Part 10

It is denying the effects of the most common natural influences, to pretend that a church, whose avenues lead to vast wealth, and to the highest rank in the state, is as likely to be as pure in its ministers, as one which offers less temporal inducements than any one of all the liberal occupations of life. If it be contended that an establishment is indispensable to religion, it must be confessed that its advantages are to be taken with this essential drawback. It is a notorious fact, that sons are set aside for the church here when children, in order that they may receive particular livings, in the gift of the family, or its friends, or that their fortunes may be pushed in it, by family influence. Nothing of the sort exists with us.

Lord ——, at a dinner in his own house, observed to me, that the best thing we had in America was our freedom from the weight of a religious establishment. Encouraged by this remark, I told an anecdote of a conversation I had once overheard in America. It was while making a passage in a sloop, on the coast, with two young whalers, just returned from sea, as fellow-passengers. A gentleman on board asked me what had become of young Napoleon, then a boy of ten or twelve years. I answered, there was a report that the Austrians were educating him for the church. My two whalers listened intently to this conversation, in which the tender years of the child had been mentioned, when one of them suddenly exclaimed to the other—“Did you hear that, Ben? Bringing a parson _up by hand_!”—“Ay, ay; making a _cosset_-priest!”

I was much amused by the point and sarcasm of these remarks, and every American will feel why; but, I was more so, I think, by the manner in which my English auditors received the anecdote. I do not think one of them felt its point; but as the Sag-Harbour-men used agricultural figures to illustrate their meaning, I was at once applied to, to know whether such people could be more than half-seamen, and whether America could supply mariners sufficient to become a great naval power!

A lady, here, with whom I am on sufficiently friendly terms to converse freely, was speaking of the son of a noble family, a near connexion of hers, who is in the church. “It is very unpleasant,” she said, “to find one whom you esteem, getting to be wrong-headed in such matters. Now —— was becoming quite serious, and a little fanatical, and I was employed by the family to speak to him!” This ——, is a clergyman whose piety has been highly extolled by one of our bishops, and whose devotion to the Redeemer is thought, at home, to be highly creditable to the English aristocracy. So far as he himself is concerned, all this is well enough; but as to the manner in which “the nobility and gentry,” of his connexion, regard his course, you have sufficient proof in what I have just told you.

I shall dismiss this part of the subject as unpleasant to myself. The Church of England, so far as its religious dogmas are concerned, is that in which I was educated, and in which I am training my children; and no one is more sensible of its excellencies, when they are separated from its abuses. I should have been silent, altogether, on its defects, but I feel convinced that a grasping, worldly spirit, has made it an instrument, in the hands of artful or prejudiced men, of defaming a state of society which is probably as exempt from its own peculiar vices, as it ever fell to the lot of men to be.

Another notion deeply rooted in the English mind, is a strange opinion, that all men of _liberal_ education and gentlemanly habits, must, of necessity, be hostile to popular rights, and, by the same necessity, advocates of some such liberty as their own, if the advocates of any liberty at all. One of the first things that the clerical critic, on the well-known sermon of Bishop Hobart, remarks, is his surprise that a man of “gentlemanly habits” should have taken such a view of matters! There is, unquestionably, a strong disposition in men, who do not look beyond the exterior of things, (and this, perhaps, embraces the majority,) to confound “taste” with “principles.” There are many things in which the results of the English system are more agreeable to my tastes, and even my habits, than those of our own, though I believe ours will be eventually softened by the pressure of society; but, it does not strike me that this is a sufficient reason, why an honest man should overlook more essential points. One cannot have the thorough, social drilling of a government of exclusion, and escape its other consequences. All power that is not based on the mass, must repress the energies and moral improvement of that mass for its own security, and the fruits are the vast chasm which exists every where, in Europe, between the extremes of society.

I shall say little of the mere vulgar prejudices, which piously believe in the inherent superiority, moral and physical, of Englishmen over all the rest of mankind; for something very like it is to be found in all nations. Still, I think, the prejudices of England, in this respect, are more than usually offensive to other people, as, I believe, are our own. Those of England, however, are to be distinguished from those of America, in one important particular. The common Englishman cannot believe himself superior to his transatlantic kinsman, with a whit more sincerity, than the feeling is returned by the common American. But, while the Englishman of the upper classes thinks lightly of the American, the American of the upper classes over-estimates the Englishman. There are doubtless many exceptions, in both cases, especially among those who have travelled; but such, I think, is the rule. Our own weakness is a natural consequence of a colonial origin, of reading English books, and of the exaggerations of distance and dependency. It is a weakness that is seen and commented on, by every body but those who feel it.

I question if the inbred and overweening notion of personal superiority ascends as high in the social scale, or is as general among people of education, in any other community, as in England. In this respect, we are deficient rather than exaggerated; for while all America (I now speak of the upper classes, you will remember) can be thrown into a fever, by an intimation that our _things_ are not as good as those of other nations, there is a secret and general distrust of our equality on the points that alone can give dignity and character to man. A friend of yours has been accused of national vanity, and national conceit, (an odd charge, by the way, for I question if there is a man in the whole republic who prides himself less in the national character, than the person in question,) because he has endeavoured to repel and refute some of the grosser imputations that artifice and prejudice, in this quarter of the world, have been studiously and industriously heaping on us; and the simple circumstance that, in so doing, he has conflicted a little with English supremacy, has been the means of destroying whatever favour he may once have possessed with the American _reading_ public, as a writer; for England, at this moment, holds completely at her mercy the reputation and character of every American she may choose to assail, who is not supported by the _bulk_ of his own nation. As a matter of course, she writes up all who defer to her power, and writes down all who resist it. The statements of your friend have been publicly derided, because they have affirmed the rights and merits of the _mass_, on which alone we are to ground all our claims to comparative excellence; and I now ask you, if, in any review, comment, or speech, at home, you have ever met with the sweeping assertions of an _abstract_, _innate_ national superiority, that is contained in the following paragraph.

“It would be in vain to inquire whether this superiority, which we do not hesitate to say has been made manifest, with very few exceptions, whenever the British have met foreign troops upon equal terms, arises from a stronger conformation of body, or a more determined turn of mind; but it seems certain that the British soldier, inferior to Frenchmen in general intelligence, and in individual acquaintance with the trade of war, has a decided advantage in the bloody shock of actual conflict, and especially when maintained by the bayonet, body to body. _It is remarkable also, that the charm is not peculiar to any one of the three united nations, but it is common to the natives of all, different as they are in habits and education._ The guards, supplied by the city of London, may be contrasted with a regiment of Irish recruited among their rich meadows, or a body of Scotch, from their native wildernesses; and while it may be difficult to assign the palm to either over the other two, all are found to exhibit that species of dogged and desperate courage, _which without staying to measure force or calculate chances, rushes on the enemy as the bull-dog upon the bear_.”

Lest you should think I have rummaged one of the productions of the Minerva Press, for some of its inflations, it may be well to explain, that this quiet, deeply-seated _naïve_ proof of ignorance and prejudice, is quoted from Sir Walter Scott’s account of the battle of Maida, in the Life of Napoleon. We are justly enough deemed conceited, but our literature contains nothing to compare with this. I have cited this instance of prejudice, in order to prove how high the weakness of believing in the personal superiority of their own people, ascends in the scale of intellect, for I have no doubt, that Sir Walter Scott religiously believed all he wrote.

The exhibition of many of the prejudices of the English, are not always restrained by propriety, even among those who ought to know better.[11] Of this, all foreigners complain, and I think, with reason. As respects us, there is a quiet assumption of superiority, that has the appearance of an established right to comment on the nation, its character, and its institutions. There is a mode of doing this, which removes all objections, among men of the world, but there is, also, a mode which amounts to positive personal disrespect.

Of the latter class, is an occurrence that took place at the table of Lord ——, quite lately. One of the guests very quietly went to work, without preface of any sort, to prove, that the improper deportment of the members of congress, as compared with those of parliament, was owing to a want of refinement in the nation! I met him at once (for I never witnessed in the society of gentlemen, a greater instance of personal indecorum,) by denying his premises. Seriously, I believe, of the two, congress is better mannered than parliament, though there is less mystification; all that has been written to the contrary, being founded rather on what ought to be, according to certain notions, than on what is.

Whenever I meet with this disposition, it chills all my sympathies. I hope I can be just to such men, but I can never like them. What renders these unfeeling and ignorant comments less inexcusable, is the fact, that any attempt to turn the tables, is instantly met with a silence that cannot be misconstrued. Surprised to find the depth, and universality of prejudice against America, here, as well as the freedom with which remarks are made, I determined to try the experiment of retorting in kind. In most instances, I have found that they who were willing to talk all night, on the defects of America, become mum, the instant there is an allusion to any similar weaknesses in England, or in English character. As there can be no wish to keep up acquaintances, on such terms, I have generally dropped them; always unless I have seen that the prejudice is sincere, and acting on a benevolent nature. I presume the history of the world, cannot offer another instance of prejudice in one nation against another, that is as strong and as general, as that which, at this moment, exists in England against America; the community of language, and the art of printing, having been the means of provoking, rather than of mitigating the failing.

Although prejudice must result in ultimate evil, it may measurably produce intermediate good. The prejudices of England are at the base of the nationality of her people. With us the _people_ are national, from affection, and a consciousness of living under a system that protects their rights and interests. But true nationality is very much confined to the mass, though national conceit is pretty generally diffused. No man in America, can have national pride, (the ground-work of all true nationality,) who has not pride in the institutions; and this is a feeling that all the training of the higher classes has taught them to repress. Our social aristocracy, in this respect, are a mere reflection of the commoner English prejudices—prejudices that are received ignorantly, in pure faith, and as the stone admits water by constant dropping. A more impudent piece of literary empiricism has never been palmed on the world, than the pretension that the American reading public requires American themes; it may require American _things_, to a certain extent, though its quite natural and perhaps excusable that it should prefer foreign, which I believe to be the real fact; but as to distinctive American _sentiments_ and American _principles_, the majority of that class of our citizens, hardly know them when they see them. A more wrong-headed and deluded people there is not, on earth, than our own, on all such subjects, and one would be almost content to take some of the English prejudices, if more manliness and discrimination could be had with them. Our faults of this nature, are the results of origin and geographical position; those of England are the results of time, power, artifice, and peculiar political and physical advantage.

All great nations are egotistical, and deluded on the subject of their superiority. The constant influence of an active corps of writers, (who from position become so many popular flatterers,) acting on the facts of a strong community, has a tendency to induce men to transfer the credit that is only due to collective power, to national character and personal qualities. The history of the world proves that the citizens of small states have performed more great and illustrious personal acts, and out of all proportion to numbers, than the citizens of great nations, and the reason is probably to be found in the greater necessities of their condition; but, fewer feeling an interest in extolling their deeds, it is not common for them to reap the glory that falls to the share of even the less deserving servitors of a powerful community.

I shall close this brief summary of national peculiarities, by an allusion to one more. Foreigners accuse the English of being capricious in their ordinary intercourse. They are allowed to be fast friends, but uncertain acquaintances. The man, or woman, who receives you to-day with a frank smile, and a familiar shake of the hand, may meet you to-morrow coldly, and with a chilling or repulsive formality. I have seen something of this, and believe the charge, in a degree, to be merited. They are formalists in manners, and too often mistake the spirit that ought to regulate intercourse. Jonathan stands these caprices better than any one else, for he is so devout a believer that he sees smiles in his idol, when other people see grimaces. Your true American _doctrinaire_ studies the book which John Bull has published concerning his own merits, with some such faith as old women look into the almanac in order to know when it will snow.[12]

LETTER XXIII.

HENRY FLOYD-JONES, ESQ., FORT NECK.

Our connexion, Mr. McAdam,[13] who resides in Hertfordshire, has just taken me with him to his house.

It was something to find myself on an English high-way, seated by the side of the man who had done so much for the kingdom, in this respect. We travelled in an open gig, for my companion had an eye to every displaced stone, or inequality in the surface. The system of roads, here, is as bad as can be; the whole country being divided into small “trusts,” as they are called, in a way to prevent any one great and continued plan. I should say we went through four or five gates, absolutely within the limits of the town; obstacles, however, that probably still exist, on account of the great growth of London. Although Mr. McAdam had no connexion with the “trusts” about London, we passed all the gates without contribution, in virtue of his name.

We had much conversation on the subject of roads. On my mentioning that I had found some of them much better than others, a few, indeed, being no better than very many of our own, Mr. McAdam told me that there was a want of material in many parts of England, which had compelled them to have recourse to gravel. “Now,” said he, “the _metal_ of this very road on which we are travelling, came from the East Indies!” The explanation was sufficiently simple; stone had been brought into the India docks, as ballast, and hauled thence, a distance of several miles, to make the bed of the road we were on. Gravel-pits are common in England; and there is one open, at this moment, in Hyde Park, that is a blot on its verdure.

We took the road into Hertfordshire, which is the great northern high-way, as well as being the scene of John Gilpin’s race. We passed the “Bell, at Edmonton,” where there is now a sign in commemoration of John’s speed, and bottom, and wig. By the way, the coachmen have a more classical authority for the flaxens than I had thought.

Waltham cross was an object of still greater interest. Edward I. caused these crosses to be erected on the different spots where the body of his wife reposed, in its funeral-journey from Milford Haven, to London. Charing-cross, in the town itself, was the last of them. They are little gothic structures, with niches to receive statues, and are surmounted by crosses, forming quaint and interesting memorials. I believe we passed two of them between London and Hoddesdon, by which it would seem that the body of the queen made short stages. The cross at Charing has entirely disappeared.

At Hoddesdon, we were on the borders of Essex, and the day after our arrival, Mr. McAdam walked with me across the bridge that separates the two counties, to look at Rye-house, the place so celebrated as the spot where the attempt was to have been made on the life of Charles II. The intention was to fire on the king, as he returned from Newmarket, on his way to London. The building is certainly well placed for such an object, as it almost projects into the road, which, just here, is quite narrow, and which it enfilades in such a way, that a volley fired from its windows would have been pretty certain to rake the whole of the royal _cortège_. The house, itself, is a common brick farm building, somewhat quaint, particularly about the chimneys, and by no means large. I suspect a part of it has disappeared. It is now used as a poor-house, and, certainly, if it is to be taken as a specimen of the English poor-houses, in general, it is highly creditable to the nation. Nothing could be neater, and the inmates were few.

The land, around this place, was low and level, and quite devoid of landscape beauty. I was told there is evidence that the Danes, in one of their invasions, once landed near this spot, though the distance to the sea cannot now be less than twenty miles! Mr. Malthus has overlooked the growth of the island, in his comparative estimates of the increase of the population.

Some boys were fishing on the bridge, near Rye-house, wearing a sort of uniform, and my companion told me they were cadets studying for the East India civil service, in an institution near by. The New-river, which furnishes so much water to London, flows by this spot, also; and, in returning, we walked some distance on its banks. It is not much larger than a race-way, nor was its current very swift. If this artificial stream can even wash the hands and faces of the cockneys, the Croton ought to overflow New York.

Hoddesdon was selected as a residence, by several of the American emigrant families, that were driven from their own country, and lost their estates, by the revolution. Its comparative cheapness and proximity to London, must have been its recommendation, as neither the place itself, nor the surrounding country, struck me as particularly attractive. The confiscations were peculiarly hard on individuals; and in some instances they were unmerited, even in a political point of view; but if it be true, as has lately been asserted, that the British ministry brought about the struggle under the expectation of being able easily to subdue the colonists, and with a view to provide for their friends by confiscations on the other side, retributive justice did its usual office. The real history of political events, would scarcely bare the light, in any country.

If any American wishes to hear both sides of the great contest between the colonies and the mother country, I would recommend a short sojourn in one of the places where these emigrants have left their traditions. He will there find that names which he has been taught to reverence are held in hereditary abhorrence; that his heroes are other people’s knaves, and other people’s prodigies his rogues. There is, in all this, quite probably, the usual admixture of truth and error, both heightened by the zeal and animosities of partizanship.

I had, however, in our connexion, strong evidence of how much the mind, unless stimulated by particular motives, is prone to rest satisfied with its acquisitions, and to think of things changeable in their nature, under the influence of first impressions. He is a man of liberal acquirements, sound judgment, great integrity of feeling, and of unusually extensive practical knowledge, and yet some of his notions of America, which were obtained half a century since, almost tempted me to doubt the existence of his common sense. An acute observer, a countryman long resident here, told me soon after landing that “the English, clever, instructed, fair-minded and practical as they commonly are, seem to take leave of their ordinary faculties, on all subjects connected with America.” Really, I begin to be of the same way of thinking.