The Columbiad: A Poem Part 28

This note is written at the moment when Louisiana, one of the most extensive but least peopled of the French colonies, is ceded to the United States. The world will see how far the above theory will now be confirmed by the rapid increase of population and improvement in that interesting portion of our continent.

No. 34.

_Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne, And the tame thunder from the tempest torn._

Book V. Line 429.

Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.

This epigraph, written by Turgot on the bust of Franklin, seems to have been imitated from a line in Manilius; where noticing the progress of science in ascribing things to their natural and proper causes instead of supernatural ones, he says,

Eriput Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi, Et sonitum ventis concessit, nubibus ignem.

No. 35.

_And Knox from his full park to battle brings His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings._

Book V. Line 665.

Ultima ratio regum; a device of Louis XIV engraved on his ordnance, and afterwards adopted by other powers. When we consider men as reasonable beings and endowed with the qualities requisite for living together in society, this device looks like a satire upon the species; but in reality it only proves the imperfect state to which their own principles of society have yet advanced them in the long and perhaps interminable progress of which they are susceptible. This _ultima ratio_ being already taken out of the hands of individuals and confided only to the chiefs of nations is as clear a proof of a great progress already made, as its remaining in the hands of those chiefs is a proof that we still remain far short of that degree of wisdom and experience which will enable all the nations to live at peace one with another.

There certainly was a time when the same device might have been written on the hatchet or club or fist of every man; and the best weapon of destruction that he could wield against his neighbour might have been called _ultima ratio virarum_, meaning that human reason could go no farther. But the wisdom we have drawn from experience has taught us to restrain the use of mortal weapons, making it unlawful and showing it to be unreasonable to use them in private disputes. The principles of social intercourse and the advantages of peace are so far understood as to enable men to form great societies, and to submit their personal misunderstandings to common judges; thus removing the ultima ratio from their own private hands to the hands of their government.

Hitherto there has usually been a government to every nation; but the nations are increasing in size and diminis.h.i.+ng in number; so that the hands which now hold the _ultima ratio_ by delegation are few, compared with what they have been. I mean this observation to apply only to those extensions of nationality which have been formed on the true principles of society and acquiesced in from a sense of their utility. I mean not to apply it to those unnatural and unwieldy stretches of power, whose overthrow is often and erroneously cited as an argument against the progress of civilization; such as the conquests of Alexander, the Roman generals, Omar, Gengis Khan and others of that brilliant description. These are but meteors of compulsive force, which pa.s.s away and discourage, rather than promote, the spirit of national extension of which I speak.

This spirit operates constantly and kindly; nor is its progress so slow but that it is easily perceived. Even within the short memorials of modern history we find a heptarchy in England. Ossian informs us that in his time there was a great number of warlike states in Ireland and as many more in Scotland. Without going back to the writings of Julius Cesar to discover the comparative condition of France, we may almost remember when she counted within her limits six or seven different governments, generally at war among themselves and inviting foreign enemies to come and help them destroy each other. Every province in Spain is still called a kingdom; and it is not long since they were really so in fact, with the _ultima ratio_ in the hands of every king.

The publicist who in any of those modern heroic ages could have imagined that all the hundred nations who inhabited the western borders of Europe, from the Orknies to Gibraltar, might one day become so far united in manners and interests as to form but three great nations, would certainly have pa.s.sed for a madman. Had he been a minister of Phararnond or of Fingal he could no more have kept his place than Turgot could keep his after pointing out the means of promoting industry and preventing wars. He would have been told that the inhabitants of each side of the Humber were natural enemies one to the other; that if their chiefs were even disposed to live in peace they could not do it; their subjects would demand war and could not live without it. The same would have been said of the Seine, the Loire and every other dividing line between their petty communities. It would have been insisted on that such rivers were the natural boundaries of states and never could be otherwise.

But now since the people of those districts find themselves no longer on the frontiers of little warlike states, but in the centre of great industrious nations, they have lost their relish for war, and consider it as a terrible calamity; they cherish the minister who gives them peace, and abhor the one who drives them into unnecessary wars. Their local disputes, which used to be settled by the sword, are now referred to the tribunals of the country. They have subst.i.tuted a moral to a physical force. They have changed the habits of plunder for those of industry; and they find themselves richer and happier for the change.

Who will say that the progress of society will stop short in the present stage of its career? that great communities will not discover a mode of arbitrating their disputes, as little ones have done? that nations will not lay aside their present ideas of independence and rivals.h.i.+p, and find themselves more happy and more secure in one great universal society, which shall contain within itself its own principles of defence, its own permanent security? It is evident that national security, in order to be permanent, must be founded on the moral force of society at large, and not on the physical force of each nation independently exerted. The _ultima ratio_ must not be a cannon, but a reference to some rational mode of decision worthy of rational beings.

No. 36.

_Else what high tones of rapture must have told The first great action of a chief so bold!_

Book V. Line 767.

General Arnold, the leader of this detachment, had acquired by this and many other brilliant achievements a degree of military fame almost unequalled among the American generals. His shameful defection afterwards, by the foulest of treason, should be lamented as a national dishonor; it has not only obliterated his own glory, but it seems in some sort to have cast a shade on that of others whose brave actions had been a.s.sociated with his in the acquisition of their common and unadulterated fame.

The action here alluded to, the march thro the wilderness from Casco to Quebec, was compared in the gazettes of that day to the pa.s.sage of the Alps by Hannibal. And really, considered as a scene of true military valor, patient suffering and heroic exertion (detached from the idea of subsequent success in the ulterior expedition) the comparison did not disgrace the Carthaginian. Yet since the defection of Arnold, which happened five years afterwards, this audacious and once celebrated exploit is scarcely mentioned in our annals. And Meigs, Dearborn, Morgan and other distinguished officers in the expedition, whom that alone might have immortalized, have been indebted to their subsequent exertions of patriotic valor for the share of celebrity their names now enjoy.

See the character of Arnold treated more at large in the sixth book.

No. 37.

_See the black Prison s.h.i.+p's expanding womb Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb._

Book VI. Line 35.

The systematic and inflexible course of cruelties exercised by the British armies on American prisoners during the three first years of the war were doubtless unexampled among civilized nations. Considering it as a war against rebels, neither their officers nor soldiers conceived themselves bound by the ordinary laws of war.

The detail of facts on this subject, especially in what concerned the prison s.h.i.+ps, has not been sufficiently noticed in our annals; at least not so much noticed as the interest of public morals would seem to require. Mr.

Boudinot, who was the American commissary of prisoners at the time, has since informed the author of this poem that in one prison s.h.i.+p alone, called the Jersey, which was anch.o.r.ed near Newyork, _eleven thousand_ American prisoners died in eighteen months; almost the whole of them from the barbarous treatment of being stifled in a crowded hold with infected air, and poisoned with unwholesome food.

There were several other prison s.h.i.+ps, as well as the sugar-house prison in the city, whose histories ought to be better known than they are. I say this not from any sort of enmity to the British nation, for I have none. I respect the British nation; as will be evident from the views I have given of her genius and inst.i.tutions in the course of this work. I would at all times render that nation every service consistent with my duty to my own; and surely it is worthy of her magnanimity to consider as a real service every true information given her relative to the crimes of her agents in distant countries. These crimes are as contrary to the spirit of the nation at home as they are to the temper of her laws.

No. 38.

_Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd, Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;_

Book VI, Line 273.

General Burgoyne had gained some celebrity by his pen, as well as by his sword, previous to the American war. He was author of the comedy called _The Heiress_, and of some other theatrical pieces which had been well received on the London theatres.

No. 39.

_Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides Their bounding larges o'er his sacred tides._

Book VI. Line 285.

The water of Lake George was held in particular veneration by the French catholics of Canada. Of this they formerly made their holy water; which was carried and distributed to the churches thro the province, and probably produced part of the revenues of the clergy. This water is said to have been chosen for the purpose on account of its extreme clearness. The lake was called _Lac du Saint Sacrement_.

No. 40.

_His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads, Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,_