Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

BOOK FOURTH.

(The same subject continued.)

[ocr errors]

A SHORT REPLY TO THE FAME AND GLORY OF ENGLAND VINDICATED."

In a work of the title indicated above, a writer, contemptibly ensconced behind the screen of the anonymous, impudent misnomer of "Libertas," has undertaken to attack, not only my book, but myself with a malignity seldom exhibited even in political controversy. He has bestowed three hundred pages upon me I can afford him but a few in return, and even these are not for his sake, but for the sake of truth, and for the benefit of my readers. Although it may seem like digging up the dead, to bring before the public a book which was buried at its birth; yet I wish to "wake it from its well merited oblivion," for the purpose of showing more clearly the spirit of English Toryism, as it manifests itself towards the Republican Institutions of America, and the progress of the democratic principle in Europe. For although

the work in question is destitute of the talent, it is filled with the spirit of the bitterest of Tory writers. Had the writer's assertions been true, methinks less time and labour would have accomplished his object-much less time and labour at least shall accomplish mine.

In answer to the charge of plagiarism, I refer the reader to my letter to Mr. Greely, which will be found in the Appendix. The other charges rest solely on the unsupported assertion of their author. How far that can be relied on, I will show before I have done with him. In the few pages I devote to "Libertas," I shall attempt to prove three things, which will embrace all I wish to say. 1. THAT HIS ASSERTIONS ARE RASH, INDISCRIMINATE, AND OFTEN CONTRADICTORY. 2. THAT HIS STATISTICS ARE MANY OF THEM WRONG, AND CANNOT BE RELIED ON. 3. THAT

HE HAS NO REGARD FOR THE TRUTH WHEN IT COMES IN COLLISION WITH HIS PASSIONS.

1. His assertions are rash, indiscriminate, and often contradictory. They are rash, in that they make charges without proof, not only against me, but against men whose wisdom and integrity no one has before impeached. Judge Jay, for instance, is accused of "ignorance"-Dr. Bowring of "loose and exaggerated statements"-a man who was thought by the British Government better qualified than any other person, to travel over the continent to collect facts for the nation's use. Mr. Hudson, Gen. Tallmadge, Horace Greely, the

gentlemen of the Home League, indeed all the illustrious statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic, whose opinions or statistics conflict with his own, are treated with the utmost contempt. Now, for an Englishman under an assumed name, to sweep down by his single assertion, men so well known both in the political and literary world, I think even himself, in a cooler moment, will acknowledge to be somewhat rash. The repeated assertion that the incidents recorded in "The Glory and Shame of England" are false, is sustained only by such questions as the following-"Now we ask if such vulgar nonsense could have been uttered ?""It is our conviction that the whole is a tissue of falsehoods,"" It cannot be true." I could write after each of his statements as he has after mine, "It is not true;" but such things become only children. Again; it is asserted that I

66

ought to be ashamed to say that the poor are oppressed by the aristocracy of England." Really, I do not know which excites my greatest astonishment, the effrontery which could make such a statement, or the credulity that supposed it would be believed. The first time I opened the book I happened to fall upon this extraordinary sentence, and meeting soon after one of the author's countrymen, I read it to him, and mark his reply. "No man," he indignantly exclaimed, "ever said that but a Tory, or a Tory's slave. Strange idea surely! Why, the English aristocracy are not satisfied with taking a poor man's shirt, they must

have his skin!" The poor not oppressed by the aristocracy! This is a discovery no other man has had the sagacity to make. Who then are they oppressed by?

The complaints that all over the land go up to Heaven from starving and desperate men-the neglected workshops, the noiseless factories, the silent hand-loom, chartists' "petitions that have to be carted for their size"-the voluntary exile of thousands from your shores every month for a free land, all declare trumpet-tongued that oppression exists--that in the language of the Edinburgh Review, "the wan and menacing face of hunger scowls on us every where." "England," says Sidney Smith, one of the founders of this Review, and one of the noblest philanthropists living"England is the richest country in the world; but in no country is there so much individual suffering." In speaking of the oppressive character of the aristocracy, he says "they are opposed to the abolition of the corn law, as they have been to every measure calculated to promote the general good."

From whose sweat, and toil and starvation comes the wealth that supports an idle, profligate and unproductive aristocracy? So long ago as 1819, the Marquis of Tavistock, (himself an exception,) said in Parliament, "Is it not grievous to reflect that the house has rejected with indignation the income tax, and when other taxes are proposed which fall upon the poor and the dis

« AnteriorContinuar »