North America Volume I Part 10

And then we were taken to the chapel, and there saw, displayed as trophies, two of our own dear old English flags. I have seen many a banner hung up in token of past victory, and many a flag taken on the field of battle mouldering by degrees into dust on some chapel's wall,--but they have not been the flags of England. Till this day I had never seen our own colours in any position but one of self-a.s.sertion and independent power. From the tone used by the gentleman who showed them to me, I could gather that he would have pa.s.sed them by had he not foreseen that he could not do so without my notice. "I don't know that we are right to put them there," he said.

"Quite right," was my reply, "as long as the world does such things."

In private life it is vulgar to triumph over one's friends, and malicious to triumph over one's enemies. We have not got so far yet in public life, but I hope we are advancing toward it. In the mean time I did not begrudge the Americans our two flags. If we keep flags and cannons taken from our enemies, and show them about as signs of our own prowess after those enemies have become friends, why should not others do so as regards us? It clearly would not be well for the world that we should always beat other nations and never be beaten.

I did not begrudge that chapel our two flags. But nevertheless the sight of them made me sick in the stomach and uncomfortable. As an Englishman I do not want to be ascendant over any one. But it makes me very ill when any one tries to be ascendant over me. I wish we could send back with our compliments all the trophies that we hold, carriage paid, and get back in return those two flags and any other flag or two of our own that may be doing similar duty about the world. I take it that the parcel sent away would be somewhat more bulky than that which would reach us in return.

The discipline at West Point seemed, as I have said, to be very severe; but it seemed also that that severity could not in all cases be maintained. The hours of study also were long, being nearly continuous throughout the day. "English lads of that age could not do it," I said; thus confessing that English lads must have in them less power of sustained work than those of America. "They must do it here," said my informant, "or else leave us." And then he took us off to one of the young gentleman's quarters, in order that we might see the nature of their rooms. We found the young gentleman fast asleep on his bed, and felt uncommonly grieved that we should have thus intruded on him. As the hour was one of those allocated by my informant in the distribution of the day to private study, I could not but take the present occupation of the embryo warrior as an indication that the amount of labour required might be occasionally too much even for an American youth. "The heat makes one so uncommonly drowsy," said the young man. I was not the least surprised at the exclamation. The air of the apartment had been warmed up to such a pitch by the hot-pipe apparatus of the building that prolonged life to me would, I should have thought, be out of the question in such an atmosphere. "Do you always have it as hot as this?" I asked.

The young man swore that it was so, and with considerable energy expressed his opinion that all his health and spirits and vitality were being baked out of him. He seemed to have a strong opinion on the matter, for which I respected him; but it had never occurred to him, and did not then occur to him, that anything could be done to moderate that deathly flow of hot air which came up to him from the neighbouring infernal regions. He was pale in the face, and all the lads there were pale. American lads and la.s.ses are all pale. Men at thirty and women at twenty-five have had all semblance of youth baked out of them. Infants even are not rosy, and the only shades known on the cheeks of children are those composed of brown, yellow, and white. All this comes of those d.a.m.nable hot-air pipes with which every tenement in America is infested. "We cannot do without them,"

they say. "Our cold is so intense that we must heat our houses throughout. Open fire-places in a few rooms would not keep our toes and fingers from the frost." There is much in this. The a.s.sertion is no doubt true, and thereby a great difficulty is created. It is no doubt quite within the power of American ingenuity to moderate the heat of these stoves, and to produce such an atmosphere as may be most conducive to health. In hospitals no doubt this will be done; perhaps is done at present,--though even in hospitals I have thought the air hotter than it should be. But hot-air-drinking is like dram-drinking. There is the machine within the house capable of supplying any quant.i.ty, and those who consume it unconsciously increase their draughts, and take their drams stronger and stronger, till a breath of fresh air is felt to be a blast direct from Boreas.

West Point is at all points a military colony, and as such belongs exclusively to the Federal Government as separate from the Government of any individual State. It is the purchased property of the United States as a whole, and is devoted to the necessities of a military college. No man could take a house there, or succeed in getting even permanent lodgings, unless he belonged to or were employed by the establishment. There is no intercourse by road between West Point and other towns or villages on the river side, and any such intercourse even by water is looked upon with jealousy by the authorities.

The wish is that West Point should be isolated and kept apart for military instruction to the exclusion of all other purposes whatever,--especially love-making purposes. The coming over from the other side of the water of young ladies by the ferry is regarded as a great hindrance. They will come, and then the military students will talk to them. We all know to what such talking leads! A lad when I was there had been tempted to get out of barracks in plain clothes, in order that he might call on a young lady at the hotel;--and was in consequence obliged to abandon his commission and retire from the Academy. Will that young lady ever again sleep quietly in her bed?

I should hope not. An opinion was expressed to me that there should be no hotel in such a place;--that there should be no ferry, no roads, no means by which the attention of the students should be distracted;--that these military Ra.s.selases should live in a happy military valley from which might be excluded both strong drinks and female charms,--those two poisons from which youthful military ardour is supposed to suffer so much.

It always seems to me that such training begins at the wrong end.

I will not say that nothing should be done to keep lads of eighteen from strong drinks. I will not even say that there should not be some line of moderation with reference to feminine allurements. But as a rule the restraint should come from the sense, good feeling, and education of him who is restrained. There is no embargo on the beer-shops either at Harrow or at Oxford,--and certainly none upon the young ladies. Occasional damage may accrue from habits early depraved, or a heart too early and too easily susceptible; but the injury so done is not, I think, equal to that inflicted by a Draconian code of morals, which will probably be evaded, and will certainly create a desire for its evasion.

Nevertheless, I feel a.s.sured that West Point, taken as a whole, is an excellent military academy, and that young men have gone forth from it, and will go forth from it, fit for officers as far as training can make men fit. The fault, if fault there be, is that which is to be found in so many of the inst.i.tutions of the United States; and is one so allied to a virtue that no foreigner has a right to wonder that it is regarded in the light of a virtue by all Americans. There has been an attempt to make the place too perfect. In the desire to have the establishment self-sufficient at all points, more has been attempted than human nature can achieve. The lad is taken to West Point, and it is presumed that from the moment of his reception, he shall expend every energy of his mind and body in making himself a soldier. At fifteen he is not to be a boy, at twenty he is not to be a young man. He is to be a gentleman, a soldier, and an officer. I believe that those who leave the College for the army are gentlemen, soldiers, and officers, and therefore the result is good. But they are also young men; and it seems that they have become so, not in accordance with their training, but in spite of it.

But I have another complaint to make against the authorities of West Point, which they will not be able to answer so easily as that already preferred. What right can they have to take the very prettiest spot on the Hudson--the prettiest spot on the continent--one of the prettiest spots which Nature, with all her vagaries, ever formed--and shut it up from all the world for purposes of war? Would not any plain, however ugly, do for military exercises?

Cannot broadsword, goose-step, and double quick time be instilled into young hands and legs in any field of thirty, forty, or fifty acres? I wonder whether these lads appreciate the fact that they are studying fourteen hours a day amidst the sweetest river, rock, and mountain scenery that the imagination can conceive. Of course it will be said that the world at large is not excluded from West Point, that the ferry to the place is open, and that there is even a hotel there, closed against no man or woman who will consent to become a teetotaller for the period of his visit. I must admit that this is so; but still one feels that one is only admitted as a guest. I want to go and live at West Point, and why should I be prevented? The Government had a right to buy it of course, but Government should not buy up the prettiest spots on a country's surface. If I were an American I should make a grievance of this; but Americans will suffer things from their Government which no Englishmen would endure.

It is one of the peculiarities of West Point that every thing there is in good taste. The Point itself consists of a bluff of land so formed that the river Hudson is forced to run round three sides of it. It is consequently a peninsula, and as the surrounding country is mountainous on both sides of the river, it may be imagined that the site is good. The views both up and down the river are lovely, and the mountains behind break themselves so as to make the landscape perfect. But this is not all. At West Point there is much of buildings, much of military arrangement in the way of cannons, forts, and artillery yards. All these things are so contrived as to group themselves well into pictures. There is no picture of architectural grandeur; but everything stands well and where it should stand, and the eye is not hurt at any spot. I regard West Point as a delightful place, and was much gratified by the kindness I received there.

From West Point we went direct to New York.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN APOLOGY FOR THE WAR.

I think it may be received as a fact that the Northern States, taken together, sent a full tenth of their able-bodied men into the ranks of the army in the course of the summer and autumn of 1861. The South, no doubt, sent a much larger proportion; but the effect of such a drain upon the South would not be the same, because the slaves were left at home to perform the agricultural work of the country. I very much doubt whether any other nation ever made such an effort in so short a time. To a people who can do this it may well be granted that they are in earnest; and I do not think it should be lightly decided by any foreigner that they are wrong. The strong and unanimous impulse of a great people is seldom wrong. And let it be borne in mind that in this case both people may be right,--the people both of North and South. Each may have been guided by a just and n.o.ble feeling; though each was brought to its present condition by bad government and dishonest statesmen.

There can be no doubt that, since the commencement of the war, the American feeling against England has been very bitter. All Americans to whom I spoke on the subject admitted that it was so. I, as an Englishman, felt strongly the injustice of this feeling, and lost no opportunity of showing or endeavouring to show that the line of conduct pursued by England towards the States was the only line which was compatible with her own policy and just interests, and also with the dignity of the States' Government. I heard much of the tender sympathy of Russia. Russia sent a flourishing general message, saying that she wished the North might win, and ending with some good general advice, proposing peace. It was such a message as strong nations send to those which are weaker. Had England ventured on such counsel the diplomatic paper would probably have been returned to her. It is, I think, manifest that an absolute and disinterested neutrality has been the only course which could preserve England from deserved rebuke,--a neutrality on which her commercial necessity for importing cotton or exporting her own manufactures should have no effect. That our Government would preserve such a neutrality I have always insisted, and I believe it has been done with a pure and strict disregard to any selfish views on the part of Great Britain.

So far I think England may feel that she has done well in this matter. But I must confess that I have not been so proud of the tone of all our people at home as I have been of the decisions of our statesmen. It seems to me that some of us never tire in abusing the Americans, and calling them names for having allowed themselves to be driven into this civil war. We tell them that they are fools and idiots; we speak of their doings as though there had been some plain course by which the war might have been avoided; and we throw it in their teeth that they have no capability for war. We tell them of the debt which they are creating, and point out to them that they can never pay it. We laugh at their attempt to sustain loyalty, and speak of them as a steady father of a family is wont to speak of some unthrifty prodigal who is throwing away his estate and hurrying from one ruinous debauchery to another. And, alas! we too frequently allow to escape from us some expression of that satisfaction which one rival tradesman has in the downfall of another. "Here you are with all your boasting," is what we say. "You were going to whip all creation the other day; and it has come to this! Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Pray remember that, if ever you find yourselves on your legs again." That little advice about the two dogs is very well, and was not altogether inapplicable. But this is not the time in which it should be given. Putting aside slight asperities, we will all own that the people of the States have been and are our friends, and that as friends we cannot spare them.

For one Englishman who brings home to his own heart a feeling of cordiality for France--a belief in the affection of our French alliance--there are ten who do so with reference to the States. Now, in these days of their trouble, I think that we might have borne with them more tenderly.

And how was it possible that they should have avoided this war? I will not now go into the cause of it, or discuss the course which it has taken, but will simply take up the fact of the rebellion. The South rebelled against the North, and such being the case, was it possible that the North should yield without a war? It may very likely be well that Hungary should be severed from Austria, or Poland from Russia, or Venice from Austria. Taking Englishmen in a lump, they think that such separation would be well. The subject people do not speak the language of those that govern them, or enjoy kindred interests. But yet when military efforts are made by those who govern Hungary, Poland, and Venice to prevent such separation, we do not say that Russia and Austria are fools. We are not surprised that they should take up arms against the rebels, but would be very much surprised indeed if they did not do so. We know that nothing but weakness would prevent their doing so. But if Austria and Russia insist on tying to themselves a people who do not speak their language or live in accordance with their habits, and are not considered unreasonable in so insisting, how much more thoroughly would they carry with them the sympathy of their neighbours in preventing any secession by integral parts of their own nationalities? Would England let Ireland walk off by herself if she wished it? In 1843 she did wish it. Three-fourths of the Irish population would have voted for such a separation; but England would have prevented such secession _vi et armis_ had Ireland driven her to the necessity of such prevention.

I will put it to any reader of history whether, since government commenced, it has not been regarded as the first duty of government to prevent a separation of the territories governed, and whether also it has not been regarded as a point of honour with all nationalities to preserve uninjured each its own greatness and its own power? I trust that I may not be thought to argue that all governments or even all nationalities should succeed in such endeavours. Few kings have fallen in my day in whose fate I have not rejoiced; none, I take it, except that poor citizen King of the French. And I can rejoice that England lost her American colonies, and shall rejoice when Spain has been deprived of Cuba. But I hold that citizen King of the French in small esteem, seeing that he made no fight, and I know that England was bound to struggle when the Boston people threw her tea into the water. Spain keeps a tighter hand on Cuba than we thought she would some ten years since, and therefore she stands higher in the world's respect.

It may be well that the South should be divided from the North. I am inclined to think that it would be well--at any rate for the North; but the South must have been aware that such division could only be effected in two ways: either by agreement,--in which case the proposition must have been brought forward by the South and discussed by the North,--or by violence. They chose the latter way, as being the readier and the surer, as most seceding nations have done.

O'Connell, when struggling for the secession of Ireland, chose the other, and nothing came of it. The South chose violence, and prepared for it secretly and with great adroitness. If that be not rebellion there never has been rebellion since history began; and if civil war was ever justified in one portion of a nation by turbulence in another, it has now been justified in the northern States of America.

What was the North to do; this foolish North, which has been so liberally told by us that she has taken up arms for nothing, that she is fighting for nothing, and will ruin herself for nothing? When was she to take the first step towards peace? Surely every Englishman will remember that when the earliest tidings of the coming quarrel reached us on the election of Mr. Lincoln, we all declared that any division was impossible;--it was a mere madness to speak of it. The States, which were so great in their unity, would never consent to break up all their prestige and all their power by a separation!

Would it have been well for the North then to say, "If the South wish it we will certainly separate?" After that, when Mr. Lincoln a.s.sumed the power to which he had been elected, and declared with sufficient manliness, and sufficient dignity also, that he would make no war upon the South, but would collect the customs and carry on the government, did we turn round and advise him that he was wrong? No.

The idea in England then was that his message was, if anything, too mild. "If he means to be President of the whole Union," England said, "he must come out with something stronger than that." Then came Mr.

Seward's speech, which was, in truth, weak enough. Mr. Seward had ran Mr. Lincoln very hard for the President's chair on the republican interest, and was--most unfortunately, as I think--made Secretary of State by Mr. Lincoln, or by his party. The Secretary of State holds the highest office in the United States Government under the President. He cannot be compared to our Prime Minister, seeing that the President himself exercises political power, and is responsible for its exercise. Mr. Seward's speech simply amounted to a declaration that separation was a thing of which the Union would neither hear, speak, nor, if possible, think. Things looked very like it; but no; they could never come to that! The world was too good, and especially the American world. Mr. Seward had no specific against secession; but let every free man strike his breast, look up to heaven, determine to be good, and all would go right. A great deal had been expected from Mr. Seward, and when this speech came out, we in England were a little disappointed, and n.o.body presumed even then that the North would let the South go.

It will be argued by those who have gone into the details of American politics that an acceptance of the Crittenden compromise at this point would have saved the war. What is or was the Crittenden compromise I will endeavour to explain hereafter; but the terms and meaning of that compromise can have no bearing on the subject. The republican party who were in power disapproved of that compromise, and could not model their course upon it. The republican party may have been right or may have been wrong; but surely it will not be argued that any political party elected to power by a majority should follow the policy of a minority, lest that minority should rebel.

I can conceive of no government more lowly placed than one which deserts the policy of the majority which supports it, fearing either the tongues or arms of a minority.

As the next scene in the play, the State of South Carolina bombarded Fort Sumter. Was that to be the moment for a peaceable separation?

Let us suppose that O'Connell had marched down to the Pigeon House at Dublin, and had taken it--in 1843, let us say--would that have been an argument to us for allowing Ireland to set up for herself? Is that the way of men's minds, or of the minds of nations? The powers of the President were defined by law, as agreed upon among all the States of the Union, and against that power and against that law, South Carolina raised her hand, and the other States joined her in rebellion. When circ.u.mstances had come to that, it was no longer possible that the North should shun the war. To my thinking the rights of rebellion are holy. Where would the world have been, or where would the world hope to be, without rebellion? But let rebellion look the truth in the face, and not blanch from its own consequences. She has to judge her own opportunities and to decide on her own fitness. Success is the test of her judgment. But rebellion can never be successful except by overcoming the power against which she raises herself. She has no right to expect bloodless triumphs; and if she be not the stronger in the encounter which she creates, she must bear the penalty of her rashness. Rebellion is justified by being better served than const.i.tuted authority, but cannot be justified otherwise. Now and again it may happen that rebellion's cause is so good that const.i.tuted authority will fall to the ground at the first glance of her sword. This was so the other day in Naples, when Garibaldi blew away the king's armies with a breath. But this is not so often. Rebellion knows that it must fight, and the legalized power against which rebels rise must of necessity fight also.

I cannot see at what point the North first sinned; nor do I think that had the North yielded, England would have honoured her for her meekness. Had she yielded without striking a blow she would have been told that she had suffered the Union to drop asunder by her supineness. She would have been twitted with cowardice, and told that she was no match for Southern energy. It would then have seemed to those who sat in judgment on her that she might have righted everything by that one blow from which she had abstained. But having struck that one blow, and having found that it did not suffice, could she then withdraw, give way, and own herself beaten? Has it been so usually with Anglo-Saxon pluck? In such case as that would there have been no mention of those two dogs, Brag and Holdfast? The man of the northern States knows that he has bragged,--bragged as loudly as his English forefathers. In that matter of bragging the British lion and the Star-spangled banner may abstain from throwing mud at each other.

And now the northern man wishes to show that he can hold fast also.

Looking at all this I cannot see that peace has been possible to the North.

As to the question of secession and rebellion being one and the same thing, the point to me does not seem to bear an argument. The confederation of States had a common army, a common policy, a common capital, a common government, and a common debt. If one might secede, any or all might secede, and where then would be their property, their debt, and their servants? A confederation with such a license attached to it would have been simply playing at national power.

If New York had seceded--a State which stretches from the Atlantic to British North America--it would have cut New England off from the rest of the Union. Was it legally within the power of New York to place the six States of New England in such a position? And why should it be a.s.sumed that so suicidal a power of destroying a nationality should be inherent in every portion of the nation? The States are bound together by a written compact, but that compact gives each State no such power. Surely such a power would have been specified had it been intended that it should be given. But there are axioms in politics as in mathematics, which recommend themselves to the mind at once, and require no argument for their proof. Men who are not argumentative perceive at once that they are true. A part cannot be greater than the whole.

I think it is plain that the remnant of the Union was bound to take up arms against those States which had illegally torn themselves off from her; and if so, she could only do so with such weapons as were at her hand. The United States' army had never been numerous or well appointed; and of such officers and equipments as it possessed, the more valuable part was in the hands of the Southerners. It was clear enough that she was ill-provided, and that in going to war she was undertaking a work as to which she had still to learn many of the rudiments. But Englishmen should be the last to twit her with such ignorance. It is not yet ten years since we were all boasting that swords and guns were useless things, and that military expenditure might be cut down to any minimum figure that an economizing Chancellor of the Exchequer could name. Since that we have extemporized two, if not three armies. There are our volunteers at home; and the army which holds India can hardly be considered as one with that which is to maintain our prestige in Europe and the West.

We made some natural blunders in the Crimea, but in making those blunders we taught ourselves the trade. It is the misfortune of the northern States that they must learn these lessons in fighting their own countrymen. In the course of our history we have suffered the same calamity more than once. The Roundheads, who beat the Cavaliers and created English liberty, made themselves soldiers on the bodies of their countrymen. But England was not ruined by that civil war; nor was she ruined by those which preceded it. From out of these she came forth stronger than she entered them,--stronger, better, and more fit for a great destiny in the history of nations. The northern States had nearly five hundred thousand men under arms when the winter of 1861 commenced, and for that enormous mult.i.tude all commissariat requirements were well supplied. Camps and barracks sprang up through the country as though by magic. Clothing was obtained with a rapidity that has, I think, never been equalled. The country had not been prepared for the fabrication of arms, and yet arms were put into the men's hands almost as quickly as the regiments could be mustered. The eighteen millions of the northern States lent themselves to the effort as one man. Each State gave the best it had to give. Newspapers were as rabid against each other as ever, but no newspaper could live which did not support the war. "The South has rebelled against the law, and the law shall be supported." This has been the cry and the heartfelt feeling of all men; and it is a feeling which cannot but inspire respect.

We have heard much of the tyranny of the present Government of the United States, and of the tyranny also of the people. They have both been very tyrannical. The "habeas corpus" has been suspended by the word of one man. Arrests have been made on men who have been hardly suspected of more than secession principles. Arrests have, I believe, been made in cases which have been dest.i.tute even of any fair ground for such suspicion. Newspapers have been stopped for advocating views opposed to the feelings of the North, as freely as newspapers were ever stopped in France for opposing the Emperor. A man has not been safe in the streets who was known to be a Secessionist. It must be at once admitted that opinion in the northern States was not free when I was there. But has opinion ever been free anywhere on all subjects?

In the best-built strongholds of freedom have there not always been questions on which opinion has not been free; and must it not always be so? When the decision of a people on any matter has become, so to say, unanimous,--when it has shown itself to be so general as to be clearly the expression of the nation's voice as a single chorus,--that decision becomes holy, and may not be touched. Could any newspaper be produced in England which advocated the overthrow of the Queen? And why may not the pa.s.sion for the Union be as strong with the northern States, as the pa.s.sion for the Crown is strong with us? The Crown with us is in no danger, and therefore the matter is at rest. But I think we must admit that in any nation, let it be ever so free, there may be points on which opinion must be held under restraint. And as to those summary arrests, and the suspension of the "habeas corpus," is there not something to be said for the States'

Government on that head also? Military arrests are very dreadful, and the soul of a nation's liberty is that personal freedom from arbitrary interference which is signified to the world by those two unintelligible Latin words. A man's body shall not be kept in duress at any man's will; but shall be brought up into open court, with uttermost speed, in order that the law may say whether or no it should be kept in duress. That I take it is the meaning of "habeas corpus," and it is easy to see that the suspension of that privilege destroys all freedom, and places the liberty of every individual at the mercy of him who has the power to suspend it. Nothing can be worse than this; and such suspension, if extended over any long period of years, will certainly make a nation weak, mean-spirited, and poor. But in a period of civil war, or even of a widely-extended civil commotion, things cannot work in their accustomed grooves. A lady does not willingly get out of her bedroom-window with nothing on but her nightgown; but when her house is on fire she is very thankful for an opportunity of doing so. It is not long since the "habeas corpus" was suspended in parts of Ireland, and absurd arrests were made almost daily when that suspension first took effect. It was grievous that there should be necessity for such a step, and it is very grievous now that such necessity should be felt in the northern States. But I do not think that it becomes Englishmen to bear hardly upon Americans generally for what has been done in that matter. Mr. Seward, in an official letter to the British Minister at Washington--which letter, through official dishonesty, found its way to the press--claimed for the President the right of suspending the "habeas corpus" in the States whenever it might seem good to him to do so. If this be in accordance with the law of the land, which I think must be doubted, the law of the land is not favourable to freedom. For myself, I conceive that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward have been wrong in their law, and that no such right is given to the President by the Const.i.tution of the United States. This I will attempt to prove in some subsequent chapter. But I think it must be felt by all who have given any thought to the const.i.tution of the States, that let what may be the letter of the law, the Presidents of the United States have had no such power. It is because the States have been no longer united that Mr. Lincoln has had the power, whether it be given to him by the law or no.

And then as to the debt; it seems to me very singular that we in England should suppose that a great commercial people would be ruined by a national debt. As regards ourselves, I have always looked on our national debt as the ballast in our ship. We have a great deal of ballast, but then the ship is very big. The States also are taking in ballast at a rather rapid rate;--and we too took it in quickly when we were about it. But I cannot understand why their ship should not carry, without shipwreck, that which our ship has carried without damage, and, as I believe, with positive advantage to its sailing.

The ballast, if carried honestly, will not, I think, bring the vessel to grief. The fear is lest the ballast should be thrown overboard.

So much I have said, wishing to plead the cause of the northern States before the bar of English opinion, and thinking that there is ground for a plea in their favour. But yet I cannot say that their bitterness against Englishmen has been justified, or that their tone towards England has been dignified. Their complaint is that they have received no sympathy from England; but it seems to me that a great nation should not require an expression of sympathy during its struggle. Sympathy is for the weak rather than for the strong. When I hear two powerful men contending together in argument, I do not sympathize with him who has the best of it; but I watch the precision of his logic, and acknowledge the effects of his rhetoric. There has been a whining weakness in the complaints made by Americans against England, which has done more to lower them as a people in my judgment than any other part of their conduct during the present crisis. When we were at war with Russia, the feeling of the States was strongly against us. All their wishes were with our enemies. When the Indian mutiny was at its worst, the feeling of France was equally adverse to us. The joy expressed by the French newspapers was almost ecstatic.

But I do not think that on either occasion we bemoaned ourselves sadly on the want of sympathy shown by our friends. On each occasion we took the opinion expressed for what it was worth, and managed to live it down. We listened to what was said, and let it pa.s.s by. When in each case we had been successful, there was an end of our friends'

croakings.

But in the northern States of America the bitterness against England has amounted almost to a pa.s.sion. The players, those chroniclers of the time, have had no hits so sure as those which have been aimed at Englishmen as cowards, fools, and liars. No paper has dared to say that England has been true in her American policy. The name of an Englishman has been made a byword for reproach. In private intercourse private amenities have remained. I, at any rate, may boast that such has been the case as regards myself. But even in private life I have been unable to keep down the feeling that I have always been walking over smothered ashes.

It may be that, when the civil war in America is over, all this will pa.s.s by, and there will be nothing left of international bitterness but its memory. It is sincerely to be hoped that this may be so;--that even the memory of the existing feeling may fade away and become unreal. I for one cannot think that two nations, situated as are the States and England, should permanently quarrel and avoid each other. But words have been spoken which will, I fear, long sound in men's ears, and thoughts have sprung up which will not easily allow themselves to be extinguished.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK.

Speaking of New York as a traveller I have two faults to find with it. In the first place there is nothing to see; and in the second place there is no mode of getting about to see anything. Nevertheless New York is a most interesting city. It is the third biggest city in the known world;--for those Chinese congregations of unwinged ants are not cities in the known world. In no other city is there a population so mixed and cosmopolitan in their modes of life. And yet in no other city that I have seen are there such strong and ever-visible characteristics of the social and political bearings of the nation to which it belongs. New York appears to me as infinitely more American than Boston, Chicago, or Washington. It has no peculiar attribute of its own, as have those three cities; Boston in its literature and accomplished intelligence, Chicago in its internal trade, and Washington in its congressional and State politics.

New York has its literary aspirations, its commercial grandeur, and,--heaven knows,--it has its politics also. But these do not strike the visitor as being specially characteristic of the city.

That it is pre-eminently American is its glory or its disgrace,--as men of different ways of thinking may decide upon it. Free inst.i.tutions, general education, and the ascendancy of dollars are the words written on every paving-stone along Fifth Avenue, down Broadway, and up Wall Street. Every man can vote, and values the privilege. Every man can read, and uses the privilege. Every man worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to night.

As regards voting and reading no American will be angry with me for saying so much of him; and no Englishman, whatever may be his ideas as to the franchise in his own country, will conceive that I have said aught to the dishonour of an American. But as to that dollar-worshipping, it will of course seem that I am abusing the New Yorkers. We all know what a wretchedly wicked thing money is! How it stands between us and heaven! How it hardens our hearts, and makes vulgar our thoughts! Dives has ever gone to the devil, while Lazarus has been laid up in heavenly lavender. The hand that employs itself in compelling gold to enter the service of man has always been stigmatized as the ravisher of things sacred. The world is agreed about that, and therefore the New Yorker is in a bad way. There are very few citizens in any town known to me which under this dispensation are in a good way, but the New Yorker is in about the worst way of all. Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the New Yorker is always on his knees.

That is the amount of the charge which I bring against New York; and now having laid on my paint thickly, I shall proceed, like an unskilful artist, to sc.r.a.pe a great deal of it off again. New York has been a leading commercial city in the world for not more than fifty or sixty years. As far as I can learn, its population at the close of the last century did not exceed 60,000, and ten years later it had not reached 100,000. In 1860 it had reached nearly 800,000 in the city of New York itself. To this number must be added the numbers of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, and the city of New Jersey, in order that a true conception may be had of the population of this American metropolis, seeing that those places are as much a part of New York as Southwark is of London. By this the total will be swelled to considerably above a million. It will no doubt be admitted that this growth has been very fast, and that New York may well be proud of it.

Increase of population is, I take it, the only trustworthy sign of a nation's success or of a city's success. We boast that London has beaten the other cities of the world, and think that that boast is enough to cover all the social sins for which London has to confess her guilt. New York beginning with 60,000 sixty years since has now a million souls;--a million mouths, all of which eat a sufficiency of bread, all of which speak _ore rotundo_, and almost all of which can read. And this has come of its love of dollars.

For myself I do not believe that Dives is so black as he is painted, or that his peril is so imminent. To reconcile such an opinion with holy writ might place me in some difficulty were I a clergyman.