Part 34

We have now gone through the principal topics of which the Major has treated. We have done him more than justice. We have arranged his chaotic mass of facts and theories; we have frequently translated his language into English; we have refrained from quoting the exquisitely ridiculous similitudes and allusions with which he has set off his reasonings; we have repeatedly taken on ourselves the burden of the proof in cases where, by all the rules of logic, we might have imposed it on him. Against us, he cannot resort to his ordinary modes of defence. He cannot charge us with ignorance of local circumstances, for almost all the facts on which we have argued are taken from his own report. He cannot sneer at us as pious, benevolent people, misled by a blind hatred of slavery, eager in the pursuit of a laudable, end, but ignorant of the means by which alone it can be obtained. We have treated the question as a question purely scientific. We have reasoned as if we had been reasoning, not about men and women, but about spinning-jeanies and power-looms.

Point by point we have refuted his whole theory. We have shown that the phenomena which he attributes to the atmosphere of the torrid zone, are found in the most temperate climates; and that, if coercion be desirable in the case of the West Indian labourer, the stocks, the branding iron, and the forty stripes save one, ought to be, without delay introduced into England.

There {403}are still some parts of the subject on which, if the article were not already too long, we should wish to dwell. Coercion, according to Major Moody, is necessary only in those tropical countries in which the population does not press on the means of subsistence. He holds, that the multiplication of the species will at length render it superfluous. It would be easy to show that this remedy is incompatible with the evil; that the deadly labour, or, as he would call it, the steady labour, which the West Indian sugar-planter exacts, destroys life with frightful rapidity; that the only colonics in which the slaves keep up their numbers are those in which the cultivation of sugar has altogether ceased, or has greatly diminished; and that, in those settlements in which it is extensively and profitably carried on, the population _decreases_ at a rate which portends its speedy extinction. To say, therefore, that the negroes of the sugar colonies must continue slaves till their numbers shall have greatly increased, is to say, in decent and humane phraseology, that they must continue slaves till the whole race is exterminated.

At some future time we may resume this subject. We may then attempt to explain a principle, which, though established by long experience, still appears to many people paradoxical, namely, that a rise in the price of sugar, while it renders the slave more valuable, tends at the same time to abridge his life. We may then also endeavour to show how completely such a system is at variance with the principles on which alone colonization can be defended. When a great country scatters, in some vast and fertile wilderness, the seeds of a civilized population, fosters and protects the infant community through the period of helplessness, and rears it into a mighty nation, the measure, is not only beneficial to mankind, but may answer as a mercantile speculation. The sums which were advanced for the support and defence of a few emigrants, struggling with difficulties and surrounded by dangers, are repaid by an extensive and lucrative commerce with flourishing and populous regions, which, but for those emigrants, would still have been inhabited only by savages and beasts of prey. Thus, in spite of all the errors which our ancestors committed, both during their connexion with the North American provinces, and at the time of separation, we are inclined to think that England has, on the whole, obtained great benefits from them. From our dominions in New South Wales, if judiciously governed, great advantages may {404}also be derived. But what advantage can we derive from colonies in which the population, under a cruel and grinding system of oppression, is rapidly wasting away? The planter, we must suppose, knows his own interest. If he chooses to wear his slave to death by exacting from him an exorbitant quantity of work, we must suppose that he gains more by the work than he loses by the death.

But his capital is not the only capital which has been sunk in those countries. Who is to repay the English nation for the treasure which has been expended in governing and defending them? If we had made Jamaica what we have made Massachusetts, if we had raised up in Guiana a population like that of New York, we should indeed have been repaid. But of such a result under the present system there is no hope. It is not improbable that some who are now alive may see the last negro disappear from our Transatlantic possessions. After having squandered a sum, which, if judiciously employed, might have called into existence a great, rich, and enlightened people, which might have spread our arts, our laws, and our language from the banks of the Maragnon to the Mexican sea, we shall again leave our territories deserts as we found them, without one memorial to prove that a civilized man ever set foot on their shores.

But we must absolutely conclude. This subject is far too extensive to be fully discussed at present; and we have another duty to perform. With the Major we began, and with the Major we mean to end. That he is a very respectable officer, and a very respectable man, we have no reason to doubt. But we do, with all seriousness and good-will assure him, that he has no vocation to be a philosopher. If he has set his heart on constructing theories, we are sorry for him; for we cannot flatter him with the faintest hope of success. A few undigested facts, and a few long words that mean nothing, are but a slender stock for so extensive a business. For a time he may play the politician among philosophers, and the philosopher among politicians. He may bewilder speculative men with the cant of office, and practical men with the cant of metaphysics. But at last he must find his level. He is very fit to be a collector of facts, a purveyor of details to those who know how to reason on them; but he is no more qualified to speculate on political science, than a bricklayer is to rival Palladio, or a nurseryman to confute Linuæus.

THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATION. (1)

(_Edinburgh Review_,) June, 1827.

We {405}ought to apologize to our readers for prefixing to this article the name of such a publication. The two numbers which lie on our table contain nothing which could be endured, even at a dinner of the Pitt Club, unless, as the newspapers express it, the hilarity had been continued to a very late hour. We have met, we confess, with nobody who has ever seen them; and, should our account excite any curiosity respecting them, we fear that an application to the booksellers will already be too late. Some tidings of them may perhaps be obtained from the trunk-makers. In order to console our readers, however, under this disappointment, we will venture to assure them, that the only subject on which the reasonings of these Antijacobin Reviewers throw any light, is one in which we take very little interest--the state of their own understandings; and that the only feeling which their pathetic appeals have excited in us, is that of deep regret for our four shillings, which are gone and will return no more.

It is not a very cleanly, or a very agreeable task, to rake up from the kennels of oblivion the remains of drowned abortions, which have never opened their eyes on the day, or even been heard to whimper, but have been at once transferred from the filth in which they were littered, to the filth with which they are to rot. But unhappily we have no choice. Bad as this work is, it is quite as good as any which has appeared against the present administration. We have looked everywhere, without being able to find any antagonist who can possibly be as much ashamed of defeat as we shall be of victory.

(1) _The New Antijacobin Review_.--Nos. I. and II. 8vo. London, 1827.

The {406}manner in which the influence of the press has, at this crisis, been exercised, is indeed, very remarkable. All the talent has been on one side. With an unanimity which, as Lord Londonderry wisely supposes, can be ascribed only to a dexterous use of the secret-service money, the able and respectable journals of the metropolis have all supported the new government. It has been attacked, on the other hand, by writers who make every cause which they espouse despicable or odious,--by one paper which owes all its notoriety to its reports of the slang uttered by drunken lads who are brought to Bow Street for breaking windows--by another, which barely contrives to subsist on intelligence from butlers, and advertisements from perfumers. With these are joined all the scribblers who rest their claim to orthodoxy and loyalty on the perfection to which they have carried the arts of ribaldry and slander. What part these gentlemen would take in the present contest, seemed at first doubtful. We feared, for a moment, that their servility might overpower their malignity, and that they would be even more inclined to flatter the powerful than to calumniate the innocent. It turn-out that we were mistaken; and we are most thankful for it. They have been kind enough to spare us the discredit of their alliance. We know not how we should have borne to be of the same party with them. It is bad enough, God knows, to be of the same species.

The writers of the book before us, who are also, we believe, the great majority of its readers, can scarcely be said to belong to this class. They rather resemble those snakes with which Indian jugglers perform so many curious tricks: The bags of venom are left, but the teeth are extracted. That they might omit nothing tending to make them ridiculous. they have adopted a title on which no judicious writer would have ventured; and challenged comparison with one of the most ingenious and amusing volumes in our language. Whether they have assumed this name on the principle which influenced Mr. Shandy in christening his children, or from a whim similar to that which induced the proprietors of the most frightful Hottentot that ever lived, to give her the name of Venus, we shall not pretend to decide; but we would seriously advise them to consider, whether it is for their interest, that people should be reminded of the celebrated imitations of Darwin and Kotzebue, while they are reading {407}such parodies on the Bible as the following:--“In those days, a strange person shall appear in the land, and he shall cry to the people. Behold, I am possessed by the Demon of Ultra-Liberalism; I have received the gift of incoherence; I am a political philosopher, and a professor of paradoxes.”

We would also, with great respect, ask the gentleman who has lampooned Mr. Canning in such Drydenian couplets as this:

“When he said if they would but let him in,

He would never try to turn them out again,”

whether his performance gains much by being compared with New Morality? and, indeed, whether such satire as this is likely to make anybody laugh but himself, or to make anybody wince but his publisher?

But we must take leave of the _New Antijacobin Review_; and we do so, hoping that we have secured the gratitude of its conductors. We once heard a schoolboy relate, with evident satisfaction and pride, that he had been horsewhipped by a Duke: we trust that our present condescension will be as highly appreciated.

But it is not for the purpose of making a scarecrow of a ridiculous publication, that we address our readers at the present important crisis. We are convinced, that the cause of the present Ministers is the cause of liberty, the cause of toleration, the cause of political science,--the cause of the people, who are entitled to expect from their wisdom and liberality many judicious reforms,--the cause of the aristocracy, who, unless those reforms be adopted, must inevitably be the victims of a violent and desolating revolution. We are convinced, that the government of the country was never intrusted to men who more thoroughly understood its interest, or were more sincerely disposed to promote it--to men who, in forming their arrangements, thought so much of what they could _do_, and so little of what they could _get_. On the other side, we see a party which, for ignorance, intemperance, and inconsistency, has no parallel in our annals,--which, as an Opposition, we really think, is a scandal to the nation, and, as a Ministry, would speedily be its ruin. Under these circumstances, we think it our duty to give our best support to those with whose power are inseparably bound up all the dearest interests of the community,--the freedom {408}of worship, of discussion, and of trade,--our honour abroad, and our tranquillity at home.

In undertaking the defence of the Ministers, we feel ourselves enbarrassed by one difficulty: we are unable to comprehend distinctly of what they are accused. A statement of facts may be contradicted; but the gentlemen of the Opposition do not deal in statements. Reasonings may be refuted; but the gentlemen of the Opposition do not reason. There is something impassive and elastic about their dulness, on which all the weapons of controversy are thrown away. It makes no resistance, and receives no impression. To argue with it, is like stabbing the water, or cudgelling a woolpack. Buonaparte is said to have remarked, that the English soldiers at Waterloo did not know when they were beaten. The Duke of Wellington, equally fortunate in polities and in war, has the rare felicity of being supported a second time by a force of this description,--men whose desperate hardihood in argument sets all assailants at defiance,--who fight on, though borne down on every side by overwhelming proofs, rush enthusiastically into the mouth of an absurdity, or stake themselves with cool intrepidity on the horn of a dilemma. We doubt whether this unconquerable pertinacity be quite as honourable in debate as in battle; but we are sure, that it is a very difficult task for persons trained in the old school of logical tactics to contend with antagonists who possess such a quality.

The species of argument in which the members of the Opposition appear chiefly to excel, is that of which the Marquis, in the _Critique de l’Ecole des Femmes_, showed himself so great a master:--

“Tarte, à la creme--morbleu, tarte à la creme!”

“Hé bien, que veux tu dire, tarte à la erême?”

“Parbleu, tarte à la crème, chevalier!”

“Mais encore?”

“Tarte à la crème!”

“Dî-nous un peu tes raisons.”

“Tarte à la crème!”

“Mais il faut expliquer ta pensée, ce me semble.”

“Tarte à la crème, Madame.”

“Que trouvez-vouz là à redire?”

“Moi, rien;--tarte à la crème!” With equal taste and judgment, the writers and speakers of the Opposition repeat their favourite phrases,--“deserted principles,” “unnatural coalition,” “base love of office.” They have not, we must allow, been unfortunate in their choice of a topic. The English are but too much accustomed to consider every public virtue as comprised in consistency; and {409}the name of coalition has to many ears a startling and ominous sound. Of all the charges brought, against the Ministry, this alone, as far as we can discover, has any meaning; and even to this we can allow no force.

To condemn coalitions in the abstract, is manifestly absurd: Since in a popular government, no good can be done without concert, and no concert can be obtained without compromise. Those who will not stoop to compliances which the condition of human nature renders necessary, are fitter to be hermits than to be statesmen. Their virtue, like gold which is too refined to be coined, must be alloyed before it can be of any use in the commerce of society. But most peculiarly inconsistent and unreasonable is the conduct of those who, while they profess strong Party-feelings, yet entertain a superstitious aversion to Coalitions. Every argument which can be urged against coalitions, as such, is also an argument against party connexions. Every argument by which party connexions can be defended, is a defence of coalitions. What coalitions are to parties, parties are to individuals. The members of a party, in order to promote some great common object, consent to wave all subordinate considerations:--That they may co-operate with more effect where they agree, they contrive, by reciprocal concessions, to preserve the semblance of unanimity, even where they differ. Men are not thought unprincipled for acting thus; because it is evident that without such mutual sacrifices of individual opinions, no government can be formed, nor any important measures carried, in a world of which the inhabitants resemble each other so little, and depend on each other so much,--in which there are as many varieties of mind as of countenance, yet in which great effects can be produced only by combined exertions. We must extend the same indulgence to a coalition between parties. If they agree on every important practical question, if they differ only about objects which are either insignificant or unattainable, no party man can, on his own principles, blame them for uniting. These doctrines, like all other doctrines, may be pushed to extremes by the injudicious, or employed by the designing as a pretext for profligacy. But that they are not in themselves unreasonable or pernicious, the whole history of our country proves.

The Revolution itself was the fruit of a coalition between parties, {410}which had attacked each other with a fury unknown in later times. In the preceding generation their hostility had covered England with blood and mourning. They had subsequently exchanged the sword for the axe: But their enmity was not the less deadly because it was disguised by the forms of justice. By popular clamour, by infamous testimony, by perverted law, they had shed innocent and noble blood like water. Yet all their animosities were forgotten in the sense of their common danger. Whigs and Tories signed the same associations. Bishops and field-preachers thundered out the same exhortations. The doctors of Oxford and the goldsmiths of London sent in their plate with equal zeal. The administration which, in the reign of Queen Anne, defended Holland, rescued Germany, conquered Flanders, dismembered the monarchy of Spain, shook the throne of France, vindicated the independence of Europe, and established the empire of the sea, was formed by a junction between men who had many political contests and many personal injuries to forget. Somers had been a member of the ministry which had sent Marlborough to the Tower. Marlborough had assisted in harassing Somers by a vexatious impeachment. But would these great men have acted wisely or honourably if, on such grounds, they had refused to serve their country in concert? The Cabinet which conducted the seven years’ war with such distinguished ability and success, was composed of members who had a short time before been leaders of opposite parties. The Union between Fox and North is, we own, condemned by that argument which it will never be possible to answer in a manner satisfactory to the great body of mankind,--the argument from the event. But we should feel some surprise at the dislike which some zealous Pittites affect to entertain for coalitions, did we not know that a Pittite means, in the phraseology of the present day, a person who differs from Mr. Pitt on every subject of importance. There are, indeed, two Pitts,--the real and the imaginary,--the Pitt of history, a Parliamentary reformer, an enemy of the Test and Corporation Acts, an advocate of Catholic Emancipation and of free trade,--and the canonized Pitt of the legend,--as unlike to his namesake as Virgil the magician to Virgil the poet, or St. James the slayer of Moors to St. James the fisherman. What may have been the opinions of that unreal being whose birthday {411}is celebrated by libations to Protestant Ascendency, on the subject, of coalitions, we leave it to his veracious hagiographers, Lord Eldon and Lord Westmoreland, to determine. The sentiments of the real Mr. Pitt may be easily ascertained from his conduct. At the time of the revolutionary war he admitted to participation in his power those who had formerly been his most determined enemies. In 1804 he connected himself with Mr. Fox, and, on his return to office, attempted to procure a high situation in the government for his new ally. One more instance we will mention, which has little weight with us, but which ought to have much weight with our opponents. They talk of Mr. Pitt;--but the real object of their adoration is unquestionably the late Mr. Percival, a gentleman whose acknowledged private virtues were but a poor compensation to his country for the narrowness and feebleness of his policy. In 1809 that minister offered to serve, not only _with_ Lord Grenville and Earl Grey, but even _under_ them. No approximation of feeling between the members of the government and their opponents had then taken place: there had not even been the slightest remission of hostilities. On no question of foreign or domestic policy were the two parties agreed. Yet under such circumstances was this proposition made. It was, as might have been anticipated, rejected by the Whigs and derided by the country. But the recollection of it ought certainly to prevent those who concurred in it, and their devoted followers, from talking of the baseness and selfishness of coalitions.

These general reasonings, it may be said, are superfluous. It is not to coalitions in the abstract, but to the present coalition in particular, that objection is made. We answer, that an attack on the present coalition can only be maintained by succeeding in the most signal way in an attack on coalitions in the abstract. For never has the world seen, and never is it likely to see, a junction between parties agreeing on so many points, and differing on so few. The Whigs and the supporters of Mr. Canning were united in principle. They were separated only by names, by badges, and by recollections. Opposition, on such grounds as these, would have been disgraceful to English statesmen. It would have been as unreasonable and as profligate as the disputes of the blue and green factions in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. {412}One man admires Mr. Pitt, and another Mr. Fox. Are they therefore never to act together? Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox were themselves willing to coalesce while they were alive; and it would therefore be strange, if, after they have been lying for twenty years in Westminster Abbey, their names should keep parties asunder. One man approves of the revolutionary war. Another thinks it unjust and impolitic. But the war is over. It is now merely a matter of historical controversy. And the statesman who should require his colleagues to adopt his confession of faith respecting it, would act as madly as Don Quixote when he went to blows with Cardenio about the chastity of Queen Madasima. On these points, and on many such points as these, our new Ministers, no doubt, hold different opinions. They may also, for aught we know, hold different opinions about the title of Perkin Warbeck, and the genuineness of the [Greek] But we shall hardly, on such grounds as these, pronounce their union a sacrifice of principle to place.