Part 5

We have been laying the foundation not only of a Dock, as a place of refuge, safety, and refitment for mercantile shipping, and calculated even to receive the largest steamers in Her Majesty’s Navy, but it may be, and I hope it will be, the foundation of a great commercial port, destined in after times, when we shall long have quitted this scene, and when our names even may be forgotten, to form another centre of life to the vast and ever-increasing commerce of the world, and an important link in the connection of the East and the West. Nay, if I contemplate the extraordinary rapidity of development which characterizes the undertakings of this age, it may not even be too much to expect that some of us may live yet to see this prospect in part realized.

This work has been undertaken, like almost all the national enterprises of this great country, by _private_ exertion, with _private_ capital, and at _private_ risk; and it shares with them likewise that other feature so peculiar to the enterprises of Englishmen, that, strongly attached as they are to the institutions of their country, and gratefully acknowledging the protection of those laws under which their enterprises are undertaken and flourish, they love to connect them, in some manner, directly with the authority of the Crown and the person of their Sovereign; and it is the appreciation of this circumstance which has impelled me at once to respond to your call, as the readiest mode of testifying to you how strongly Her Majesty the Queen values and reciprocates this feeling.

I have derived an additional gratification from this visit, as it has brought me for the first time to the county of Lincoln, so celebrated for its agricultural pursuits, and showing a fine example of the energy of the national character, which has, by dint of perseverance, succeeded in transforming unhealthy swamps into the richest and most fertile soil in the kingdom. I could not have witnessed finer specimens of Lincolnshire farming than have been shown to me on his estates by your Chairman, my noble host, who has made me acquainted, not only with the agricultural improvements which are going on amongst you, but with that most gratifying state of the relation between Landlord and Tenant which exists here, and which I hope may become an example, in time to be followed throughout the country. Here it is that the real advantage and the prosperity of both do not depend upon the written letter of agreements, but on that mutual trust and confidence which has in this country for a long time been held a sufficient security to both, to warrant the extensive outlay of capital, and the engagement in farming operations on the largest scale.

Let me, in conclusion, propose to you as a toast, “Prosperity to the Great Grimsby Docks;” and let us invoke the Almighty to bestow His blessing on this work, under which alone it can prosper.

AT THE PUBLIC MEETING OF THE

SERVANTS’ PROVIDENT AND BENEVOLENT

SOCIETY.

[MAY 16TH, 1849.]

GENTLEMEN,—

The object for which we have assembled here to-day is not one of charity, but of friendly advice and assistance to be tendered to a large and important class of our fellow-countrymen.

Who would not feel the deepest interest in the welfare of their Domestic Servants? Whose heart would fail to sympathize with those who minister to us in all the wants of daily life, attend us in sickness, receive us upon our first appearance in this world, and even extend their cares to our mortal remains, who live under our roof, form our household, and are a part of our family?

And yet upon inquiry we find that in this metropolis the greater part of the inmates of the workhouse are domestic servants.

I am sure that this startling fact is no proof either of a want of kindness and liberality in masters towards their servants, or of vice in the latter, but is the natural consequence of that peculiar position in which the domestic servant is placed, passing periods during his life in which he shares in the luxuries of an opulent master, and others in which he has not even the means of earning sufficient to sustain him through the day.

It is the consideration of these peculiar vicissitudes which makes it the duty of both masters and servants to endeavour to discover and to agree upon some means for carrying the servant through life, safe from the temptations of the prosperous, and from the sufferings of the evil day. It is on that account that I rejoice at this meeting, and have gladly consented to take the chair at it, to further the objects of the “Servants’ Provident and Benevolent Society.”

I conceive that this Society is founded upon a right principle, as it follows out the dictates of a correct appreciation of human nature, which requires every man, by personal exertion, and according to his own choice, to work out his own happiness; which prevents his valuing, nay, even his feeling satisfaction at, the prosperity which others have made for him. It is founded upon a right principle, because it endeavours to trace out a plan according to which, by providence, by present self-denial and perseverance, not only will the servant be raised in his physical and moral condition, but the master also will be taught how to direct his efforts in aiding the servant in his labour to secure to himself resources in cases of sickness, old age, and want of employment. It is founded on a right principle, because in its financial scheme there is no temptation held out to the servant by the prospect of possible extravagant advantages, which tend to transform his providence into a species of gambling; by convivial meetings, which lead him to ulterior expense; or by the privilege of balloting for the few prizes, which draws him into all the waste of time and excitement of an electioneering contest.

Such are the characteristics of several institutions, upon which servants and many of our other industrial classes place their reliance. And what can be more heartrending than to witness the breaking of banks, and the failure of such institutions, which not only mar the prospects of these unhappy people, and plunge them into sudden destitution, but destroy in others all confidence in the honesty or sagacity of those who preach to them the advantages of providence?

Let them well consider that, if they must embark in financial speculations, if they like to have convivial meetings, if they claim the right of governing the concerns of their own body, they must not risk for this, in one stake, their whole future existence, the whole prosperity of their families. Let them always bear in mind, that their savings are capital, that capital will only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital itself.

The financial advantages which this Society holds out to servants rest upon the credit of the country at large, upon the faith of the Government, and are regulated by an Act of Parliament, called “the Deferred Annuities Act.” They are shortly these: “According to published tables, which I have before me, persons, whose fixed income is below 150_l._ per annum, can, by small instalments, purchase annuities deferred not less than ten years, but beyond that limit to commence at any period the depositor may name. One annuity cannot be more than 30_l._, but he may purchase distinct annuities for his wife, or for his children on having attained to their fifteenth year. Should he at any time wish to withdraw his deposits before the annuity has commenced, they will be returned to him; should he die before that period, the deposits will be returned to the heirs. In such cases the only loss will be the interest upon the money deposited.”

Although this wise and benevolent measure has been enacted so long ago as the third year of the reign of King William IV., I find, to my deep regret, that, during that whole time, only about 600 persons have availed themselves of its provisions. I can discover no other reason for this inadequate success, but that the existence of the Act is not generally known, or that people are afraid of law and Acts of Parliament, which they cannot understand on account of their complicated technical wording. I have heard another reason stated, to which, however, I give little credit, namely, that servants fear lest a knowledge that they are able to purchase annuities by savings from their wages might induce their masters to reduce them. I have a better opinion of the disposition of employers generally, and am convinced that, on the contrary, nothing counteracts more the liberality of masters than the idea, not wholly unfounded, that an increase of means, instead of prompting to saving, leads to extravagance.

It is one of the main objects of this meeting to draw public attention to this “Deferred Annuities Act,” and the main object of this Society is to form a medium by which servants may acquire the benefits proffered by it free from risk, cost, or trouble.

The other objects are: to provide a home for female servants out of place, the usefulness of which hardly requires a word of commendation; to provide respectable lodgings for men-servants not lodged by their masters; and to establish a Registry for domestic servants generally, which will form as well a place of advertisement for their services, as a record of their characters, from which they can be obtained upon application.

Any one who is acquainted with the annoyances and inconveniences connected with the present system of “characters to servants,” will at once see the importance of the introduction of a system by which the servant will be protected from that ruin which the caprice of a single master (with whom he may even have lived for a short time only) may inflict upon him, and the master from the risk to which a character wrung from a former weak master, by the importunities of an undeserving servant, may expose him. Nor is it a small benefit to be conferred upon the servant, to enable him, by appealing to a long record of former services, to redeem the disqualification which a single fault might bring upon him.

Should we only succeed in inducing the public at large to consider all these points, we shall have the satisfaction of having furthered the interests of a class which we find recorded in the Report of the last Census as the most numerous in the British population.

I shall now call upon the Secretary to lay before you more in detail the points which I have slightly touched upon.

AT THE ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY

THE MERCHANT TAILORS’ COMPANY.

[JUNE 11TH, 1849.]

GENTLEMEN,—

I thank you sincerely for your expressions of kindness and cordiality towards me.

Although I have on former occasions met you in this room, it has always been for some charitable purpose, witnessing with delight the readiness with which this, and indeed all the great corporations of London, open the doors of their magnificent Halls at the call of charity. To-day I am here as a Brother Freeman of your Corporation, fulfilling a promise made from the time that you received me into your body. I am ashamed to own how long ago. I beg you not to measure, by the tardiness of my appearance, the value which I attach to the honour which you then conferred upon me, by electing me a Freeman of the Merchant Tailors’ Company.

I remember well with what regret, when, shortly after I came of age, the Companies of the Goldsmiths and of the Fishmongers offered me their freedom, I found myself compelled to decline this honour, being informed that, identified as they were by historical tradition, and still representing two opposite political parties, I could make a choice only of one of them, and, fully sensible that, like the Sovereign to whom I had just been united, and to devote my whole existence to whom it had become my privilege, I could belong only to the nation at large, free from the trammels and above the dissensions of political parties.

I well remember, too, how much pleased I was when the two Companies, waiving some of their statutes, finally agreed both to receive me amongst them; and my satisfaction is heightened when I consider that I owe to that decision the advantage of finding myself associated with you also.

Anybody may indeed feel proud to be enrolled a member of a Company which can boast of uninterrupted usefulness and beneficence during four centuries, and holds to this day the same honourable position in the estimation of the country which it did in the time of its first formation, although the progress of civilization and wealth has so vastly raised the community around it, exemplifying the possibility, in this happy country, of combining the general progress of mankind with a due reverence for the institutions, and even forms, which have been bequeathed to us by the piety and wisdom of our forefathers.

Let us join in the hope that this Corporation may continue in its charitable functions to be equally an object of respect to our children and children’s children, and so drink “Prosperity to the Merchant Tailors’ Company.”

ON PRESENTING COLOURS TO THE

23RD REGIMENT, ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS.

[JULY 12TH, 1849.]

SOLDIERS OF THE ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS,

The ceremony which we are performing this day is a most important, and, to every soldier, a sacred one. It is the transmission to your care and keeping of the Colours which are henceforth to be borne before you, which will be the symbol of your honour, the rallying point in all moments of danger.

I feel most proud to be the person who is to transmit these Colours to a Regiment so renowned for its valour, fortitude, steadiness, and discipline.

In looking over the records of your services, I could not refrain from extracting a few, which show your deeds to have been intimately connected with all the great periods in our history. The Regiment was raised in 1688. Its existence therefore began with the settlement of the liberties of the country. It fought at the Boyne under Schomberg; captured Namur in Flanders in 1693; formed part of the great Marlborough’s legions at Blenheim and Oudenarde; fought in 1742 at Dettingen and Fontenoy; decided the battle of Minden in 1751, for which the name of _Minden_ is inscribed on the colours; showed examples of valour and perseverance in America in 1773, at Boston, Charlestown, Brandywine, and Edgehill; accompanied the Duke of York to Holland; was amongst the first to land in Egypt, under the brave Abercrombie, and, later, the last to embark at Corunna; but between these two important services fought at Copenhagen, and at the taking of Martinique. _Egypt, Martinique, and Corunna_ are waving in these Colours. In the Peninsula the Regiment won for their Colours, under the Duke, the names of _Albuera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelles, Orthes, and Toulouse_. The deeds performed at Albuera are familiar to everybody who has read Napier’s inimitable description of that action. The Regiment was victorious for the last time over a powerful enemy at the Duke’s last great victory at Waterloo.

Although you were all of course well acquainted with these glorious records, I have thought it right to refer to them as a proof that they have not been forgotten by others, and as the best mode of appealing to you to show yourselves at all times worthy of the name you bear.

Take these Colours, one emphatically called the Queen’s (let it be a pledge of your loyalty to your Sovereign, and of obedience to the laws of your country); the other, more especially the Regimental one, let that be a pledge of your determination to maintain the honour of your Regiment. In looking at the one, you will think of your Sovereign—in looking at the other, you will think of those who have fought, bled, and conquered before you.

AT THE BANQUET GIVEN BY

THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD MAYOR,

THOMAS FARNCOMBE,

TO HER MAJESTY’S MINISTERS,

FOREIGN AMBASSADORS,

ROYAL COMMISSIONERS OF THE EXHIBITION OF 1851,

AND THE

MAYORS OF ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TOWNS,

AT THE MANSION HOUSE.

[MARCH 21ST, 1850.]

MY LORD MAYOR,—

I am sincerely grateful for the kindness with which you have proposed my health, and to you, gentlemen, for the cordiality with which you have received this proposal.

It must indeed be most gratifying to me to find that a suggestion which I had thrown out, as appearing to me of importance at this time, should have met with such universal concurrence and approbation; for this has proved to me that the view I took of the peculiar character and claims of the time we live in was in accordance with the feelings and opinions of the country.

Gentlemen—I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.

Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points—_the realization of the unity of mankind_. Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the _result and product_ of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities.

The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. On the other hand, the _great principle of division of labour_, which may be called the moving power of civilization, is being extended to all branches of science, industry, and art.

Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to the few, now they are directed on specialities, and in these, again, even to the minutest points; but the knowledge acquired becomes at once the property of the community at large; for, whilst formerly discovery was wrapped in secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes that no sooner is a discovery or invention made than it is already improved upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are intrusted to the stimulus of _competition and capital_.

So man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs His creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use; himself a divine instrument.

Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter, which the earth yields us in abundance, but which becomes valuable only by knowledge. Art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry, and gives to our productions forms in accordance to them.

Gentlemen—the Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.

I confidently hope that the first impression which the view of this vast collection will produce upon the spectator will be that of deep thankfulness to the Almighty for the blessings which He has bestowed upon us already here below; and the second, the conviction that they can only be realized in proportion to the help which we are prepared to render each other; therefore, only by peace, love, and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth.

This being _my_ conviction, I must be highly gratified to see here assembled the magistrates of all the important towns of this realm, sinking all their local and possibly political differences, the representatives of the different political opinions of the country, and the representatives of the different Foreign Nations—to-day representing only _one interest_!

Gentlemen—my original plan had been to carry out this undertaking with the help of the Society of Arts of London, which had long and usefully laboured in this direction, and by the means of private capital and enterprise. You have wished it otherwise, and declared that it was a work which the British people as a whole ought to undertake. I at once yielded to your wishes, feeling that it proceeded from a patriotic, noble, and generous spirit. On _your_ courage, perseverance, and liberality, the undertaking now entirely depends. I feel the strongest confidence in these qualities of the British people, and I am sure that they will repose confidence in themselves—confidence that they will honourably sustain the contest of emulation, and that they will nobly carry out their proffered hospitality to their foreign competitors.

We, Her Majesty’s Commissioners, are quite alive to the innumerable difficulties which we shall have to overcome in carrying out the scheme; but, having confidence in you and in our own zeal and perseverance, at least, we require only _your confidence in us_ to make us contemplate the result without any apprehension.

AT THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE

OF THE

NATIONAL GALLERY AT EDINBURGH.

[AUGUST 30TH, 1850.]

GENTLEMEN,—

Now that this ceremony is concluded, you must allow me to express to you how much satisfaction it has given me to have had it in my power to comply with your invitation, and to lay the foundation stone of this important National institution, and that this should have coincided with the moment when Her Majesty the Queen has come among you, and has given you a further proof of her attachment to this country, by taking up her abode, if for a short time only, in the ancient palace of her ancestors in this capital, where she has been received with such unequivocal demonstrations of loyalty and affection.

The building, of which we have just begun the foundation, is a temple to be erected to the Fine Arts; the Fine Arts which have so important an influence upon the development of the mind and feeling of a people, and which are so generally taken as the type of the degree and character of that development, that it is on the fragments of works of art, come down to us from bygone nations, that we are wont to form our estimate of the state of their civilization, manners, customs, and religion.

Let us hope that the impulse given to the culture of the Fine Arts in this country, and the daily increasing attention bestowed upon it by the people at large, will not only tend to refine and elevate the national tastes, but will also lead to the production of works which, if left behind us as memorials of our age, will give to after generations an adequate idea of our advanced state of civilization.