the men, and to carry off the women,
children, and cattle.' In 1844, he completes this theory, by saying
to the Kabyles, 'I will penetrate into your mountains, I will burn
your villages and your crops, I will cut down your fruit-trees.'
(Proclamation of the 30th March.) In 1846, rendering an account of
his operations against Abd-el-Kader, he says to the authorities of
Algiers, 'The power of Abd-el-Kader consists in the resources of
the tribes; hence, to ruin his power, we must first ruin the Arabs;
therefore have we burned much, destroyed much.' (From the _Akhbar_
newspaper of February 1846.)" These are significant passages in the
mouth of a general-in-chief. Presently, when we come to details,
we shall show they were not thrown away upon his subordinates.
The extermination of the Arabs was always the real aim of Marshal
Bugeaud; he took little pains to cloak his system, and is too
great a blunderer to have succeeded, had he taken more. A man of
greater presumption than capacity, his audacity, obstinacy, and
unscrupulousness knew no bounds. Before this African _man-hunt_, as
M. Castellane calls it, he was unknown, except as the Duchess de
Berry's jailer, as the slayer of poor Dulong, and as a turbulent
debater, whose noisy declamation, and occasional offences against
the French language, were a standing joke with the newspapers. A
few years elapse, and we find him opposing his stubborn will to
that of Soult, then minister at war, and successfully thwarting
Napoleon's old lieutenant. This he was enabled to do mainly by the
position he had made himself in Africa. He had ridden into power and
importance on the shoulders of the persecuted Arabs, by a system of
razzias and village-burning, of wholesale slaughter and relentless
oppression. Brighter far were the laurels gathered by the lieutenant
of the Empire, than those plucked by Louis Philippe's marshal
amidst the ashes of Bedouin douars and the corpses of miserable
Mussulmans, slain in defence of their scanty birthright, of their
tents, their flocks, and the free range of the desert. Poor was
the defence they could make against their skilful and disciplined
invaders; slight the loss they could inflict in requital of the
heavy one they suffered. Again we are obliged to M. Desjobert for
statistics, gathered from reports to the Commission of Credits, and
from Marshal Bugeaud's own bulletins. From these we learn that the
loss in battle of the French armies, during the first ten years
of the occupation of Algeria, was an average of one hundred and
forty men per annum. In the four following years, eight hundred
and eighty-five men perished. The capture of Constantine cost one
hundred men, the much-vaunted affair of the Smala _nine_, the battle
of Isly TWENTY-SEVEN! We well remember, for we chanced to be in
Paris at the time, the stir produced in that excitable capital by
the battle of Isly. No one, unacquainted with the facts, would have
doubted that the victory was over a most valiant and formidable
foe. People's mouths were filled with this revival of the military
glories of Gaul. Newspapers and picture-shops, poets and painters,
combined to celebrate the exploit and sound the victors' praise.
One engraving _de circonstance_, we remember, represented a sturdy
French foot-soldier, trampling, like Gulliver, a host of Lilliputian
Moors, and carrying a score of them over his shoulder, spitted
on his bayonet. "Out of my way!" was the inscription beneath the
print--"_Les Français seront toujours les Français._" Horace
Vernet, colourist, by special appointment, to the African campaign,
pictorial chronicler of the heroic feats of the house militant of
Orleans, prepared his best brushes, and stretched his broadest
canvass, to immortalise the marshal and his men. After a few days,
two dingy tents and an enormous umbrella were exhibited in the
gardens of the Tuileries; these were trophies of the fight--the
private property of Mohammed-Abderrhaman, the vanquished prince of
Morocco, the real merit of whose conquerors was about as great as
that of an active tiger who gloriously scatters a numerous flock
of sheep. From one of several books relating to Algeria, now upon
our table, we will take a French officer's account of the affair of
Isly. The story of Escoffier, a trumpeter who generously resigned
his horse to his dismounted captain, himself falling into the hands
of the Arabs, whose prisoner he remained for about eighteen months,
is told by M. Alby, an officer of the African army. Although a
little vivid in the colouring, and comprising two or three very
tough "yarns,"--due, we apprehend, to the imagination of trumpeter
or author--its historical portion professes to be, and probably is,
correct; and, at any rate, there can be no reason for suspecting
the writer of depreciating his countrymen's achievements, and
understating their merits. The account of the battle, or rather of
the chase, for fighting there was none, is given by a deserter from
the Spahis, who, after the defeat of the Moors, joined Abd-el-Kader.
The Emir and his Arabs took no part in the affair.[10]
[10] _A Campaign in the Kabylie._ By DAWSON BORRER, F.R.G.S., &c.
London, 1848.
_La Kabylie._ Par un Colon. Paris, 1846.
_La Captivité du Trompette Escoffier._ Par ERNEST ALBY. 2 vols.
Brussels, 1848.
"I deserted, with several of my comrades, during the night-march
stolen by the French upon the Moors. We sought the emperor's son
in his camp, and informed him of the movement making by the French
column. The emperor's son had our horses taken away, and gave orders
not to lose sight of us. Then he said to us:--
"'Let them come, those dogs of Christians; they are but thirteen
thousand strong, and we a hundred and sixty thousand: we will
receive them well.'
"The day was well advanced before the Moors perceived the French.
Then the emperor's son ordered his horsemen to mount and advance.
The French marched in a square. They unmasked their artillery, and
the guns sent their deadly charge of grape into the ranks of the
Moors, who immediately took to flight, and the French had nothing to
do but to sabre them."
"The Moors," says M. Alby, "had fine horses and good sabres; but
their muskets were bad; and the men, softened by centuries of peace
and prosperity, smoking keef[11] and eating copiously, might be
expected to run, as they did, at the first cannon-shot."
[11] The Moors smoke the leaves of hemp instead of tobacco. This
_keef_, as it is called, easily intoxicates, and renders the
head giddy. Abd-el-Kader forbade the use of it, and if one of
his soldiers was caught smoking keef, he received the bastinado.
_Captivité d'Escoffier_, vol. i. p. 221.
It is hard to understand how the loss of the French should have
amounted to even the twenty-seven men at which it is stated in their
general's bulletin. Did M. Bugeaud, unwilling to admit the facility
of his triumph, slay the score and seven with his goosequill? But
if the victory was easily won, on the other hand, it was largely
rewarded. For having driven before him, by the very first volley
from his guns, a horde of overfed barbarians, enervated by sloth
and narcotics, and total strangers to the tactics of civilised
warfare, the marshal was created a duke! Shade of Napoleon! whether
proudly lingering within the trophy-clad walls of the Invalides,
or passing in spectral review the dead of Austerlitz and Borodino,
suspend your lonely walk, curb your shadowy charger, and contemplate
this pitiable spectacle! You, too, gave dukedoms, and lavished even
crowns, but you gave them for services worth the naming. Ney and the
Moskwa, Massena and Essling, Lannes and Montebello, are words that
bear the coupling, and grace a coronet. The names of the places,
although all three recall brilliant victories, are far less glorious
in their associations than the names of the men. But Bugeaud and
Isly! What can we say of them? Truly, thus much--they, too, are
worthy of each other.
When reviewing, about two years ago, Captain Kennedy's narrative of
travel and adventure in Algeria, we regretted he did not speak out
about the mode of carrying on the war, and about the prospects of
Algerine colonisation; and we hinted a suspicion that the amenities
of French military hospitality, largely extended to a British
fellow-soldier, had induced him, if not exactly to cloak, at least
to shun laying bare, the errors and mishaps of his entertainers.
We cannot make the same complaint of the very pretty book, rich in
vignettes and cream-colour, entitled, _A Campaign in the Kabylie_.
Mr Borrer, whom the Cockneys, contemptuous of terminations, will
assuredly confound with his great gipsy cotemporary, George Borrow
of the Bible, has, like Captain Kennedy, dipped his spoon in French
messes. He has ridden with their regiments, and sat at their board,
and been quartered with their officers, and received kindness and
good treatment on all hands; and therefore any thing that could
be construed into malicious comment would come with an ill grace
from his pen. But it were exaggerated delicacy to abstain from
stating facts, and these he gives in all their nakedness; generally,
however, allowing them to speak for themselves, and adding little
in the way of remark or opinion. In pursuance of this system, he
relates the most horrible instances of outrage and cruelty with a
matter-of-fact coolness, and an absence alike of blame and sympathy,
that may give an unfavourable notion of his heart, to those who do
not accept our lenient interpretation of his cold-blooded style. The
traits he sets down, and which are no more than will be found in
many French narratives, despatches, and bulletins, show how well the
Franco-African army carry out the merciful maxims of Bugeaud.
Mr Borrer, a geographer and antiquary, passed seventeen months in
Algeria; and during his residence there, in May 1846, a column of
eight thousand French troops, commanded by the Duke of Isly in
person, marched against the Kabyles, "that mysterious, bare-headed,
leathern-aproned race, whose chief accomplishment was said to
be that of being 'crack-shots,' their chief art that of neatly
roasting their prisoners alive, and their chief virtue that of
loving their homes." It may interest the reader to hear a rather
more explicit account of this singular people, who dwell in the
mountains that traverse Algeria from Tunis to Morocco--an irregular
domain, whose limits it is difficult exactly to define in words.
The Kabyles are, in fact, the highlanders of North Africa, and they
hold themselves aloof from the Arabs and Europeans that surround
them. Concerning them, we find some diversity in the statements
of Mr Borrer, and of an anonymous Colonist, twelve years resident
at Bougie, whose pamphlet is before us. Of the two, the Frenchman
gives them the best character, but both agree as to their industry
and intelligence, their frugality and skill in agriculture. They
are not nomadic like the Arabs, but live in villages, till the
land, and tend flocks. Dwelling in the mountains, they have few
horses, and fight chiefly on foot. Divided into many tribes, they
are constantly quarreling and fighting amongst themselves, but
they forget their feuds and quickly unite to repel a foreign foe.
"Predisposed by his character," says the Colonist, "to draw near
to civilisation, the Kabyle attaches himself sincerely to the
civilised man when circumstances establish a friendly connexion
between them. He is still inclined to certain vices inherent in
the savage: but of all the Africans, he is the best disposed to
live in friendship and harmony with us, which he will do when
he shall find himself in permanent contact with the European
population." This is not the general opinion, and it differs widely
from that expressed by Mr Borrer. But the Colonist had his own
views, perhaps his own interests, to further. He wrote some months
previous to the expedition which Mr Borrer accompanied, and which
was then not likely to take place, and he strongly advocated its
propriety--admitting, however, that public opinion in France was
greatly opposed to a military incursion into Kabylia. Himself
established at Bougie, of course in some description of commerce,
the necessity of roads connecting the coast and the interior was to
him quite evident. A good many of his countrymen, whose personal
benefit was not so likely to be promoted by causeway-cutting in
Algeria, strongly deprecated any sort of road-making that was likely
to bring on war with the Kabyles. France began to think she was
paying too dear for her whistle. She looked back to the early days
of the Orleans dynasty, when Marshal Clausel promised to found a
rich and powerful colony with only 10,000 men. She glanced at the
pages of the _Moniteur_ of 1837, and there she found words uttered
by the great Bugeaud in the Chamber of Deputies. "Forty-five
thousand men and one good campaign," said the white-headed
warrior, as the Arabs call him, "and in six months the country
is pacified, and you may reduce the army to twenty thousand men,
to be paid by imposts levied on the colony, consequently costing
France nothing." Words, and nothing more--mere wind; the greatest
_bosh_ that ever was uttered, even by Bugeaud, who is proverbial
for dealing largely in that flatulent commodity. Nine years passed
away, and the Commission of the Budget "deplored a situation which
compelled France to maintain an army of more than 100,000 men upon
that African territory." (Report of M. Bignon of the 15th April
1846, p. 237.) Bugeaud himself had mightily changed his tone, and
declared that, to keep Algiers, as large an army would be essential
as had been required to conquer it. Lamoricière, a great authority
in such matters, confirmed the opinion of his senior. Monsieur
Desjobert, and a variety of pamphleteers and newspaper writers,
attacked, with argument, ridicule, and statistics, the party known
as the _Algérophiles_, who made light of difficulties, scoffed
at expense, and predicted the prosperity and splendour of French
Africa. Algeria, according to them, was to become the brightest
gem in the citizen-crown of France. These sanguine gentlemen were
met with facts and figures. During 1846, said the anti-Algerines,
your precious colony will have cost France 125,000,000 of francs.
And they proved it in black and white. There was little chance
of the expense being less in following years. Then came the loss
of men. In 1840, said M. Desjobert, giving chapter and verse for
his statements, 9567 men perished in the African hospitals, out
of an effective army of 63,000. Add those invalids who died in
French hospitals, or in their homes, from the results of African
campaigning, and the total loss is moderately stated at 11,000 men,
or more than one-sixth of the whole force employed. Out of these,
only 227 died in action. The thing seemed hopeless and endless.
What do we get for our money? was the cry. What is our compensation
for the decimation of our young men? France can better employ her
sons, than in sending them to perish by African fevers. What do we
gain by all this expenditure of gold and blood?--The unreasonable
mortals! Had they not gained a Duke of Isly and a Moorish pavilion?
M. Desjobert surely forgets these inestimable acquisitions when he
asks and answers the question--"What remains of all our victories? A
thousand bulletins, and Horace Vernet's big pictures."
"How many times," says the same writer, "has not the subjection of
the Arabs been proclaimed! In 1844, General Bugeaud gains the battle
of Isly. Are the Arabs subdued?
"When the Arabs appear before the judges who dispose of life and
death, they confess their faith, and proclaim their hatred of us;
and when we are simple enough to tell them that some of their race
are devoted to us, they reply, 'Those lie to you, through fear, or
for their own interest; and as often as a scheriff shall come whom
they believe able to conquer you, they will follow him, even into
the streets of Algiers.' (Examination of Bou Maza's brother, 12th
November 1845.) Thus spoke the chief. The common Arab had already
said to the Christian, "If my head and thine were boiled in the same
vessel, my broth would separate itself from thy broth."
This was discouraging to those who had dreamed of the taming of the
Arab; and the more sanguinary mooted ideas of extermination. Such a
project, clearly written down, and printed, and placed on Parisian
breakfast tables, might be startling; in Algeria it had long been
put in practice. What said General Duvivier in his _Solution de
la Question d'Algérie_, p. 285? "For eleven years they have razed
buildings, burned crops, destroyed trees, massacred men, women,
and children, with a still-increasing fury." We have already shown
that this work of extermination was not carried on with perfect
impunity. Here is further confirmation of the fact. "Every Arab
killed," says M. Leblanc de Prébois, another officer, who wrote on
the Algerian war, and wrote from personal experience, "costs us the
death of thirty-three men, and 150,000 francs." Supposing a vast
deal of exaggeration in this statement, the balance still remains
ugly against the French, for whom there is evidently very little
difference between catching an Arab and catching a Tartar. Whilst
upon the subject of extermination, Mr Borrer gives an opinion more
decidedly unfavourable to his French friends than is expressed in
any other part of his book. His estimate of Kabyle virtues differs
considerably, it will be observed, from that of the Colonist, and of
the two is much nearest the truth.
"The abominable vices and debaucheries of the Kabyle race, the
inhuman barbarities they are continually guilty of towards such
as may be cast by tempest, or other misfortune, upon their rugged
shores; the atrocious cruelties and refined tortures they, in common
with the Arab, delight in exercising upon any such enemies as may
be so unhappy as to fall alive into their hands, must render the
hearts of those acquainted with this people perfectly callous as
to what misfortunes may befall them or their country; and many
may think that, as far as the advancement of civilisation is
concerned, the wiping off of the Kabyle and Arab races of Northern
Africa from the face of the earth, would be the greatest boon to
humanity. Though, however, they may be fraught with all the vices
of the Canaanitish tribes of old, yet the command, 'Go ye after
him through the city and smite; let not your eye spare, neither
have ye pity; slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little
children, and women,' is not justifiably issued at the pleasure of
man; and we can but lament to see a great and gallant nation engaged
in a warfare exasperating both parties to indulge in sanguinary
atrocities,--atrocities to be attributed on one side to the
barbarous and savage state of those having recourse to them; but on
the other, proceeding only from a thirst for retaliation and bloody
revenge, unworthy of those enjoying a high position as a civilised
people. War is, as we all know, ever productive of horrors: but such
horrors may be greatly restrained and diminished by the exertions
and example of those in command."
The hoary-headed hero of Isly is not the man to make the exertion,
or set the example. At the beginning of 1847, rumours of a projected
inroad amongst the Kabyles caused uneasiness and dissatisfaction
in Algeria, when such a movement was highly unpopular, as likely
to lead to a long and expensive war. The "Commission of Credits,"
a board appointed by the French Chamber for the particular
investigation and regulation of Algerine affairs, applied to the
minister of war to know if the rumours were well founded. The
minister confessed they were; adding, however, that the expedition
would be quite peaceable; but at the same time laying before the
commission letters from Bugeaud, "expressing regret that force of
arms was not to be resorted to more than was absolutely necessary,
the submission of the aborigines being never certain _until powder
had spoken_." The marshal evidently "felt like fighting." The
Commission protested; the minister rebuked them, bidding them mind
their credits, and not meddle with the royal prerogative. Thus
unjustly snubbed--for they certainly were minding their credits,
by opposing increase of expenditure--the Commission were mute, one
of the members merely observing, by way of a last shot, that it
was easier to refuse to listen than to reply satisfactorily. In
France, public opinion, the Chamber of Deputies, and Marshal Soult,
had, on various occasions, declared against attacking the Kabyles.
"Nevertheless, a proclamation was issued by Marshal Bugeaud to
the inhabitants of the Kabylie, to warn them that the French army
was upon the point of entering their territory, 'to cleanse it of
those adventurers who there preached the war against France.' The
proclamation then went on to state, that the marshal had no desire
to fight with them, or to devastate their property; but that, if
there were amongst them any who wished for war, they would find
him ready to accept it." If a hard-favoured stranger, armed with a
horsewhip, walked uninvited into M. Bugeaud's private residence,
loudly proclaiming he would thrash nobody unless provoked, the
marshal would be likely to resist the intrusion. The Kabyles,
doubtless, thought his advance into their territory an equally
unjustifiable proceeding. As to the pretext of "the adventurers who
preached war," it was unfounded and ridiculous. Such propagandists
have never been listened to in Kabylia. "The voice of the Emir
Abd-el-Kader himself," says the Colonist, "would not obtain a
hearing. Did he not go in person, in 1839, when preparing to break
his treaty of peace with us, and preach the holy war? Did he not
traverse the valley of the Souman, from one end to the other,
to recruit combatants? And what did he obtain from the Kabyles?
Hospitality for a few days, coupled with the formal invitation to
evacuate the country as soon as possible. Did he succeed better
when he lately again tried to raise Kabylia against us?" Mr Borrer
confirms this. Marshal Bugeaud himself had said in the Chamber of
Deputies, "The Kabyles are neither aggressive nor hostile; they
defend themselves vigorously when intruded upon, but they do not
attack." The marshal, whose whole public life has been full of
contradictions, was the first to intrude upon them, although but
a very few years had elapsed since he said in a pamphlet, "The
Kabyles are numerous and very warlike; they have villages, and their
agriculture is sedentary; already there is too little land to supply
their wants; there is no room, therefore, for Europeans in the
mountains of Kabylia, and they would cut a very poor figure there."
This last prophetic sentence was realised by M. Bugeaud himself, who
certainly made no very brilliant appearance when, forgetting his
former theory, he hazarded himself in May 1847, at the head of eight
thousand men, and with Mr Borrer in his train, amongst the hardy
mountaineers of Kabylia.
Hereabouts Mr Borrer quotes, in French, the statement of a member of
the Commission already referred to. It is worth extracting, as fully
confirming our conviction that the conduct of France in Algeria
has been throughout characterised by an utter want of judgment and
justice. "The native towns have been invaded, ruined, sacked, by
our administration, more even than by our arms. In time of peace,
a great number of private estates have been ravaged and destroyed.
A multitude of title-deeds delivered to us for verification have
never been restored. Even in the environs of Algiers, fertile
lands have been taken from the Arabs and given to Europeans, who,
unable or unwilling to cultivate their new possessions, have
farmed them out to their former owners, who have thus become the
mere stewards of the inheritance of their fathers. Elsewhere,
tribes, or fractions of tribes, not hostile to us, but who, on the
contrary, had fought for us, have been driven from their territory.
Conditions have been accepted from them, and not kept--indemnities
promised, and never paid--until we have compromised our honour even
more than their interests." Such a statement, proceeding from a
Frenchman--from one, too, delegated by his government, to examine
the state of the colony--is quite conclusive as to administrative
proceedings in Algeria. It would be superfluous and impertinent to
add another line of evidence. A comment may be appropriate. "Is it
not Montesquieu," says Mr Borrer, "in his _Esprit des Lois_, who
observes--'The right of conquest, though a necessary and legitimate
right, is an unhappy one, bequeathing to the conqueror a heavy debt
to humanity, only to be acquitted by repairing, as far as possible,
those evils of which he has been the cause'?--and Montesquieu was a
wise man, and a Frenchman!"
Dismissing this branch of the subject, let us see how the Duke
of Isly made "the powder speak" in Kabylia, and try our hand
at a rough sketch, taking the loan of Mr Borrer's colours. A
strong body of French troops--the 8000 have been increased, since
departure, by several battalions and some spahis--are encamped in
a rich valley, cutting down the unripe wheat for the use of their
horses, whilst, from the surrounding heights, the Kabyles gloomily
watch the unscrupulous foragers. "Now 'soft-winged evening,'" as
Mr Dawson Borrer poetically expresses himself, "hovers o'er the
scene, chasing from woodlands and sand-rock heights the gilded
tints of the setting sun." In other words, it gets dark--and shots
are heard. The natives, vexed at the liberties taken with their
crops, harass the outposts. Their bad powder and overloaded guns
have no chance against French muskets. "In the name of the Prophet,
HEADS!" Bugeaud the Merciful pays for them ten francs a-piece. Four
are presented to him before breakfast. The premium is to make the
soldiers alert against horse-stealers. Ten francs being a little
fortune to a French soldier, whose pay in hard cash is two or three
farthings a-day, Mr Borrer suspects the heads are sometimes taken
from shoulders where they have a right to remain. An Arab is always
an Arab, whether a horse-stealer or a mere idler. But no matter--a
few more or less. Day returns; the column marches; the Kabyles
show little of the intrepidity, in defence of their hearths and
altars, attributed to them by M. Bugeaud and others. Their horsemen
fly before a platoon of French cavalry; the infantry limit their
offensive operations to cowardly long shots at the rear-guard. Four
venerable elders bring two yoked oxen in token of submission. In
general, the inhabitants have disappeared. Their deserted towns
appear, in the distance, by no means inferior to many French and
Italian villages. The marshal will not permit exploring parties
for fear of ambuscade. Night arrives, and passes without incident
of note. At three in the morning, the camp is aroused by hideous
yells. A sentinel has fired at a horse-thief and broken his leg,
and now, mindful of the ten francs, tries to cut off the head of
the wounded man, who objects and screams. A bayonet-thrust stops
his mouth, and the _bill on Bugeaud_ is duly severed. The next day
is passed in skirmishing with the Beni-Abbez, the most numerous
tribe of the valley of the Souman, but not a very warlike one--so
says the Colonist; and, indeed, they offer but slight resistance,
although they, or some other tribes, make a firm and determined
attack upon the French outposts in the course of that night. There
is more smoke than bloodshed; but the Kabyles show considerable
pluck, burn a prodigious number of cartridges, and make no doubt
they have nearly "rubbed out" the Christians; in which particular
they are rather mistaken--the French, not choosing to leave their
camp, having quietly lain down, and allowed the Berber lead to fly
over them. At last the assailants' ammunition runs low, and they
retire, leaving a sprinkling of dead. Mr Borrer quotes the Koran.
"'Those of our brothers who fall in defence of the true faith,
are not dead, but live invisible, receiving their nourriture from
the hand of the Most High,' says the Prophet." _Nourriture_ is
not quite English, at least with that orthography; but no matter
for Mr Borrer's Gallicisms, which are many. We rush with him into
the Kabyle fire. Here he sits, halted amongst the olive-trees,
philosophically lighting his pipe, the bullets whistling about his
ears, whilst he admires the _sang froid_ of a pretty _vivandière_,
seated astride upon her horse, and jesting at the danger. The column
advances--the Kabyles retreat, fighting, pursued by the French
shells, which they hold in particular horror, and call the howitzer
the _twice-firing cannon_. The object of the advance is to destroy
the towns and villages of the Beni-Abbez, the night-attack upon his
bivouac affording the marshal a pretext. The villages are surrounded
with stiff walls of stones and mud, crowned with strong thorny
fences, and having hedges of prickly pear growing at their base; and
the gaunt burnoosed warriors make good fight through loop-holes and
from the terraces of their houses. But resistance is soon overcome,
and the narrow streets are crowded with Frenchmen, ravishing,
massacring, plundering; no regard to sex or age; outrage for every
woman--the edge of the sword for all.
"Upon the floor of one of the chambers lay a little girl of twelve
or fourteen years of age, weltering in gore, and in the agonies of
death: an accursed ruffian thrust his bayonet into her. God will
requite him.... When the soldiers had ransacked the dwellings, and
smashed to atoms all they could not carry off, or did not think
worth seizing as spoil, they heaped the remnants and the mattings
together and fired them. As I was hastily traversing the streets
to regain the outside of the village, disgusted with the horrors I
witnessed, flames burst forth on all sides, and torrents of fire
came swiftly gliding down the thoroughfares, for the flames had
gained the oil. An instant I turned--the fearful doom of the poor
concealed child and the decrepid mother flashing on my mind. It was
too late.... The unfortunate Kabyle child was doubtless consumed
with her aged parent. How many others may have shared her fate!"
At noon, the atmosphere is laden with smoke arising from the
numerous burning villages. From one spot nine may be counted,
wrapped in flames. There is merry-making in the French camp.
Innumerable goatskins, full of milk, butter, figs, and flour, are
produced and opened. Some are consumed; more are squandered and
strewn upon the ground. Let the Kabyle dogs starve! Have they not
audaciously levelled their long guns at the white-headed warrior
and his followers, who asked nothing but submission, free passage
through the country, corn-fields for their horses, and the fat
of the land for themselves? But stay--there is still a town to
take, the last, the strongest, the refuge of the women and of the
aged. Its defence is resolute, but at last it falls. "Ravished,
murdered, burnt, hardly a child escaped to tell the tale. A few of
the women fled to the ravines around the village; but troops swept
the brushwood; and the stripped and mangled bodies of females might
there be seen.... One vast sheet of flame crowned the height, which
an hour or two before was ornamented with an extensive and opulent
village, crowded with inhabitants. It seemed to have been the very
emporium of commerce of the Beni-Abbez; fabrics of gunpowder, of
arms, of haïks, burnooses, and different stuffs, were there. The
streets boasted of numerous shops of workers in silver, workers in
cord, venders of silk, &c." All this the soldiers pillaged, or the
fire devoured; then the insatiable flames gained the corn and olive
trees, and converted a smiling and prosperous district into a black
and barren waste. Bugeaud looked on and pronounced it good, and
his men declared the country "well cleaned out," and vaunted their
deeds of rapine and violence. "I heard two ruffians relating, with
great gusto, how many young girls had been burned in one house,
after being abused by their brutal comrades and themselves." Out
of consideration for his readers, Mr Borrer says, he writes down
but the least shocking of the crimes and atrocities he that day
witnessed. We have no inclination to transcribe a tithe of the
horrors he records, and at sight of which, he assures us, the blood
of many a gallant French officer boiled in his veins. He mentions
no attempt on the part of these compassionate officers to curb the
ferocity of their men, who had not the excuse of previous severe
sufferings, of a long and obstinate resistance, and of the loss of
many of their comrades, to allege in extenuation of their savage
violence. History teaches us that, in certain circumstances, as,
for instance, after protracted sieges, great exposure, and a long
and bloody fight, soldiers of all nations are liable to forget
discipline, and, maddened by fury, by suffering and excitement, to
despise the admonitions and reprimands of the chiefs--nay, even
to turn their weapons against those whom for years they have been
accustomed to respect and implicitly obey. But there is no such
excuse in the instance before us. A pleasant military promenade
through a rich country, fine weather, abundant rations, and just
enough skirmishing to give zest to the whole affair, whose fighting
part was exceeding brief, as might be expected, when French bayonets
and artillery were opposed to the clumsy guns and irregular tactics
of the Beni-Abbez--we find nothing in this picture to extenuate
the horrible cruelties enacted by the conquerors after their
easily achieved victory. Their whole loss, according to their
marshal's bulletin, amounted to fifty-seven killed and wounded.
This included the loss in the night-attack on the camp. In fact,
it was mere child's play for the disciplined French soldiery; and
Mr Borrer virtually admits this, by applying to the affair General
Castellane's expression of a _man-hunt_. He then, with no good
grace, endeavours to find an excuse for his campaigning comrades.
"The ranks of the French army in Africa are composed, in great
measure, of the very scum of France." They have condemned regiments
in Africa, certainly; the Foreign Legion are reckless and reprobate
enough; we dare say the Zouaves, a mixed corps of wild Frenchmen and
tamed Arabs, are neither tender nor scrupulous; but these form a
very small portion of the hundred thousand French troops in Africa,
and there is little picking and choosing amongst the line regiments,
who take their turn of service pretty regularly, neither is there
reason for considering the men who go to Algeria to be greater
scamps than those who remain in France. So this will not do, Mr
Borrer: try another tack. "The only sort of excuse for the horrors
committed by the soldiery in Algeria, is their untamed passions,
and the fire added to their natural ferocity by the atrocious
cruelties so often committed by the Arabs upon their comrades in
arms, who have been so unhappy as to fall into their power." This
is more plausible, although it is a query who began the system of
murderous reprisals. Arab treatment of prisoners is not mild. On the
evening of the 1st June, some men straggled from the French bivouac,
and were captured. "It was said that from one of the outposts the
Kabyles were seen busily engaged, in roasting their victims before
a large fire upon a neighbouring slope; but whether this was a fact
or not, I never learned." It was possibly true. Escoffier tells
us how one of his fellow-prisoners, a Jew named Wolf, who fell
into the hands of Moorish shepherds, was thrown upon a blazing
pile of faggots; and although we suspect the brave trumpeter, or
his historian, of occasional exaggeration, there are grounds for
crediting the authenticity of this statement. As to Mr Borrer, he
guarantees nothing but what he sees with his own eyes, the camp
being, he says, full of _blagueurs_, or tellers of white lies. The
inventions of these mendacious gentry are not always as innocent
as he appears to think them. Imaginary cruelties, attributed to
an enemy, are very apt to impose upon credulous soldiers, and to
stimulate them to unnecessary bloodshed, and to acts of lawless
revenge. Many a village has been burned, and many an inoffensive
peasant sabred, on the strength of such lying fabrications. In
Africa especially, where the _lex talionis_ seems fully recognised,
and its enforcement confided to the first straggler who chooses to
fire a house or stick an Arab, the _blagueurs_ should be handed
over, in our opinion, to summary punishment. On the advance of the
French column, a soldier or two, straying from the bivouac to bathe
or fish, had here and there been shot by the lurking Kabyles. On its
return, "I was somewhat surprised," Mr Borrer remarks, "to observe,
in the wake of the column, flames bursting forth from the gourbies
(villages) left in our rear. It was well known that the tribe upon
whose territory we were riding had submitted, and that their sheikh
was even riding at the head of the column." None could explain the
firing of the villages. The sheikh, indignant at the treachery of
the French, set spurs to his mare, and was off like the wind. The
conflagration was traced to soldiers of the rear-guard, desirous
to revenge their comrades, picked off on the previous march. We
are not told that the crime was brought home to the perpetrators,
or visited upon them. If it was, Mr Borrer makes no mention of the
fact, but passes on, as if the burning of a few villages were a
trifle scarce worth notice. How were the Kabyles to distinguish
between the acts of the private soldier and of the epauleted
chief? Their submission had just been accepted, and friendly words
spoken to them: their sheikh rode beside the gray-haired leader
of the Christians, and marked the apparent subordination of the
white-faced soldiery. Suddenly a gross violation occurred of the
amicable understanding so recently come to. How persuade them that
the submissive and disciplined soldiers they saw around them would
venture such breach of faith without the sanction or connivance of
their commander? The offence is that of an insignificant sentinel,
but the dirt falls upon the beard of Bugeaud; and confidence in the
promises of the lying European is thoroughly and for ever destroyed.
A colony, whose mode of acquisition and of government, up to the
present time, reflects so little credit upon French arms and
administrators, ought certainly to yield pecuniary results or
advantages of some kind, which, in a mercenary point of view, might
balance the account. France surely did not place her reputation
for humanity and justice in the hands of Marshal Bugeaud and of
others of his stamp, without anticipating some sort of compensation
for its probable deterioration. Such expectations have hitherto
been wholly unfulfilled; and we really see little chance of their
probable or speedy realisation. The colony is as unpromising, as
the colonists are inapt to improve it. The fact is, the work of
colonisation has not begun. The French are utterly at a loss how to
set about it. All kinds of systems have been proposed. Bugeaud has
had his--that of military colonisation, which he maintained, with
characteristic stubbornness, in the teeth of public opinion, of the
French government, of common sense, and even of possibility. He
proposed to take, during ten years, one hundred and twenty thousand
recruits from the conscription, and to settle them in Africa, with
their wives. He estimated the expense of this scheme at twelve
millions sterling. His opponents stated its probable cost at four
times that sum. Whichever estimate was correct, it is not worth
while examining the plan, which for a moment was entertained by a
government commission, but has since been completely abandoned.
It presupposes an extraordinary and arbitrary stretch of power
on the part of the government that should adopt such a system
of compulsory colonisation. We are surprised to find Mr Borrer
inclined to favour the exploded plan. General Lamoricière (the
terrible _Bour-à-boi_ of the Arabs,[12]) proposed to give premiums
to agriculturists settling in Algeria, at the rate of twenty-five
per cent of their expenses of clearing, irrigation, construction,
and plantation. But M. Lamoricière--a very practical man indeed,
with his sabre in his fist, and at the head of his Zouaves--is a
shallow theorist in matters of colonisation. The staff of surveyors,
valuers, and referees essential to carry out his project, would
alone have been a heavy additional charge on the unprofitable
colony. "M. Lamoricière," says M. Desjobert, "was one of the warmest
advocates of the occupation of Bougie," (a seaport of Kabylie,)
"and partly directed, in 1833, that fatal expedition." (Fatal, M.
Desjobert means, by reason of its subsequent cost in men and money.
The town was taken by a small force on the 29th September 1833.)
"The soldiers were then told that their mission was agricultural
rather than military, that they would have to handle the pick and
the spade more frequently than the musket. The unfortunates have
certainly handled pick and spade; but it was to dig in that immense
cemetery which, each day, swallows up their comrades. Already,
in 1836, General d'Erlon, ex-governor of Algiers, demanded the
evacuation of Bougie, which had devoured, in three years, three
thousand men and seven millions of francs." The demand was not
complied with, and Bougie has continued to consume more than its
quota of the six thousand men at which M. Desjobert estimates the
average annual loss, by disease alone, of the African army. Bougie
has not flourished under the tricolor. In former times a city of
great riches and importance, it still contained several thousand
inhabitants when taken by the French. At the period of Mr Borrer's
visit, it reckoned a population of five hundred, exclusive of the
garrison of twelve hundred men. To return, however, to the systems
of colonisation. When the generals had had their say, it was the
turn of the commissions; the commission of Africa, that of the
Chamber of Deputies, &c. There was no lack of projects; but none of
them answered. The colonial policy of the Orleans government was
eminently short-sighted. This is strikingly shown in Mr Borrer's
14th chapter, "A Word upon the Colony." Of the fertile plain
of the Metidja, containing about a million and a half acres of
arable and pasture land, a very small portion is cultivated. The
French found a garden; they have made a desert. "Before the French
occupation, vast tracts which now lie waste, sacrificed to palmetta
and squills, were cultivated by the Arabs, who grew far more corn
than was required for their own consumption; whereas now, they grow
barely sufficient: the consequence of which is, that the price of
corn is enormous in Algeria at present." Land is cheap enough, but
labour is dear, because the necessaries of life are so. Instead of
making Algiers a free port, protection to French manufactures is
the order of the day, and this has driven Arab commerce to Tunis
and Morocco. Rivalry with England--the feverish desire for colonies
and for the supremacy of the seas--must unquestionably be ranked
amongst the motives of the tenacious retention of such an expensive
possession as Algeria. And now the odious English cottons are
an obstacle to the prosperity of the colony. To sell a few more
bales of French calicoes and crates of French hardware, the wise
men at Paris put an effectual check upon the progress of African
agriculture. Here, if anywhere, free-trade might be introduced
with advantage; in common necessaries, at any rate, and for a few
years, till the country became peopled, and the colonists had
overcome the first difficulties of their position. It would make
very little difference to Rouen and Lyons, whilst to the settlers
it would practically work more good than would have been done them
by M. Lamoricière's _subvention_, supposing this to have been
adopted, and that the heavily-taxed agriculturist of France--in
many parts of which country land pays but two and a half or three
per cent--had consented to pay additional imposts for the benefit
of the agriculturist of Algeria. In the beginning, the notion of
the French government was, that its new conquest would colonise
itself unassisted; that there would be a natural and steady flow
of emigrants from the mother country. In any case this expectation
would probably have proved fallacious--at least it would never have
been realised to the extent anticipated; but the small encouragement
given to such emigration, rendered it utterly abortive. The
"stream" of settlers proved a mere dribble. Security and justice,
Mr Thiers said, were all that France owed her colony. Even these
two things were not obtained, in the full sense of the words. The
centralisation system weighed upon Algeria. Everything was referred
to Paris. Hence interminable correspondence, and delays innumerable.
In the year 1846, Mr Borrer says, twenty-four thousand despatches
were received by the civil administration from the chief _bureau_
in the French capital, in exchange for twenty-eight thousand sent.
Instead of imparting all possible celerity to the administrative
forms requisite to the establishment of emigrants, these must
often wait a year or more before they are put in possession of
the land granted. Meanwhile they expend their resources, and are
enervated by idleness and disease. The climate of North Africa
is ill-adapted to French constitutions. M. Desjobert has already
told us the average loss of the army, and General Duvivier, in
his _Solution de la Question d'Algérie_, fully corroborated his
statements. "A man," said the general, "whose constitution is not
in harmony with the climate of Africa, never adapts himself to it;
he suffers, wastes away, and dies. The expression, that a mass of
men who have been for some time in Africa have become inured to
the climate, is inexact. They have not become inured to it; they
have been _decimated by death_. _The climate is a great sieve,
which allows a rapid passage to everything that is not of a certain
force._" Supposing 100,000 men sent from France to Algeria for six
years' service. At the end of that time, their loss by disease
alone, at the rate of six per cent--proved by M. Desjobert to be
the annual average--would amount to upwards of 30,000, or to more
than three-tenths of the whole. The emigrants fare no better.
"They look for milk and honey," says Borrer: "they find palmetta
and disease. The villages scattered about the Sahel or Massif of
Algiers (a high ground at the back of the city, forming a rampart
between the Metidja and the Mediterranean) are, with one or two
exceptions, a type of desolation. Perched upon the most arid spots,
distant from water, the poor tenants lie sweltering between sun
and sirocco." A Mississippi swamp must be as eligible "squatting"
ground as this--Arabs instead of alligators, and the Algerine fever
in place of Yellow Jack. "At the gates of Algiers, in the villages
of the Sahel," said the "_Algérie_" newspaper of the 22d December
1845, "the colonists desert, driven away by hunger. If any remain,
it is because they have no strength to move. In the plain of the
Metidja, the misery and desolation are greater still. At Fondouck,
in the last five months, 120 persons have died, out of a population
of 280." The reporter to the Commission of the French budget of 1837
(Monsieur Bignon) admitted that "the results of the colonisation are
almost negative." He could not obtain, he said, an estimate of the
agricultural population. At the same period, an Algiers newspaper
(_La France Algérienne_) estimated the European agriculturists at
7000, two-thirds of whom were mere market-gardeners.
[12] "General Lamoricière habitually carries a stick. This has
procured him, from the Arabs, the name of the _Père-au-bâton_, (the
father with the stick:) _Bour-à-boi_. One of his orderly officers,
my friend and comrade Captain Bentzman, gives _Araouah_ as the
proper orthography of _Bour-à-boi_. We have followed Escoffier's
pronunciation."--_Captivité d'Escoffier_, vol. i. p. 30.
It is unnecessary to multiply proofs; and we will here conclude this
imperfect sketch of Franco-African colonisation, of its crimes, its
errors, and its cost, by extracting a rather remarkable passage
from a writer we have more than once referred to, and who, although
perhaps disposed to view things in Algeria upon the black side, is
yet deserving of credit, as well by his position as by reason of his
painstaking research and, so far as we have verified them, accurate
statistics.
"The colonists cannot deny," says Monsieur Desjobert in his _Algérie
en_ 1846, "and they admit:
"1º. That Europe alone maintains the 200,000 Europeans in Algeria.
In 1846 we are compelled to repeat what General Bernard, minister
of war, said in 1838: 'Algeria resembles a naked rock, which it is
necessary to supply with everything, except air and water.'
"2º. That so long as we remain in this precarious situation, a naval
war, by interrupting the communications, would compromise the safety
of our army. In 1846 we repeat M. Thiers' words, uttered in 1837:
'If war surprises you in the state of indecision in which you are, I
say that the disgraceful evacuation of Africa will be inevitable.'
"M. Thiers did not speak the whole truth when he talked of
evacuation. In such an extremity, evacuation would be impossible.
Our army would perish of misery, and its remnant would fall into the
hands of the enemy."
Another enemy than the Arabs is here evidently pointed at; that
possible foe is now a friend to France, and we trust will long
remain so. But on many accounts the sentences we have just quoted
are significant, as proceeding from the pen of a French deputy. They
need no comment, and we shall offer none. We wait with interest to
see if France's African colony prospers better under the Republic of
1848 than it did under the Monarchy of 1830.
THE CAXTONS.
PART IX.--CHAPTER XXXIX.
And my father pushed aside his books.
O young reader, whoever thou art,--or reader, at least, who hast
been young,--canst thou not remember some time when, with thy wild
troubles and sorrows as yet borne in secret, thou hast come back
from that hard, stern world which opens on thee when thou puttest
thy foot out of the threshold of home--come back to the four quiet
walls, wherein thine elders sit in peace--and seen, with a sort of
sad amaze, how calm and undisturbed all is there? That generation
which has gone before thee in the path of the passions--the
generation of thy parents--(not so many years, perchance, remote
from thine own)--how immovably far off, in its still repose, it
seems from thy turbulent youth! It has in it a stillness as of a
classic age, antique as the statues of the Greeks. That tranquil
monotony of routine into which those lives that preceded thee have
merged--the occupations that they have found sufficing for their
happiness, by the fireside--in the armchair and corner appropriated
to each--how strangely they contrast thine own feverish excitement!
And they make room for thee, and bid thee welcome, and then resettle
to their hushed pursuits, as if nothing had happened! Nothing had
happened! while in thy heart, perhaps, the whole world seems to have
shot from its axis, all the elements to be at war! And you sit down,
crushed by that quiet happiness which you can share no more, and
smile mechanically, and look into the fire; and, ten to one, you say
nothing till the time comes for bed, and you take up your candle,
and creep miserably to your lonely room.
Now, if in a stage coach in the depth of winter, when three
passengers are warm and snug, a fourth, all besnowed and frozen,
descends from the outside and takes place amongst them, straightway
all the three passengers shift their places, uneasily pull up their
cloak collars, re-arrange their "comforters," feel indignantly
a sensible loss of caloric--the intruder has at least made a
sensation. But if you had all the snows of the Grampians in your
heart, you might enter unnoticed: take care not to tread on the
toes of your opposite neighbour, and not a soul is disturbed, not a
"comforter" stirs an inch! I had not slept a wink, I had not even
laid down all that night--the night in which I had said farewell
to Fanny Trevanion--and the next morning, when the sun rose, I
wandered out--where I know not. I have a dim recollection of long,
gray, solitary streets--of the river, that seemed flowing in dull
silence, away, far away, into some invisible eternity--trees and
turf, and the gay voices of children. I must have gone from one end
of the great Babel to the other: but my memory only became clear
and distinct when I knocked, somewhere before noon, at the door of
my father's house, and, passing heavily up the stairs, came into
the drawing-room, which was the rendezvous of the little family;
for, since we had been in London, my father had ceased to have his
study apart, and contented himself with what he called "a corner"--a
corner wide enough to contain two tables and a dumb waiter, with
chairs _à discretion_ all littered with books. On the opposite side
of this capacious corner sat my uncle, now nearly convalescent, and
he was jotting down, in his stiff military hand, certain figures in
a little red account-book--for you know already that my uncle Roland
was, in his expenses, the most methodical of men.
My father's face was more benign than usual, for, before him lay a
proof--the first proof of his first work--his one work--the Great
Book! Yes! it had positively found a press. And the first proof of
your first work--ask any author what _that_ is! My mother was out,
with the faithful Mrs Primmins, shopping or marketing no doubt;
so, while the brothers were thus engaged, it was natural that my
entrance should not make as much noise as if it had been a bomb,
or a singer, or a clap of thunder, or the last "great novel of
the season," or anything else that made a noise in those days. For
what makes a noise now? Now, when the most astonishing thing of all
is in our easy familiarity with things astounding--when we say,
listlessly, "Another revolution at Paris," or, "By the bye, there
is the deuce to do at Vienna!"--when De Joinville is catching fish
in the ponds at Claremont, and you hardly turn back to look at
Metternich on the pier at Brighton!
My uncle nodded, and growled indistinctly; my father--
"Put aside his books; you have told us that already."
Sir, you are very much mistaken, he did not put aside his books, for
he was not engaged in them--he was reading his proof. And he smiled,
and pointed to it (the proof I mean) pathetically, and with a kind
of humour, as much as to say--"What can you expect, Pisistratus?--my
new baby! in short clothes--or long primer, which is all the same
thing!"
I took a chair between the two, and looked first at one, then at
the other, and--heaven forgive me!--I felt a rebellious, ungrateful
spite against both. The bitterness of my soul must have been deep
indeed to have overflowed in that direction, but it did. The grief
of youth is an abominable egotist, and that is the truth. I got up
from the chair, and walked towards the window; it was open, and
outside the window was Mrs Primmins' canary, in its cage. London
air had agreed with it, and it was singing lustily. Now, when the
canary saw me standing opposite to its cage, and regarding it
seriously, and, I have no doubt, with a very sombre aspect, the
creature stopped short, and hung its head on one side, looking at
me obliquely and suspiciously. Finding that I did it no harm, it
began to hazard a few broken notes, timidly and interrogatively, as
it were, pausing between each; and at length, as I made no reply,
it evidently thought it had solved the doubt, and ascertained that
I was more to be pitied than feared--for it stole gradually into
so soft and silvery a strain that, I verily believe, it did it on
purpose to comfort me!--me, its old friend, whom it had unjustly
suspected. Never did any music touch me so home as did that long,
plaintive cadence. And when the bird ceased, it perched itself close
to the bars of the cage, and looked at me steadily with its bright
intelligent eyes. I felt mine water, and I turned back and stood
in the centre of the room, irresolute what to do, where to go. My
father had done with the proof, and was deep in his folios. Roland
had clasped his red account book, restored it to his pocket, wiped
his pen carefully, and now watched me from under his great beetle
brows. Suddenly he rose, and, stamping on the hearth with his cork
leg, exclaimed, "Look up from those cursed books, brother Austin!
What is there in that lad's face? Construe _that_, if you can!"
CHAPTER XL.
And my father pushed aside his books, and rose hastily. He took off
his spectacles, and rubbed them mechanically, but he said nothing;
and my uncle, staring at him for a moment, in surprise at his
silence, burst out,--
"Oh! I see--he has been getting into some scrape, and you are angry!
Fie! young blood will have its way, Austin--it will. I don't blame
that--it is only when--come here, Sisty! Zounds! man, come here."
My father gently brushed off the captain's hand, and, advancing
towards me, opened his arms. The next moment I was sobbing on his
breast.
"But what is the matter?" cried Captain Roland, "will nobody
say what is the matter? Money, I suppose--money, you confounded
extravagant young dog. Luckily you have got an uncle who has more
than he knows what to do with. How much?--fifty?--a hundred? two
hundred? How can I write the cheque, if you'll not speak?"
"Hush, brother! it is no money you can give that will set this
right. My poor boy! have I guessed truly? Did I guess truly the
other evening, when--"
"Yes, sir, yes! I have been so wretched. But I am better now--I can
tell you all."
My uncle moved slowly towards the door: his fine sense of delicacy
made him think that even he was out of place in the confidence
between son and father.
"No, uncle," I said, holding out my hand to him, "stay; you too can
advise me--strengthen me. I have kept my honour yet--help me to keep
it still."
At the sound of the word honour Captain Roland stood mute, and
raised his head quickly.
So I told all--incoherently enough at first, but clearly and
manfully as I went on. Now I know that it is not the custom of
lovers to confide in fathers and uncles. Judging by those mirrors
of life, plays and novels, they choose better;--valets and
chambermaids, and friends whom they have picked up in the street,
as I had picked up poor Francis Vivian--to these they make clean
breasts of their troubles. But fathers and uncles--to them they are
close, impregnable, "buttoned to the chin." The Caxtons were an
eccentric family, and never did anything like other people. When I
had ended, I lifted my eyes, and said pleadingly, "Now, tell me, is
there no hope--none?"
"Why should there be none?" cried Captain Roland hastily--"the De
Caxtons are as good a family as the Trevanions; and as for yourself,
all I will say is, that the young lady might choose worse for her
own happiness."
I wrung my uncles hand, and turned to my father in anxious fear--for
I knew that, in spite of his secluded habits, few men ever formed
a sounder judgment on worldly matters, when he was fairly drawn to
look at them. A thing wonderful is that plain wisdom which scholars
and poets often have for others, though they rarely deign to use it
for themselves. And how on earth do they get at it? I looked at my
father, and the vague hope Roland had excited fell as I looked.
"Brother," said he slowly, and shaking his head, "the world, which
gives codes and laws to those who live in it, does not care much for
a pedigree, unless it goes with a title-deed to estates."
"Trevanion was not richer than Pisistratus when he married Lady
Ellinor," said my uncle.
"True; but Lady Ellinor was not then an heiress, and her father
viewed these matters as no other peer in England perhaps would.
As for Trevanion himself, I dare say he has no prejudices about
station, but he is strong in common sense. He values himself on
being a practical man. It would be folly to talk to him of love, and
the affections of youth. He would see in the son of Austin Caxton,
living on the interest of some fifteen or sixteen thousand pounds,
such a match for his daughter as no prudent man in his position
could approve. And as for Lady Ellinor"--
"She owes us much, Austin!" exclaimed Roland, his face darkening.
"Lady Ellinor is now what, if we had known her better, she promised
always to be--the ambitious, brilliant, scheming woman of the world.
Is it not so, Pisistratus?"
I said nothing. I felt too much.
"And does the girl like you?--but I think it is clear she does!"
exclaimed Roland. "Fate--fate; it has been a fatal family to us!
Zounds, Austin, it was your fault. Why did you let him go there?"
"My son is now a man--at least in heart, if not in years--can man
be shut from danger and trial? They found me in the old parsonage,
brother!" said my father mildly.
My uncle walked, or rather stumped, three times up and down the
room; and he then stopped short, folded his arms, and came to a
decision--
"If the girl likes you, your duty is doubly clear--you can't take
advantage of it. You have done right to leave the house, for the
temptation might be too strong."
"But what excuse shall I make to Mr Trevanion?" said I feebly--"what
story can I invent? So careless as he is while he trusts, so
penetrating if he once suspects, he will see through all my
subterfuges, and--and--"
"It is as plain as a pike-staff," said my uncle abruptly--"and
there need be no subterfuge in the matter. 'I must leave you, Mr
Trevanion.' 'Why?' says he. 'Don't ask me.' He insists. 'Well then,
sir, if you must know, I love your daughter. I have nothing--she
is a great heiress. You will not approve of that love, and
therefore I leave you!' That is the course that becomes an English
gentleman--eh, Austin?"
"You are never wrong when your instincts speak, Roland," said my
father. "Can you say this, Pisistratus, or shall I say it for you?"
"Let him say it himself," said Roland; "and let him judge himself of
the answer. He is young, he is clever, he may make a figure in the
world. Trevanion _may_ answer, 'Win the lady after you have won the
laurel, like the knights of old.' At all events, you will hear the
worst."
"I will go," said I, firmly; and I took my hat, and left the room.
As I was passing the landing-place, a light step stole down the
upper flight of stairs, and a little hand seized my own. I turned
quickly, and met the full, dark, seriously sweet eyes of my cousin
Blanche.
"Don't go away yet, Sisty," said she coaxingly. "I have been waiting
for you, for I heard your voice, and did not like to come in and
disturb you."
"And why did you wait for me, my little Blanche?"
"Why! only to see you. But your eyes are red. Oh, cousin!"--and,
before I was aware of her childish impulse, she had sprung to my
neck and kissed me. Now Blanche was not like most children, and
was very sparing of her caresses. So it was out of the deeps of
a kind heart that that kiss came. I returned it without a word;
and, putting her down gently, ran down the stairs, and was in the
streets. But I had not got far before I heard my father's voice; and
he came up, and, hooking his arm into mine, said, "Are there not
two of us that suffer?--let us be together!" I pressed his arm, and
we walked on in silence. But when we were near Trevanion's house,
I said hesitatingly, "Would it not be better, sir, that I went in
alone. If there is to be an explanation between Mr Trevanion and
myself, would it not seem as if your presence implied either a
request to him that would lower us both, or a doubt of me that--"
"You will go in alone, of course: I will wait for you--"
"Not in the streets--oh no, father," cried I, touched inexpressibly.
For all this was so unlike my father's habits, that I felt remorse
to have so communicated my young griefs to the calm dignity of his
serene life.
"My son, you do not know how I love you. I have only known it myself
lately. Look you, I am living in you now, my first-born; not in my
other son--the great book: I must have my way. Go in; that is the
door, is it not?"
I pressed my father's hand, and I felt then, that, while that hand
could reply to mine, even the loss of Fanny Trevanion could not
leave the world a blank. How much we have before us in life, while
we retain our parents! How much to strive and to hope for! What a
motive in the conquest of our sorrow--that they may not sorrow with
us!