The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 9

Then it was--when the people of Spain were thus rouzed; after this manner released from the natal burthen of that government which had bowed them to the ground; in the free use of their understandings, and in the play and 'n.o.ble rage' of their pa.s.sions; while yet the new authorities, which they had generated, were truly living members of their body, and (as I have said) organs of their life: when that numerous people were in a stage of their journey which could not be accomplished without the spirit which was then prevalent in them, and which (as might be feared) would too soon abate of itself;--then it was that we--not we, but the heads of the British army and Nation--when, if they could not breathe a favouring breath, they ought at least to have stood at an awful distance--stepped in with their forms, their impediments, their rotten customs and precedents, their narrow desires, their busy and purblind fears; and called out to these aspiring travellers to halt--'For ye are in a dream;' confounded them (for it was the voice of a seeming friend that spoke); and spell-bound them, as far as was possible, by an instrument framed 'in the eclipse' and sealed 'with curses dark.'--In a word, we had the power to act up to the most sacred letter of justice--and this at a time when the mandates of justice were of an affecting obligation such as had never before been witnessed; and we plunged into the lowest depths of injustice:--We had power to give a brotherly aid to our Allies in supporting the mighty world which their shoulders had undertaken to uphold; and, while they were expecting from us this aid, we undermined--without forewarning them--the ground upon which they stood. The evil is incalculable; and the stain will cleave to the British name as long as the story of this island shall endure.

Did we not (if, from this comprehensive feeling of sorrow, I may for a moment descend to particulars)--did we not send forth a general, one whom, since his return, Court, and Parliament, and Army, have been at strife with each other which shall most caress and applaud--a general, who, in defending the armistice which he himself had signed, said in open Court that he deemed that the French army was _ent.i.tled_ to such terms. The people of Spain had, through the Supreme Junta of Seville, thus spoken of this same army: 'Ye have, among yourselves, the objects of your vengeance;--attack them;--they are but a handful of miserable panic-struck men, humiliated and conquered already by their perfidy and cruelties;--resist and destroy them: our united efforts will extirpate this perfidious nation.' The same Spaniards had said (speaking officially of the state of the whole Peninsula, and no doubt with their eye especially upon this army in Portugal)--'Our enemies have taken up exactly those positions in which they may most easily be destroyed'--Where then did the British General find this right and t.i.tle of the French army in Portugal? 'Because,' says he in military language, 'it was not broken.'--Of the MAN, and of the understanding and heart of the man--of the CITIZEN, who could think and feel after this manner in such circ.u.mstances, it is needless to speak; but to the GENERAL I will say, This is most pitiable pedantry. If the instinctive wisdom of your Ally could not be understood, you might at least have remembered the resolute policy of your enemy. The French army was not broken? Break it then--wither it--pursue it with unrelenting warfare--hunt it out of its holds;--if impetuosity be not justifiable, have recourse to patience--to watchfulness--to obstinacy: at all events, never for a moment forget who the foe is--and that he is in your power. This is the example which the French Ruler and his Generals have given you at Ulm--at Lubeck--in Switzerland--over the whole plain of Prussia--every where;--and this for the worst deeds of darkness; while your's was the n.o.blest service of light.

This remonstrance has been forced from me by indignation:--let me explain in what sense I propose, with calmer thought, that the example of our enemy should be imitated.--The laws and customs of war, and the maxims of policy, have all had their foundation in reason and humanity; and their object has been the attainment or security of some real or supposed--some positive or relative--good. They are established among men as ready guides for the understanding, and authorities to which the pa.s.sions are taught to pay deference. But the relations of things to each other are perpetually changing; and in course of time many of these leaders and masters, by losing part of their power to do service and sometimes the whole, forfeit in proportion their right to obedience.

Accordingly they are disregarded in some instances, and sink insensibly into neglect with the general improvement of society. But they often survive when they have become an oppression and a hindrance which cannot be cast off decisively, but by an impulse--rising either from the absolute knowledge of good and great men,--or from the partial insight which is given to superior minds, though of a vitiated moral const.i.tution,--or lastly from that blind energy and those habits of daring which are often found in men who, checked by no restraint of morality, suffer their evil pa.s.sions to gain extraordinary strength in extraordinary circ.u.mstances. By any of these forces may the tyranny be broken through. We have seen, in the conduct of our Countrymen, to what degree it tempts to weak actions,--and furnishes excuse for them, admitted by those who sit as judges. I wish then that we could so far imitate our enemies as, like them, to shake off these bonds; but not, like them, from the worst--but from the worthiest impulse. If this were done, we should have learned how much of their practice would harmonize with justice; have learned to distinguish between those rules which ought to be wholly abandoned, and those which deserve to be retained; and should have known when, and to what point, they ought to be trusted.--But how is this to be? Power of mind is wanting, where there is power of place. Even we cannot, as a beginning of a new journey, force or win our way into the current of success, the flattering motion of which would awaken intellectual courage--the only subst.i.tute which is able to perform any arduous part of the secondary work of 'heroic wisdom;'--I mean, execute happily any of its prudential regulations. In the person of our enemy and his chieftains we have living example how wicked men of ordinary talents are emboldened by success. There is a kindliness, as they feel, in the nature of advancement; and prosperity is their Genius. But let us know and remember that this prosperity, with all the terrible features which it has gradually a.s.sumed, is a child of n.o.ble parents--Liberty and Philanthropic Love. Perverted as the creature is which it has grown up to (rather, into which it has pa.s.sed),--from no inferior stock could it have issued. It is the Fallen Spirit, triumphant in misdeeds, which was formerly a blessed Angel.

If then (to return to ourselves) there be such strong obstacles in the way of our drawing benefit either from the maxims of policy or the principles of justice: what hope remains that the British Nation should repair, by its future conduct, the injury which has been done?--We cannot advance a step towards a rational answer to this question--without previously adverting to the original sources of our miscarriages; which are these:--First; a want, in the minds of the members of government and public functionaries, of knowledge indispensible for this service; and, secondly, a want of power, in the same persons acting in their corporate capacities, to give effect to the knowledge which individually they possess.--Of the latter source of weakness,--this inability as caused by decay in the machine of government, and by illegitimate forces which are checking and controuling its const.i.tutional motions,--I have not spoken, nor shall I now speak: for I have judged it best to suspend my task for a while: and this subject, being in its nature delicate, ought not to be lightly or transiently touched. Besides, no _immediate_ effect can be expected from the soundest and most unexceptionable doctrines which might be laid down for the correcting of this evil.--The former source of weakness,--namely, the want of appropriate and indispensible knowledge,--has, in the past investigation, been reached, and shall be further laid open; not without a hope of some result of _immediate_ good by a direct application to the mind; and in full confidence that the best and surest way to render operative that knowledge which is already possessed--is to increase the stock of knowledge.

Here let me avow that I undertook this present labour as a serious duty; rather, that it was forced (and has been unremittingly pressed) upon me by a perception of justice united with strength of feeling;--in a word, by that power of conscience, calm or impa.s.sioned, to which throughout I have done reverence as the animating spirit of the cause. My work was begun and prosecuted under this controul:--and with the accompanying satisfaction that no charge of presumption could, by a thinking mind, be brought against me: though I had taken upon myself to offer instruction to men who, if they possess not talents and acquirements, have no t.i.tle to the high stations which they hold; who also, by holding those stations, are understood to obtain certain benefit of experience and of knowledge not otherwise to be gained; and who have a further claim to deference--founded upon reputation, even when it is spurious (as much of the reputation of men high in power must necessarily be; their errors being veiled and palliated by the authority attached to their office; while that same authority gives more than due weight and effect to their wiser opinions). Yet, notwithstanding all this, I did not fear the censure of having unbecomingly obtruded counsels or remonstrances. For there can be no presumption, upon a call so affecting as the present, in an attempt to a.s.sert the sanct.i.ty and to display the efficacy of principles and pa.s.sions which are the natural birth-right of man; to some share of which all are born; but an inheritance which may be alienated or consumed; and by none more readily and a.s.suredly than by those who are most eager for the praise of policy, of prudence, of sagacity, and of all those qualities which are the darling virtues of the worldly-wise. Moreover; the evidence to which I have made appeal, in order to establish the truth, is not locked up in cabinets; but is accessible to all; as it exists in the bosoms of men--in the appearances and intercourse of daily life--in the details of pa.s.sing events--and in general history. And more especially is its right import within the reach of him who--taking no part in public measures, and having no concern in the changes of things but as they affect what is most precious in his country and humanity--will doubtless be more alive to those genuine sensations which are the materials of sound judgment. Nor is it to be overlooked that such a man may have more leisure (and probably will have a stronger inclination) to communicate with the records of past ages.

Deeming myself justified then in what has been said,--I will continue to lay open (and, in some degree, to account for) those privations in the materials of judgment, and those delusions of opinion, and infirmities of mind, to which practical Statesmen, and particularly such as are high in office, are more than other men subject;--as containing an answer to that question, so interesting at this juncture,--How far is it in our power to make amends for the harm done?

After the view of things which has been taken,--we may confidently affirm that nothing but a knowledge of human nature directing the operations of our government, can give it a right to an intimate a.s.sociation with a cause which is that of human nature. I say, an intimate a.s.sociation founded on the right of thorough knowledge;--to contradistinguish this best mode of exertion from another which might found _its_ right upon a vast and commanding military power put forth with manifestation of sincere intentions to benefit our Allies--from a conviction merely of policy that their liberty, independence, and honour, are our genuine gain;--to distinguish the pure brotherly connection from this other (in its appearance at least more magisterial) which such a power, guided by such intention uniformly displayed, might authorize. But of the former connection (which supposes the main military effort to be made, even at present, by the people of the Peninsula on whom the moral interest more closely presses), and of the knowledge which it demands, I have hitherto spoken--and have further to speak.

It is plain _a priori_ that the minds of Statesmen and Courtiers are unfavourable to the growth of this knowledge. For they are in a situation exclusive and artificial; which has the further disadvantage, that it does not separate men from men by collateral part.i.tions which leave, along with difference, a sense of equality--that they, who are divided, are yet upon the same level; but by a degree of superiority which can scarcely fail to be accompanied with more or less of pride.

This situation therefore must be eminently unfavourable for the reception and establishment of that knowledge which is founded not upon things but upon sensations;--sensations which are general, and under general influences (and this it is which makes them what they are, and gives them their importance);--not upon things which may be _brought_; but upon sensations which must be _met_. Pa.s.sing by the kindred and usually accompanying influence of birth in a certain rank--and, where education has been pre-defined from childhood for the express purpose of future political power, the tendency of such education to warp (and therefore weaken) the intellect;--we may join at once, with the privation which I have been noticing, a delusion equally common. It is this: that practical Statesmen a.s.sume too much credit to themselves for their ability to see into the motives and manage the selfish pa.s.sions of their immediate agents and dependants; and for the skill with which they baffle or resist the aims of their opponents. A promptness in looking through the most superficial part of the characters of those men--who, by the very circ.u.mstance of their contending ambitiously for the rewards and honours of government, are separated from the ma.s.s of the society to which they belong--is mistaken for a knowledge of human kind. Hence, where higher knowledge is a prime requisite, they not only are unfurnished, but, being unconscious that they are so, they look down contemptuously upon those who endeavour to supply (in some degree) their want.--The instincts of natural and social man; the deeper emotions; the simpler feelings; the s.p.a.cious range of the disinterested imagination; the pride in country for country's sake, when to serve has not been a formal profession--and the mind is therefore left in a state of dignity only to be surpa.s.sed by having served n.o.bly and generously; the instantaneous accomplishment in which they start up who, upon a searching call, stir for the Land which they love--not from personal motives, but for a reward which is undefined and cannot be missed; the solemn fraternity which a great Nation composes--gathered together, in a stormy season, under the shade of ancestral feeling; the delicacy of moral honour which pervades the minds of a people, when despair has been suddenly thrown off and expectations are lofty; the apprehensiveness to a touch unkindly or irreverent, where sympathy is at once exacted as a tribute and welcomed as a gift; the power of injustice and inordinate calamity to trans.m.u.te, to invigorate, and to govern--to sweep away the barriers of opinion--to reduce under submission pa.s.sions purely evil--to exalt the nature of indifferent qualities, and to render them fit companions for the absolute virtues with which they are summoned to a.s.sociate--to consecrate pa.s.sions which, if not bad in themselves, are of such temper that, in the calm of ordinary life, they are rightly deemed so--to correct and embody these pa.s.sions--and, without weakening them (nay, with tenfold addition to their strength), to make them worthy of taking their place as the advanced guard of hope, when a sublime movement of deliverance is to be originated;--these arrangements and resources of nature, these ways and means of society, have so little connection with those others upon which a ruling minister of a long-established government is accustomed to depend; these--elements as it were of a universe, functions of a living body--are so opposite, in their mode of action, to the formal machine which it has been his pride to manage;--that he has but a faint perception of their immediate efficacy; knows not the facility with which they a.s.similate with other powers; nor the property by which such of them--as, from necessity of nature, must change or pa.s.s away--will, under wise and fearless management, surely generate lawful successors to fill their place when their appropriate work is performed. Nay, of the majority of men, who are usually found in high stations under old governments, it may without injustice be said; that, when they look about them in times (alas! too rare) which present the glorious product of such agency to their eyes, they have not a right, to say--with a dejected man in the midst of the woods, the rivers, the mountains, the suns.h.i.+ne, and shadows of some transcendant landscape--

'I see, not feel, how beautiful they are:'

These spectators neither see nor feel. And it is from the blindness and insensibility of these, and the train whom they draw along with them, that the throes of nations have been so ill recompensed by the births which have followed; and that revolutions, after pa.s.sing from crime to crime and from sorrow to sorrow, have often ended in throwing back such heavy reproaches of delusiveness upon their first promises.

I am satisfied that no enlightened Patriot will impute to me a wish to disparage the characters of men high in authority, or to detract from the estimation which is fairly due to them. My purpose is to guard against unreasonable expectations. That specific knowledge,--the paramount importance of which, in the present condition of Europe, I am insisting upon,--they, who usually fill places of high trust in old governments, neither do--nor, for the most part, can--possess: nor is it necessary, for the administration of affairs in ordinary circ.u.mstances, that they should.--The progress of their own country, and of the other nations of the world, in civilization, in true refinement, in science, in religion, in morals, and in all the real wealth of humanity, might indeed be quicker, and might correspond more happily with the wishes of the benevolent,--if Governors better understood the rudiments of nature as studied in the walks of common life; if they were men who had themselves felt every strong emotion 'inspired by nature and by fortune taught;' and could calculate upon the force of the grander pa.s.sions.

Yet, at the same time, there is temptation in this. To know may seduce; and to have been agitated may compel. Arduous cares are attractive for their own sakes. Great talents are naturally driven towards hazard and difficulty; as it is there that they are most sure to find their exercise, and their evidence, and joy in antic.i.p.ated triumph--the liveliest of all sensations. Moreover; magnificent desires, when least under the bias of personal feeling, dispose the mind--more than itself is conscious of--to regard commotion with complacency, and to watch the aggravations of distress with welcoming; from an immoderate confidence that, when the appointed day shall come, it will be in the power of intellect to relieve. There is danger in being a zealot in any cause--not excepting that of humanity. Nor is it to be forgotten that the incapacity and ignorance of the regular agents of long-established governments do not prevent some progress in the dearest concerns of men; and that society may owe to these very deficiencies, and to the tame and unenterprizing course which they necessitate, much security and tranquil enjoyment.

Nor, on the other hand, (for reasons which may be added to those already given) is it so desirable as might at first sight be imagined, much less is it desirable as an absolute good, that men of comprehensive sensibility and tutored genius--either for the interests of mankind or for their own--should, in ordinary times, have vested in them political power. The Empire, which they hold, is more independent: its const.i.tuent parts are sustained by a stricter connection: the dominion is purer and of higher origin; as mind is more excellent than body--the search of truth an employment more inherently dignified than the application of force--the determinations of nature more venerable than the accidents of human inst.i.tution. Chance and disorder, vexation and disappointment, malignity and perverseness within or without the mind, are a sad exchange for the steady and genial processes of reason. Moreover; worldly distinctions and offices of command do not lie in the path--nor are they any part of the appropriate retinue--of Philosophy and Virtue.

Nothing, but a strong spirit of love, can counteract the consciousness of pre-eminence which ever attends pre-eminent intellectual power with correspondent attainments: and this spirit of love is best encouraged by humility and simplicity in mind, manners, and conduct of life; virtues, to which wisdom leads. But,--though these be virtues in a Man, a Citizen, or a Sage,--they cannot be recommended to the especial culture of the Political or Military Functionary; and still less of the Civil Magistrate. Him, in the exercise of his functions, it will often become to carry himself highly and with state; in order that evil may be suppressed, and authority respected by those who have not understanding.

The power also of office, whether the duties be discharged well or ill, will ensure a never-failing supply of flattery and praise: and of these--a man (becoming at once double-dealer and dupe) may, without impeachment of his modesty, receive as much as his weakness inclines him to; under the shew that the homage is not offered up to himself, but to that portion of the public dignity which is lodged in his person. But, whatever may be the cause, the fact is certain--that there is an unconquerable tendency in all power, save that of knowledge acting by and through knowledge, to injure the mind of him who exercises that power; so much so, that best natures cannot escape the evil of such alliance. Nor is it less certain that things of soundest quality, issuing through a medium to which they have only an arbitrary relation, are vitiated: and it is inevitable that there should be a reascent of unkindly influence to the heart of him from whom the gift, thus unfairly dealt with, proceeded.--In ill.u.s.tration of these remarks, as connected with the management of States, we need only refer to the Empire of China--where superior endowments of mind and acquisitions of learning are the sole acknowledged t.i.tle to offices of great trust; and yet in no country is the government more bigotted or intolerant, or society less progressive.

To prevent misconception; and to silence (at least to throw discredit upon) the clamours of ignorance;--I have thought proper thus, in some sort, to strike a balance between the claims of men of routine--and men of original and accomplished minds--to the management of State affairs in ordinary circ.u.mstances. But ours is not an age of this character: and,--after having seen such a long series of misconduct, so many unjustifiable attempts made and sometimes carried into effect, good endeavours frustrated, disinterested wishes thwarted, and benevolent hopes disappointed,--it is reasonable that we should endeavour to ascertain to what cause these evils are to be ascribed. I have directed the attention of the Reader to one primary cause: and can he doubt of its existence, and of the operation which I have attributed to it?

In the course of the last thirty years we have seen two wars waged against Liberty--the American war, and the war against the French People in the early stages of their Revolution. In the latter instance the Emigrants and the Continental Powers and the British did, in all their expectations and in every movement of their efforts, manifest a common ignorance--originating in the same source. And, for what more especially belongs to ourselves at this time, we may affirm--that the same presumptuous irreverence of the principles of justice, and blank insensibility to the affections of human nature, which determined the conduct of our government in those two wars _against_ liberty, have continued to accompany its exertions in the present struggle _for_ liberty,--and have rendered them fruitless. The British government deems (no doubt), on its own part, that its intentions are good. It must not deceive itself: nor must we deceive ourselves. Intentions--thoroughly good--could not mingle with the unblessed actions which we have witnessed. A disinterested and pure intention is a light that guides as well as cheers, and renders desperate lapses impossible.

Our duty is--our aim ought to be--to employ the true means of liberty and virtue for the ends of liberty and virtue. In such policy, thoroughly understood, there is fitness and concord and rational subordination; it deserves a higher name--organization, health, and grandeur. Contrast, in a single instance, the two processes; and the qualifications which they require. The ministers of that period found it an easy task to hire a band of Hessians, and to send it across the Atlantic, that they might a.s.sist _in bringing the Americans_ (according to the phrase then prevalent) _to reason_. The force, with which these troops would attack, was gross,--tangible,--and might be calculated; but the spirit of resistance, which their presence would create, was subtle--ethereal--mighty--and incalculable. Accordingly, from the moment when these foreigners landed--men who had no interest, no business, in the quarrel, but what the wages of their master bound him to, and he imposed upon his miserable slaves;--nay, from the first rumour of their destination, the success of the British was (as hath since been affirmed by judicious Americans) impossible.

The British government of the present day have been seduced, as we have seen, by the same commonplace facilities on the one side; and have been equally blind on the other. A physical auxiliar force of thirty-five thousand men is to be added to the army of Spain: but the moral energy, which thereby _might_ be taken away from the princ.i.p.al, is overlooked or slighted; the material being too fine for their calculation. What does it avail to graft a bough upon a tree; if this be done so ignorantly and rashly that the trunk, which can alone supply the sap by which the whole must flourish, receives a deadly wound? Palpable effects of the Convention of Cintra, and self-contradicting consequences even in the matter especially aimed at, may be seen in the necessity which it entailed of leaving 8,000 British troops to protect Portugueze traitors from punishment by the laws of their country. A still more serious and fatal contradiction lies in this--that the English army was made an instrument of injustice, and was dishonoured, in order that it might be hurried forward to uphold a cause which could have no life but by justice and honour. The Nation knows how that army languished in the heart of Spain: that it accomplished nothing except its retreat, is sure: what great service it might have performed, if it had moved from a different impulse, we have shewn.

It surely then behoves those who are in authority--to look to the state of their own minds. There is indeed an inherent impossibility that they should be equal to the arduous duties which have devolved upon them: but it is not unreasonable to hope that something higher might be aimed at; and that the People might see, upon great occasions,--in the practice of its Rulers--a more adequate reflection of its own wisdom and virtue. Our Rulers, I repeat, must begin with their own minds. This is a precept of immediate urgency; and, if attended to, might be productive of immediate good. I will follow it with further conclusions directly referring to future conduct.

I will not suppose that any ministry of this country can be so abject, so insensible, and unwise, as to abandon the Spaniards and Portugueze while there is a Patriot in arms; or, if the people should for a time be subjugated, to deny them a.s.sistance the moment they rise to require it again. I cannot think so unfavourably of my country as to suppose this possible. Let men in power, however, take care (and let the nation be equally careful) not to receive any reports from our army--of the disposition of the Spanish people--without mistrust. The British generals, who were in Portugal (the whole body of them,[21] according to the statement of Sir Hew Dalrymple), approved of the Convention of Cintra; and have thereby shewn that _their_ communications are not to be relied upon in this case. And indeed there is not any information, which we can receive upon this subject, that is so little trustworthy as that which comes from our army--or from any part of it. The opportunities of notice, afforded to soldiers in actual service, must necessarily be very limited; and a thousand things stand in the way of their power to make a right use of these. But a retreating army, in the country of an Ally;--harra.s.sed and dissatisfied; willing to find a reason for its failures in any thing but itself, and actually not without much solid ground for complaint; retreating; sometimes, perhaps, fugitive; and, in its disorder, tempted (and even forced) to commit offences upon the people of the district through which it pa.s.ses; while they, in their turn, are filled with fear and inconsiderate anger;--an army, in such a condition, must needs be incapable of seeing objects as they really are; and, at the same time, all things must change in its presence, and put on their most unfavourable appearances.

[21] From this number, however, must be excepted the gallant and patriotic General Ferguson. For that officer has had the virtue publicly and in the most emphatic manner, upon two occasions, to reprobate the whole transaction.

Deeming it then not to be doubted that the British government will continue its endeavours to support its Allies; one or other of two maxims of policy follows obviously from the painful truths which we have been considering:--Either, first, that we should put forth to the utmost our strength as a military power--strain it to the very last point, and prepare (no erect mind will start at the proposition) to pour into the Peninsula a force of two hundred thousand men or more,--and make ourselves for a time, upon Spanish ground, princ.i.p.als in the contest; or, secondly, that we should direct our attention to giving support rather in _Things_ than in Men.

The former plan, though requiring a great effort and many sacrifices, is (I have no doubt) practicable: its difficulties would yield to a bold and energetic Ministry, in despite of the present const.i.tution of Parliament. The Militia, if they had been called upon at the beginning of the rising in the Peninsula, would (I believe)--almost to a man--have offered their services: so would many of the Volunteers in their individual capacity. They would do so still. The advantages of this plan would be--that the power, which would attend it, must (if judiciously directed) insure unity of effort; taming down, by its dignity, the discords which usually prevail among allied armies; and subordinating to itself the affections of the Spanish and Portugueze by the palpable service which it was rendering to their Country. A further encouragement for adopting this plan he will find, who perceives that the military power of our Enemy is not in substance so formidable, by many--many degrees of terror, as outwardly it appears to be. The last campaign has not been wholly without advantage: since it has proved that the French troops are indebted, for their victories, to the imbecility of their opponents far more than to their own discipline or courage--or even to the skill and talents of their Generals. There is a superst.i.tion hanging over us which the efforts of our army (not to speak of the Spaniards) have, I hope, removed.--But their mighty numbers!--In that is a delusion of another kind. In the former instance, year after year we imagined things to be what they were not: and in this, by a more fatal and more common delusion, the thought of what things really are--precludes the thought of what in a moment they may become: the mind, overlaid by the present, cannot lift itself to attain a glimpse of the future.

All--which is comparatively inherent, or can lay claim to any degree of permanence, in the tyranny which the French Nation maintains over Europe--rests upon two foundations:--First; Upon the despotic rule which has been established in France over a powerful People who have lately pa.s.sed from a state of revolution, in which they supported a struggle begun for domestic liberty, and long continued for liberty and national independence:--and, secondly, upon the personal character of the Man by whom that rule is exercised.

As to the former; every one knows that Despotism, in a general sense, is but another word for weakness. Let one generation disappear; and a people over whom such rule has been extended, if it have not virtue to free itself, is condemned to embarra.s.sment in the operations of its government, and to perpetual languor; with no better hope than that which may spring from the diseased activity of some particular Prince on whom the authority may happen to devolve. This, if it takes a regular hereditary course: but,--if the succession be interrupted, and the supreme power frequently usurped or given by election,--worse evils follow. Science and Art must dwindle, whether the power be hereditary or not: and the virtues of a Trajan or an Antonine are a hollow support for the feeling of contentment and happiness in the hearts of their subjects: such virtues are even a painful mockery;--something that is, and may vanish in a moment, and leave the monstrous crimes of a Caracalla or a Domitian in its place,--men, who are probably leaders of a long procession of their kind. The feebleness of despotic power we have had before our eyes in the late condition of Spain and Prussia; and in that of France before the Revolution; and in the present condition of Austria and Russia. But, in a _new-born_ arbitrary and military Government (especially if, like that of France, it have been immediately preceded by a popular Const.i.tution), not only this weakness is not found; but it possesses, for the purposes of external annoyance, a preternatural vigour. Many causes contribute to this: we need only mention that, fitness--real or supposed--being necessarily the chief (and almost sole) recommendation to offices of trust, it is clear that such offices will in general be ably filled; and their duties, comparatively, well executed: and that, from the conjunction of absolute civil and military authority in a single Person, there naturally follows promptness of decision; concentration of effort; rapidity of motion; and confidence that the movements made will be regularly supported. This is all which need now be said upon the subject of this first basis of French Tyranny.

For the second--namely, the personal character of the Chief; I shall at present content myself with noting (to prevent misconception) that this basis is not laid in any superiority of talents in him, but in his utter rejection of the restraints of morality--in wickedness which acknowledges no limit but the extent of its own power. Let any one reflect a moment; and he will feel that a new world of forces is opened to a Being who has made this desperate leap. It is a tremendous principle to be adopted, and steadily adhered to, by a man in the station which Buonaparte occupies; and he has taken the full benefit of it. What there is in this principle of weak, perilous, and self-destructive--I may find a grateful employment in endeavouring to shew upon some future occasion. But it is a duty which we owe to the present moment to proclaim--in vindication of the dignity of human nature, and for an admonition to men of prostrate spirit--that the dominion, which this Enemy of mankind holds, has neither been acquired nor is sustained by endowments of intellect which are rarely bestowed, or by uncommon acc.u.mulations of knowledge; but that it has risen from circ.u.mstances over which he had no influence; circ.u.mstances which, with the power they conferred, have stimulated pa.s.sions whose natural food hath been and is ignorance; from the barbarian impotence and insolence of a mind--originally of ordinary const.i.tution--lagging, in moral sentiment and knowledge, three hundred years behind the age in which it acts. In such manner did the power originate; and, by the forces which I have described, is it maintained. This should be declared: and it should be added--that the crimes of Buonaparte are more to be abhorred than those of other denaturalized creatures whose actions are painted in History; because the Author of those crimes is guilty with less temptation, and sins in the presence of a clearer light.

No doubt in the command of almost the whole military force of Europe (the subject which called upon me to make these distinctions) he has, _at this moment_, a third source of power which may be added to these two. He himself rates this last so high--either is, or affects to be, so persuaded of its pre-eminence--that he boldly announces to the world that it is madness, and even impiety, to resist him. And sorry may we be to remember that there are British Senators, who (if a judgement may be formed from the language which they speak) are inclined to accompany him far in this opinion. But the enormity of this power has in it nothing _inherent_ or _permanent_. Two signal overthrows in pitched battles would, I believe, go far to destroy it. Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swiss, Poles, would desert the army of Buonaparte, and flock to the standard of his Adversaries, from the moment they could look towards it with that confidence which one or two conspicuous victories would inspire. A regiment of 900 Swiss joined the British army in Portugal; and, if the French had been compelled to surrender as Prisoners of War, we should have seen that all those troops, who were not native Frenchmen, would (if encouragement had been given) have joined the British: and the opportunity that was lost of demonstrating this fact--was not among the least of the mischiefs which attended the termination of the campaign.--In a word; the vastness of Buonaparte's military power is formidable--not because it is impossible to break it; but because it has not yet been penetrated. In this respect it may not inaptly be compared to a huge pine-forest (such as are found in the Northern parts of this Island), whose ability to resist the storms is in its skirts: let but the blast once make an inroad; and it levels the forest, and sweeps it away at pleasure. A hundred thousand men, such as fought at Vimiera and Corunna, would accomplish three such victories as I have been antic.i.p.ating. This Nation _might_ command a military force which would drive the French out of the Peninsula: I do not say that we could sustain there a military force which would prevent their re-entering; but that we could transplant thither, by a great effort, one which would expel them:--_This_ I maintain: and it is matter of thought in which infirm minds may find both reproach and instruction. The Spaniards could then take possession of their own fortresses; and have leisure to give themselves a blended civil and military organization, complete and animated by liberty; which, if once accomplished, they would be able to protect themselves. The oppressed Continental Powers also, seeing such unquestionable proof that Great Britain was sincere and earnest, would lift their heads again; and, by so doing, would lighten the burthen of war which might remain for the Spaniards.

In treating of this plan--I have presumed that a General might be placed at the head of this great military power who would not sign a Treaty like that of the Convention of Cintra, and say (look at the proceedings of the Board of Inquiry) that he was determined to this by 'British interests;' or frame _any_ Treaty in the country of an Ally (save one purely military for the honourable preservation, if necessary, of his own army or part of it) to which the sole, or even the main, inducement was--our interests contra-distinguished from those of that Ally;--a General and a Ministry whose policy would be comprehensive enough to perceive that the true welfare of Britain is best promoted by the independence, freedom, and honour of other Nations; and that it is only by the diffusion and prevalence of these virtues that French Tyranny can be ultimately reduced; or the influence of France over the rest of Europe brought within its natural and reasonable limits.

If this attempt be 'above the strain and temper' of the country, there remains only a plan laid down upon the other principles; namely, service (as far as is required) in _things_ rather than in men; that is, men being secondary to things. It is not, I fear, possible that the moral sentiments of the British Army or Government should accord with those of Spain in her present condition. Commanding power indeed (as hath been said), put forth in the repulse of the common enemy, would tend, more effectually than any thing save the prevalence of true wisdom, to prevent disagreement, and to obviate any temporary injury which the moral spirit of the Spaniards might receive from us: at all events--such power, should there ensue any injury, would bring a solid compensation.

But from a middle course--an a.s.sociation sufficiently intimate and wide to scatter every where unkindly pa.s.sions, and yet unable to attain the salutary point of decisive power--no good is to be expected. Great would be the evil, at this momentous period, if the hatred of the Spaniards should look two ways. Let it be as steadily fixed upon the French, as the Pilot's eye upon his mark. Military stores and arms should be furnished with unfailing liberality: let Troops also be supplied; but let these act separately,--taking strong positions upon the coast, if such can be found, to employ twice their numbers of the Enemy; and, above all, let there be floating Armies--keeping the Enemy in constant uncertainty where he is to be attacked. The peninsula frame of Spain and Portugal lays that region open to the full shock of British warfare. Our Fleet and Army should act, wherever it is possible, as parts of one body--a right hand and a left; and the Enemy ought to be made to feel the force of both.

But--whatever plans be adopted--there can be no success, unless the execution be entrusted to Generals of competent judgement. That the British Army swarms with those who are incompetent--is too plain from successive proofs in the transactions at Buenos Ayres, at Cintra, and in the result of the Board of Inquiry.--Nor must we see a General appointed to command--and required, at the same time, to frame his operations according to the opinion of an inferior Officer: an injunction (for a recommendation, from such a quarter, amounts to an injunction) implying that a man had been appointed to a high station--of which the very persons, who had appointed him, deemed him unworthy; else they must have known that he would endeavour to profit by the experience of any of his inferior officers, from the suggestions of his own understanding: at the same time--by denying to the General-in-Chief the free use of his own judgement, and by the act of announcing this presumption of his incompetence to the man himself--such an indignity is put upon him, that his pa.s.sions must of necessity be rouzed; so as to leave it scarcely possible that he could draw any benefit, which he might otherwise have drawn, from the local knowledge or talents of the individual to whom he was referred: and, lastly, this injunction virtually involves a subversion of all military subordination. In the better times of the House of Commons--a minister, who had presumed to write such a letter as that to which I allude, would have been impeached.

The Debates in Parliament, and measures of Government, every day furnish new Proofs of the truths which I have been attempting to establish--of the utter want of general principles;--new and lamentable proofs! This moment (while I am drawing towards a conclusion) I learn, from the newspaper reports, that the House of Commons has refused to declare that the Convention of Centra _disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Nation_.

The motion, according to the letter of it, was ill-framed; for the Convention might have been a very good one, and still have disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Nation--as those might have been unwise: at all events, the words ought to have stood--the _just_ and _reasonable_ hopes of the Nation. But the hacknied phrase of '_disappointed hopes and expectations_'--should not have been used at all: it is a centre round which much delusion has gathered. The Convention not only did not satisfy the Nation's hopes of good; but sunk it into a pitfall of unimagined and unimaginable evil. The hearts and understandings of the People tell them that the language of a proposed parliamentary resolution, upon this occasion, ought--not only to have been different in the letter--but also widely different in the spirit: and the reader of these pages will have deduced, that no terms of reprobation could in severity exceed the offences involved in--and connected with--that instrument. But, while the grand keep of the castle of iniquity was to be stormed, we have seen nothing but a puny a.s.sault upon heaps of the scattered rubbish of the fortress; nay, for the most part, on some accidental mole-hills at its base. I do not speak thus in disrespect to the Right Hon. Gentleman who headed this attack. His mind, left to itself, would (I doubt not) have prompted something worthier and higher: but he moves in the phalanx of Party;--a spiritual Body; in which (by strange inconsistency) the hampering, weakening, and destroying, of every individual mind of which it is composed--is the law which must const.i.tute the strength of the whole. The question was--whether principles, affecting the very existence of Society, had not been violated; and an arm lifted, and let fall, which struck at the root of Honour; with the aggravation of the crime having been committed at this momentous period. But what relation is there between these principles and actions, and being in Place or out of it? If the People would const.i.tutionally and resolutely a.s.sert their rights, their Representatives would be taught another lesson; and for their own profit. Their understandings would be enriched accordingly: for it is there--there where least suspected--that the want, from which this country suffers, chiefly lies. They err, who suppose that venality and corruption (though now spreading more and more) are the master-evils of this day: neither these nor immoderate craving for power are so much to be deprecated, as the non-existence of a widely-ranging intellect; of an intellect which, if not efficacious to infuse truth as a vital fluid into the heart, might at least make it a powerful tool in the hand.

Outward profession,--which, for practical purposes, is an act of most desirable subservience,--would then wait upon those objects to which inward reverence, though not felt, was known to be due. Schemes of ample reach and true benefit would also promise best to insure the rewards coveted by personal ambition: and men of baser pa.s.sions, finding it their interest, would naturally combine to perform useful service under the direction of strong minds: while men of good intentions would have their own pure satisfaction; and would exert themselves with more upright--I mean, more hopeful--cheerfulness, and more successfully. It is not therefore inordinate desire of wealth or power which is so injurious--as the means which are and must be employed, in the present intellectual condition of the Legislature, to sustain and secure that power: these are at once an effect of barrenness, and a cause; acting, and mutually re-acting, incessantly. An enlightened Friend has, in conversation, observed to the Author of these pages--that formerly the principles of men wore better than they who held them; but that now (a far worse evil!) men are better than their principles. I believe it:--of the deplorable quality and state of principles, the public proceedings in our Country furnish daily new proof. It is however some consolation, at this present crisis, to find--that, of the thoughts and feelings uttered during the two debates which led me to these painful declarations, such--as approach towards truth which has any dignity in it--come from the side of his Majesty's Ministers.--But note again those contradictions to which I have so often been obliged to advert.

The Ministers advise his Majesty publicly to express sentiments of disapprobation upon the Convention of Cintra; and, when the question of the merits or demerits of this instrument comes before them in Parliament, the same persons--who, as advisers of the crown, lately condemned the treaty--now, in their character of representatives of the people, by the manner in which they received this motion, have p.r.o.nounced an encomium upon it. For, though (as I have said) the motion was inaccurately and inadequately worded, it was not set aside upon this ground. And the Parliament has therefore persisted in withholding, from the insulted and injured People and from their Allies, the only reparation which perhaps it may be in its power to grant; has refused to signify its repentance and sorrow for what hath been done; without which, as a previous step, there can be no proof--no gratifying intimation, even to this Country or to its Allies, that the future efforts of the British Parliament are in a sincere spirit. The guilt of the transaction therefore being neither repented of, nor atoned for; the course of evil is, by necessity, persevered in.--But let us turn to a brighter region.

The events of the last year, gloriously destroying many frail fears, have placed--in the rank of serene and immortal truths--a proposition which, as an object of belief, hath in all ages been fondly cherished; namely--That a numerous Nation, determined to be free, may effect its purpose in despite of the mightiest power which a foreign Invader can bring against it. These events also have pointed out how, in the ways of Nature and under the guidance of Society, this happy end is to be attained: in other words, they have shewn that the cause of the People, in dangers and difficulties issuing from this quarter of oppression, is safe while it remains not only in the bosom but in the hands of the People; or (what amounts to the same thing) in those of a government which, being truly _from_ the People, is faithfully _for_ them. While the power remained with the provincial Juntas, that is, with the body natural of the community (for those authorities, newly generated in such adversity, were truly living members of that body); every thing prospered in Spain. Hopes of the best kind were opened out and encouraged; liberal opinions countenanced; and wise measures arranged: and last, and (except as proceeding from these) least of all,--victories in the field, in the streets of the city, and upon the walls of the fortress.

I have heretofore styled it a blessing that the Spanish People became their own masters at once. It _was_ a blessing; but not without much alloy: as the same disinterested generous pa.s.sions, which preserved (and would for a season still have preserved) them from a bad exercise of their power, impelled them to part with it too soon; before labours, hitherto neither tried nor thought of, had created throughout the country the minor excellences indispensible for the performance of those labours; before powerful minds, not hitherto of general note, had found time to shew themselves; and before men, who were previously known, had undergone the proof of new situations. Much therefore was wanting to direct the general judgement in the choice of persons, when the second delegation took place; which was a removal (the first, we have seen, had not been so) of the power from the People. But, when a common centre became absolutely necessary, the power ought to have pa.s.sed from the provincial a.s.semblies into the hands of the Cortes; and into none else.

A pernicious Oligarchy crept into the place of this comprehensive--this const.i.tutional--this saving and majestic a.s.sembly. Far be it from me to speak of the Supreme Junta with ill-advised condemnation: every man must feel for the distressful trials to which that Body has been exposed. But eighty men or a hundred, with a king at their head veiled under a cloud of fiction (we might say, with reference to the difficulties of this moment, begotten upon a cloud of fiction), could not be an image of a Nation like that of Spain, or an adequate instrument of their power for their ends. The a.s.sembly, from the smallness of its numbers, must have wanted breadth of wing to extend itself and brood over Spain with a quickening touch of warmth every where. If also, as hath been mentioned, there was a want of experience to determine the judgment in choice of persons; this same smallness of numbers must have unnecessarily increased the evil--by excluding many men of worth and talents which were so far known and allowed as that they would surely have been deputed to an a.s.sembly upon a larger scale. Grat.i.tude, habit, and numerous other causes must have given an undue preponderance to birth, station, rank, and fortune; and have fixed the election, more than was reasonable, upon those who were most conspicuous for these distinctions;--men whose very virtue would incline them superst.i.tiously to respect established things, and to mistrust the People--towards whom not only a frank confidence but a forward generosity was the first of duties. I speak not of the vices to which such men would be liable, brought up under the discipline of a government administered like the old Monarchy of Spain: the matter is both ungracious and too obvious.

But I began with hope; and hope has inwardly accompanied me to the end.

The whole course of the campaign, rightly interpreted, has justified my hope. In Madrid, in Ferrol, in Corunna, in every considerable place, and in every part of the country over which the French have re-extended their dominion,--we learn, from their own reports, that the body of the People have shewed against them, to the last, the most determined hostility. Hence it is clear that the lure, which the invading Usurper found himself constrained lately to hold out to the inferior orders of society in the shape of various immunities, has totally failed: and therefore he turns for support to another quarter, and now attempts to cajole the wealthy and the privileged. But this cla.s.s has been taught, by late Decrees, what it has to expect from him; and how far he is to be confided-in for its especial interests. Many individuals, no doubt, he will seduce; but the bulk of the cla.s.s, even if they could be insensible to more liberal feelings, cannot but be his enemies. This change, therefore, is not merely s.h.i.+fting ground; but retiring to a position which he himself has previously undermined. Here is confusion; and a power warring against itself.

So will it ever fare with foreign Tyrants when (in spite of domestic abuses) a People, which has lived long, feels that it has a Country to love; and where the heart of that People is sound. Between the native inhabitants of France and Spain there has existed from the earliest period, and still does exist, an universal and utter dissimilitude in laws, actions, deportment, gait, manners, customs: join with this the difference in the language, and the barrier of the Pyrenees; a separation and an opposition in great things, and an antipathy in small.

Ignorant then must he be of history and of the reports of travellers and residents in the two countries, or strangely inattentive to the const.i.tution of human nature, who (this being true) can admit the belief that the Spaniards, numerous and powerful as they are, will live under Frenchmen as their lords and masters. Let there be added to this inherent mutual repulsiveness--those recent indignities and horrible outrages; and we need not fear to say that such reconcilement is impossible; even without that further insuperable obstacle which we hope will exist, an establishment of a free Const.i.tution in Spain.--The intoxicated setter-up of Kings may fill his diary with pompous stories of the acclamations with which his solemn puppets are received; he may stuff their mouths with impious a.s.severations; and hire knees to bend before them, and lips to answer with honied greetings of grat.i.tude and love: these cannot remove the old heart, and put a new one into the bosom of the spectators. The whole is a pageant seen for a day among men in its pa.s.sage to that 'Limbo large and broad' whither, as to their proper home, fleet

All the unaccomplish'd works of Nature's hand, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, _Dissolv'd on earth_.

Talk not of the perishable nature of enthusiasm; and rise above a craving for perpetual manifestations of things. He is to be pitied whose eye can only be pierced by the light of a meridian sun, whose frame can only be warmed by the heat of midsummer. Let us hear no more of the little dependence to be had in war upon voluntary service. The things, with which we are primarily and mainly concerned, are inward pa.s.sions; and not outward arrangements. These latter may be given at any time; when the parts, to be put together, are in readiness. Hatred and love, and each in its intensity, and pride (pa.s.sions which, existing in the heart of a Nation, are inseparable from hope)--these elements being in constant preparation--enthusiasm will break out from them, or coalesce with them, upon the summons of a moment. And these pa.s.sions are scarcely less than inextinguishable. The truth of this is recorded in the manners and hearts of North and South Britons, of Englishmen and Welshmen, on either border of the Tweed and of the Esk, on both sides of the Severn and the Dee; an inscription legible, and in strong characters, which the tread of many and great blessings, continued through hundreds of years, has been unable to efface. The Sicilian Vespers are to this day a familiar game among the boys of the villages on the sides of Mount Etna, and through every corner of the Island; and 'Exterminate the French!' is the action in their arms, and the word of triumph upon their tongues. He then is a sorry Statist, who desponds or despairs (nor is he less so who is too much elevated) from any considerations connected with the quality of enthusiasm. Nothing is so easy as to sustain it by partial and gradual changes of its object; and by placing it in the way of receiving new interpositions according to the need. The difficulty lies--not in kindling, feeding, or fanning the flame; but in continuing so to regulate the relations of things--that the fanning breeze and the feeding fuel shall come from no unworthy quarter, and shall neither of them be wanting in appropriate consecration. The Spaniards have as great helps towards ensuring this, as ever were vouchsafed to a People.

What then is to be desired? Nothing but that the Government and the higher orders of society should deal sincerely towards the middle cla.s.s and the lower: I mean, that the general temper should be sincere.--It is not required that every one should be disinterested, or zealous, or of one mind with his fellows. Selfishness or slackness in individuals, and in certain bodies of men also (and at time's perhaps in all), have their use: else why should they exist? Due circ.u.mspection and necessary activity, in those who are sound, could not otherwise maintain themselves. The deficiencies in one quarter are more than made up by consequent overflowings in another. 'If my Neighbour fails,' says the true Patriot, 'more devolves upon me.' Discord and even treason are not, in a country situated as Spain is, the pure evils which, upon a superficial view, they appear to be. Never are a people so livelily admonished of the love they bear their country, and of the pride which they have in their common parent, as when they hear of some parricidal attempt of a false brother. For this cause chiefly, in times of national danger, are their fancies so busy in suspicion; which under such shape, though oftentimes producing dire and pitiable effects, is notwithstanding in its general character no other than that habit which has grown out of the instinct of self-preservation--elevated into a wakeful and affectionate apprehension for the whole, and enn.o.bling its private and baser ways by the generous use to which they are converted.

Nor ever has a good and loyal man such a swell of mind, such a clear insight into the const.i.tution of virtue, and such a sublime sense of its power, as at the first tidings of some atrocious act of perfidy; when, having taken the alarm for human nature, a second thought recovers him; and his faith returns--gladsome from what has been revealed within himself, and awful from partic.i.p.ation of the secrets in the profaner grove of humanity which that momentary blast laid open to his view.

Of the ultimate independence of the Spanish Nation there is no reason to doubt: and for the immediate furtherance of the good cause, and a throwing-off of the yoke upon the first favourable opportunity by the different tracts of the country upon which it has been re-imposed, nothing is wanting but sincerity on the part of the government towards the provinces which are yet free. The first end to be secured by Spain is riddance of the enemy: the second, permanent independence: and the third, a free const.i.tution of government; which will give their main (though far from sole) value to the other two; and without which little more than a formal independence, and perhaps scarcely that, can be secured. Humanity and honour, and justice, and all the sacred feelings connected with atonement, retribution, and satisfaction; shame that will not sleep, and the sting of unperformed duty; and all the powers of the mind, the memory that broods over the dead and turns to the living, the understanding, the imagination, and the reason;--demand and enjoin that the wanton oppressor should be driven, with confusion and dismay, from the country which he has so heinously abused.

This cannot be accomplished (scarcely can it be aimed at) without an accompanying and an inseparable resolution, in the souls of the Spaniards, to be and remain their own masters; that is, to preserve themselves in the rank of Men; and not become as the Brute that is driven to the pasture, and cares not who owns him. It is a common saying among those who profess to be lovers of civil liberty, and give themselves some credit for understanding it,--that, if a Nation be not free, it is mere dust in the balance whether the slavery be bred at home, or comes from abroad; be of their own suffering, or of a stranger's imposing. They see little of the under-ground part of the tree of liberty, and know less of the nature of man, who can think thus.

Where indeed there is an indisputable and immeasurable superiority in one nation over another; to be conquered may, in course of time, be a benefit to the inferior nation: and, upon this principle, some of the conquests of the Greeks and Romans may be justified. But in what of really useful or honourable are the French superior to their Neighbours?

Never far advanced, and, now barbarizing apace, they may carry--amongst the sober and dignified Nations which surround them--much to be avoided, but little to be imitated.

There is yet another case in which a People may be benefited by resignation or forfeiture of their rights as a separate independent State; I mean, where--of two contiguous or neighbouring countries, both included by nature under one conspicuously defined limit--the weaker is unit