If- The Four Great Powers: England, France, Russia and America; Their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future. A Revision with Important Modifications of the work by the same Author, entitled "English and French Neutrality," etc. By Rev. C. B. BOYNTON, D.D., Professor at the U. S. Naval Academy, Chaplain of the House of Representatives. C. F. Vent & Co. CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, & ST. LOUIS. 1866. \S(A Entered, according to an Act of CongresB, in the year 1864, by C. B. BOYNTON. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Boutheni District of Ohio. 3 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. "When this work was first published, the hostility of France and England to the American Republic, was chiefly manifested through their deceitful and miscalled neutrality. It was, in reality, a device for making war upon us with- out hazard or injury to themselves ; a plan for destroying our commerce, without exposing their own ; a plot for aid- ing our enemies, and destroying our Government, without being held accountable for the hostile act. But with the close of the war, this special form of foreign hostility passed away, and the mere question of the neutrality of these powers no longer attracted the attention of the public. The name of the book, therefore, no longer expressed truly its leading idea. The intention of the writer was to show that France and England had allied themselves for the purpose of controlling both Europe and America; that they first attacked Russia, and then, carrying out their original plan, seized the first opportunity of interfering with the progress of our Republic. The mock neutrality was the form which this foreign conspiracy first assumed, and hence the former title of the book : "English and French Neutrality; and the Anglo-French Alliance, in their Relation to the United States and Russia." But none of these designs against us have been aban- doned, because of the close of the war. The jealousy of these Governments has only been intensified by our success. Their fears of our growing power are now greater than be- fore, and the moment an occasion presents itself, their hos- tility will be more active than ever. These pages have not been written with any desire to stir up strife. America desires no war, foreign or domestic. A contest with England or France should be avoided at almost any sacrifice that does not involve a principle or our 4 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. national honor. But the author's convictions are clear and settled, that a war with one or both these powers cannot be avoided, unless our people are so thoroughly awake to dan- ger as to be fully prepared. France and England are not yet ready to yield to us the control of this Continent. They never will do it, unless compelled. If the people are fully aware of their danger, and hold themselves in readiness to repel attack, especially if they will maintain a navy, which shall be the true expression of our national power, then the question whether Americans shall rule America may be settled without a war. But if we are deluded by the idea that France and Eng- land have laid aside their hostility and abandoned their de- signs, that they are now willing to let us grow on in peace; if in consecpience, our military strength is suffered to decline ; if our navy is neglected; if we are rendered indifferent to what is going on in Mexico; if a strong party can be raised up, whose thought is to live only within ourselves with no regard to what others are doing, the day will surely come when we shall mourn over our delusion. The traditional policy of France and England for a hun- dred years, their political and commercial necessities, their chief wishes and purposes will impel them to interfere with the progress of this Republic, if it can be done with any reasonable prospect of success. We are continually told that Louis Napoleon is about to leave Mexico, and we are urged to put everything upon the peace footing, and pay no attention to Mexico. We are told that the Monroe doctrine is fanatical and impracti- cable, and that we should employ ourselves only with home affairs. If these opinions become the ruling ones in the country, the French Emperor will retain his hold on Mexico, and England will help to maintain him there, when the occasion comes. A reconstructed South might then perhaps so avail her- self of foreign aid as to be successful in a second effort for separation and a Southern Empire. May the people be warned in time. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN PREPARING THE WORK BARON HAXTHAUSEN'S NOTES ON RUSSIA. EHRMAN'S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA. OLIPHANT'S SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA. ALLISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. RUSSEL'S MODERN EUROPE. BANCROFT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. PRESCOTT'S PHILIP II. KINGLAKETS INVASION OF THE CRIMEA. STANLEY'S GREEK CHURCH. KAY'S SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND. HUNT'S MERCHANT'S MAGAZINE. LONDON QUARTERLY. FOREIGN QUARTERLY. EDINBURGH REVIEW. NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. NATIONAL ALMANAC, 18G3 AND 1864. UNITED STATES SERVICE MAGAZINE. REPORTS OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. REPORTS OF THE ORDINANCE BUREAU. OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH GOVERNMENTS HON. CHARLES SUMNER'S SPEECH ON OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. pagk Free Institutions placed on Trial before the World 11 CHAPTER II. English and French Neutrality 16 CHAPTER III. This Neutrality Illustrated by their Acts 20 CHAPTER IV. The Remoter Causes which have Shaped the Policy of these Powers (28 CHAPTER V. ■ The Foreign and Domestic Policy of England 45 CHAPTER VI. England and the Eastern Question , 49 CHAPTER VII Remoter Causes of the Present Policy of France 66 CHAPTER VIII. Condition of England, France, Russia, and America when the Anglo-French Alliance was Framed 82 CHAPTER IX. The Crimean War begun by France — In Origin a Religious War— An Attempt of the Papacy to regain its Ascendency both East and West 101 (Tii) Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. pagb Holy Shrines 106 CHAPTER XI. The Religious Aspect of the Eastern War 117 CHAPTER XII. The Papacy in its Connection with the Eastern Question .... 132 CHAPTER XIII. England's Policy Toward Russia in the Crimean War, and in regard to the Eastern Question 139 CHAPTER XIV. Had the Allies fully succeeded in the attack, they would have held Turkey as a Colonial Dependency, as England holds India, and as France intends to deal with Mexico 153 CHAPTER XV. There should be an American Opinion of Russia 166 CHAPTER XVI. The Elements of National Power 170 CHAPTER XVII. The Territory of Russia 176 CHAPTER XVIII. The Relative Position of Russia 185 CHAPTER XIX. Russia Easily Governed from one Center 194 CHAPTER XX. Russia Has Few Vulnerable Points 202 CHAPTER XXI. Russia Controlled by One Race — This Gives her a True National Life 214 TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XXII. pagb The National Sentiment of Russia as Affecting National Policy and Destiny 230 CHAPTER XXIII. The Educational Institutions of Russia 236 CHAPTER XXIV. The Character of the Russian Intellect 249 CHAPTER XXV. Territorial Progress of Russia 261 CHAPTER XXVI. Russia Aims at a Civilization Distinct from that of Western Europe 265 CHAPTER XXVII. The National Idea of Russia 286 CHAPTER XXVIII. Russia, like America, Aims to Grow by the Development of Her own Resources 293 CHAPTER XXIX. The Russian Church 308 CHAPTER XXX. The Russian Church may Recover the East 325 CHAPTER XXXI. Structure and Working of the Russian Government 330 CHAPTER XXXII. Russia as She Now Is, and Her Probable Future 348 CHAPTER XXXIII. England, Her Present Condition, Power, and Prospects 353 CHAPTER XXXIV. d Will the Three Great Religious Forces already named Act Separately or Harmoniously hereafter, or will they come into Collision ? 391 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXV. page The Armies and Navies of England, France, America, and Russia 396 CHAPTER XXXVI. The American Navy and Artillery 410 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Armies of England, France, and America 463 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Summary of the Relations of England, France, Russia, and America to the World and to Each Other 490 CHAPTER XXXIX. The Monroe Doctrine and the French in Mexico 500 CHAPTER XL. Conclusion 514 C PI AFTER I FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED ON TRIAL BEFORE THE WORLD. The results already attained in the progress of our war, and the sure promise of the future, justify us in believing, that one purpose of God in permitting this rebellion, was to draw the attention of the nations to the free institutions of the North, and then, by putting them to the severest possible proof, show their excellence unto the people of every land, and thus advance the general cause of human freedom. It has been proved that a popular Government is not necessarily a weak one, and that a free, unwarlike people, unused to the restraints of thorough organization and dis- cipline, can yet assume almost at once the highest forms of national life, can reshape, without confusion, their whole industrial energy to meet the demands of sudden war, can bring forth and organize, and hold in hand all their resources, and with all the skill and science of the age, can wield a thoroughly compacted national strength, greater in propor- tion to population than has been exhibited by any other power of earth. The people of the whole civilized world are studying with intense interest the events which are passing here, and the prominent friends of freedom in Europe declare that we are fighting here the great battle of universal humanity. Doubtless our complete success in overthrowing slavery here, the emancipation of all our laborers, will give a new impulse to popular liberty all over the world, and therefore, 12 FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED as it would seem, God has made the nations spectators of this desperate fight. This American war closes a political era for Christendom. New powers are being prepared as rulers in the coming age, and the race will feel the power of a higher life. But in order to show fully the quality and the power of the life of the free North, it was necessary not only to unveil the weakness, the cruelty, the loathsome corruption, the ignorance, and barbarism of slavery, but to give to the slave-power great advantages in the contest, and cause the free States to be taken by surprise, and compel them to begin a great war under all possible disadvantage, not only without arms, and without friends, but with thousands of foes within giving aid and comfort to the enemy without. If a Government of the people could pass such a peril safely, and win at length a triumph, if it could come forth from the trial not only a mighty compacted nation, but with all its proper liberties secure, it would be a lesson to which kings and people must alike give heed. The North at first had nothing to oppose to this great conspiracy, all armed and equipped, but its own free, irrepressible life. And thia was well ; for th us only could the might of freedom be known. Never were a people more completely surprised, and even bewildered, than those of the free States were for a time, when the conspirators showed that they had fully resolved to destroy the Government, and were ready to begin a war. The preparations of treason went forward on all sides, and men refused to believe that the traitors were in earnest. They would not credit the evidences of their own senses. They could not be persuaded then, that Americans could be guilty of such a shocking crime. The incredible nature of the meditated villiany, secured it it for a season, and gave time to perfect its plans, and when at length the war was actually begun, the North found itself not only unarmed but disarmed. Small arms and cannon, forts, navy yards, arsenals, the Southern coast and cities, the Gulf, the Mississippi from the Ocean to the mouth of the Ohio, all these, with few exceptions, were in ON TRIAL BEFORE THE AVORLD. 13 + lie hands of the traitors; the small "regular armv" was surrendered on the frontier, the little "navy"' was in distant waters, a single sloop-of-war only on all the Atlantic coast. In addition to all this, the Potomac was blockaded by batteries, a hostile army was within two days march of Washington, and the Capital was cut off from communica- tion with the North. Naturally, in this hour of extreme peril, the people of the North and their Government, turned to the European States, expecting, that at the very least, they would sympathize Avith a regularly established Govern- ment, in its effort to suppress an uncalled-for rebellion. They thought that those avIio had. ever dealt so sternly with treason at home, Avould be found on the side of the regular authorities here. They expected that France, Avho had generously aided us to establish here a Republic, would manifest her former friendship in this our neAv clanger, and they thought that England, who had done and sacrificed so much in the cause of human freedom, would come promptly to our aid with liA'ing sympathies, Avhen the object of the conspirators was declared to be, to build a slave empire on the ruins of a free Republic. If the free States were amazed at the conspiracy itself, they were confounded at the treatment they received from the two great allied powers of Western Europe. They placed themselves at once virtually on the side of the rebels. They declared that the "Great Republican Bubble" had burst. They gaA r e the traitors officially, and at once, the position and privileges of proper belligerents, they took from them the odium, and so far as they could, the guilt of rebellion, and relieved their corsair cruisers from the name and fate of pirates. We were informed that not one dollar of money should be loaned us whereAvith to carry on our Avar, and Ave met both at London and Paris only coldness and repression, while the rebels Avere cheered and encouraged by every act short of recognition, alliance, and Avar against the North. Helpless almost, as the free States were, in the first days of this conflict, nearly ovenvhelmed at the first 14 FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED onset by the vast weight of such a conspiracy, not only fully organized, but well armed with its stolen weapons, and backed by the sympathies of nearly all Europe, Russia only excepted, they showed little less than a miraculous energy by the manner in which they first stood firm, arid then rallied their strength, and increased their resources and power, until the conspiracy was pat under their feet, and they stood forth a new-born military nation, the equal of the foremost. "We have now reached a point in our national progress, where it is needful to study with jealous care the nature of our relations with Western Europe. The swift waning of the power of the rebellion will probably free us from all fear of intervention, or even recognition, and England shows at present a more kindly spirit which may possibly ripen into friendship, but France, her ally, and with whom she declares herself in perfect accord in regard to American affairs, France has planted an army just over our border, and proposes to erect a throne there also, and to exercise an important influence over American affairs, and to dictate, if she can, a policy for our continent. It becomes us, therefore, quickly to inquire what these things mean. We should know why England and France are so ready and cordial with their sympathy for the rebels, as if by previous agreement, and why we were met with coldness and ill-concealed hostility from the beginning, as if in accordance with a policy which France and England had in concert adopted beforehand. We cannot safely trust to uncertainties hereafter. We must not agaiu delude ourselves with false hopes. If hostility to the American Nation is one feature of the Anglo-French Alliance, if their scheme of policy include the crippling of America as well as Russia, it is high time that this were fully understood by both nations, that in the future we may be prepared in season. Russia and America may, perhaps, consider it prudent hereafter not to permit each other to be separately attacked by the Allied Power* of Western Europe. ON TRIAL BEFORE THE WORLD. 15 It becomes all Americans then, to study now afresh the origin and aims of the Anglo-French Alliance, as shown by their own declarations and corresponding acts, to under- stand the policy and resources, the military and naval strength of these two Powers, and in connection with these, to become familiar with the real character, power and policy of Russia, and to measure at the same time our own national strength and capabilities, and to comprehend our national mission. 16 ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. CHAPTER II. ENGLISH AND FKENCH NEUTRALITY. Our war with the rebellion is evidently near its close. The conspirators have exhausted their means of resistance, and submission or destruction is now their only choice. When the end of this conflict is reached, may we then safely dis- band our armies, and lay up in harbors our dismantled war ships, and securely give ourselves as heretofore, exclusively to the pursuits of peace? Shall we continue, as before, isolated from the affairs of Europe, and shall we be permitted to pursue in quiet our own home policy, an independent American career? Or has this war been brought upon us merely to prepare us for conflicts to come, which will test still more severely our courage, skill and power? Has the God of nations appointed us to a great mission in behalf of the rights of man, which we could not execute until we were delivered from that sin and curse which paralyzed our energies, prevented us from becoming a national power, corrupted our morals, and stripped us of our manhood? Was this political and social upheaval ordered for us as a preparatory discipline, and through tltis baptism of blood and tears has our God consecrated us unto a nobler work ? Did God take note of the secret plottings of Western Europe, and foreseeing that they would attack us whenever an occasion could be found; has He brought upon us the stern necessity of casting from us the weakness of slavery, ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 17 adding thereby half a million of fighting men to our available strength ; has He compelled us to consolidate our national power; has lie shown us our resources and capa- bilities; has He made us familiar with our strength, and forced us to become a great military nation, in order to prevent the meditated blow from Europe, or enable us to meet it without disaster ? If these questions can be answered, it will be by first observing the conduct of France and England as neutral powers, and then we may find the meaning of this, in the nature and purposes of their alliance, and in the necessities of their settled national policy. In judging the past acts of nations, even of such as call themselves Christian, or if we would know what we may expect in the future, we must remember that the abstract right, the principles of the Gospel, have very little direct influence upon national policy. We have not yet arrived at that state of perfection, where righteousness and faithful- ness are the girdle of the loins of rulers. Kings, Presidents, Cabinets, are not expected to do anything contrary to apparent interests, merely because it is right, or to refrain from any act, merely because it is wrong. Each great power of Europe has a national policy of its own, which it will carry out so far as it has the power, with very little regard for the rights or welfare of others, while under that artificial system devised to maintain what they oall the "balance of power," any one is liable to be attacked, merely because it is more prosperous than its neighbors. Nor must Americans overlook the all-important fact, that the Allied Powers of Western Europe do seriously propose to apply the European political system to the affairs of this Continent. Steam navigation has virtually con- densed the population of the world ; the spaces between nations are scarcely one-fourth of what they once were ; the ocean which divides us from Europe is now only a strait; and placed as we are, almost side by side with France and England, they see and fear the advancing shadow of our greatness, and they seek earnestly the means of hindering 18 ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. our progress and crippling our power. If other means fail, if we should come forth from this rebellion with our national unity unbroken, and our strength unimpaired, they will combine, and attempt by State craft, or by force if they dare, to preserve here the " balance of power," which simply means to prevent us by all and any means, from becoming an American Nation, great enough to be independent of them. Whoever expects less of hostility, or more of friendship than this from any power of Western Europe, will surety be deceived. It is perhaps barely possible that England may yet seek an alliance with America to save herself from France, but that is among the secrets of the future. Nor must we forget, when we attempt to forecast, the future, that the great forces which move the nations of Christendom are religious ones. By this is meant, not that national counsels are controlled by Christian principles, but that the alliances and antagonisms of nations are largely shaped by the influence of the ties of race, and the religious faith and traditions of the people. , It is quite certain now, that the civilized world is fast arraying itself under three great political divisions, which correspond to the three great religious organizations. Russia heads and wields the Eastern Church. France is already the actual leader of the Latin race, and the Papal Church, while the Protestant power is not as yet so thoroughly organized and united. It has not as yet selected its head and champion. Where shall we find the great Protestant national leader of the future? Will it be Germany or England ? Not unless great changes are speedily wrought. Will it be America? Perhaps so, if she is found worthy. The political tendencies of the three great religious divi- sions*of Christendom are perfectly apparent. Protestantism embodies itself naturally in free institutions. It seeks everywhere, and at all times, to elevate the people, it desires to enfranchise universal humanity. Russia and the Greek ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 19 Church are moving in the same direction, and give noble promise for the future. The Papal Church is, as ever, the friend of political and ecclesiastical despotism, the hitter enemy of popular rights and free institutions; and France, in striving to become the Imperial Head of the Latin race and Church, is the Leader of a new conspiracy against the peace of nations and the liberties of man. These facts must all be considered in any attempt to form an opinion of the future of Europe and America. They show us the true reasons for the course which France and England have pursued since the beginning of the rebellion, they show why these Powers united for an attack on Russia, and that the same motives have shaped their policy towards both Russia and America ; and in the light of these facts, we may turn to the misnamed neutrality of these Govern- ments and read aright its meaning. 20 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. CHAPTER III. THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. In referring to the conduct of France and England, no friend of his country or of his race, would dwell upon their unfriendly acts for the purpose of creating bitterness of feeling, or merely to keep alive the memories of wrong. America desires only peace. She asks of Europe that she should be left in quietness to work out her own national destiny, and to manage her own affairs, as seems best to her, without interference from any. But the spirit which has been manifested by France and England, the evident and earnest desire that the Republic should be destroyed, the prompt and cheerful giving of sympathy and aid to our rebel enemies, these things should surely warn us to watch with jealous care their every movement, to study carefully the principles and objects of their policy, that they may have no chance hereafter to take us unawares. While we rejoice at, and frankly and kindly accept for what it is worth, every friendly or forbearing act, which seems to indicate some change of temper or intention, we are bound by every consideration of prudence and national safety, to judge of the present by the past, and to expect that these nations hereafter will be guided as they have been thus far, not by any friendly feelings towards this "Western Power, but by those very principles of policy which have controlled them since the beginning of our war. Their plans are settled and far-reaching ones. They are not to be suddenly or lightly abandoned. The national THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 21 necessities of France and England, as their leaders view them, and the policy which they have jointly adopted for the control of Christendom, do not permit them to look qn-ietly on while Russia and America are making such rapid progress. Their alliance was framed in view of a real antagonism between their interests, and those of Russia and America ; they have made the antagonism an actual one by a war with Russia, and their treatment of us; and this should be borne steadily in mind if we would understand the past, or be prepared for the future. The future will be peace, if we are strong enough to compel a peace, not otherwise. It is important for Americans to remember that the course pursued by France and England was the result of previous consultation, and positive agreement between them. At the outset, they informed our Government that the two Powers would be perfectly united in their policy, whatever it might be, and in declaring this policy by acts, England took the lead. Her first open and decided step then, was taken in accord- ance with the plan which the French and English rulers had decided upon beforehand, and with definite purposes in view. The very manner and time chosen, must have been fixed by a previous decision. By formal Proclamation of the Queen, the Confederate rebels, in the very first hours of their insurrection, were declared to be rightful ocean belligerents before they had a single ship afloat, and when, even if they had ships, there was not a port on earth where they could send a prize for trial. This Proclamation was issued when the British rulers knew that Mr. Adams, our newly appointed Minister, was at Liverpool, prepared to represent the cause of our Govern- ment, but with a haste which revealed clearly the hostile intent, the design to prejudge and settle the whole matter against us, before we could be heard, and to grant the rebels privileges and a national standing, which no effort of ours could recall. 22 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. They had resolved, after consulting with France, to commit the English and French nation to a policy from which they could not retreat. It was essentially an un- friendly act. It was known to be so, it was intended to give aid and comfort to the traitors, to relieve them from the name and crime of treason and piracy, and to win for the rebellion the respect and sympathy of the world. In moral guilt, as a heartless, selfish violation of national friendship, this act was equal to an alliance with the rebels, and a declaration of war against the American Government, and every subsequent event has shown that it was designed to be war in disguise, war without risk to the two Allied Powers, but which brought destruction to our commerce, and ministered the strength of an alliance to our enemies. ]STo change in conduct, nor even friendship shown here- after, can alter the character of this first unfriendly act. It is the one life fountain from which the rebellion has received vitality and power, France and England, with perfectly agreeing hostility, have employed the Confederates to use against us their powder, rifles, cannon, blockade runners, and war ships, and these have been employed to advance their designs against this Republic as really as if they had been covered by the French or English flags, and a majority of Englishmen and Frenchmen have rejoiced over every Rebel success as if it were a victory of their own, and so it really was. It is mockery of the most bitter kind, to remind us, as Englishmen have so often done, that they have furnished us also with munitions of war, and that as neutrals they sell alike to each belligerent. The wrong, flagrant and designed, lies in the previous act by which, for purposes of their own, and to our deep injury, they pro- claimed our enemies to be lawful belligerents. They found a company of rebels engaged in an insurrection against a lawful Government, in a treasonable conspiracy, and because they desired the overthrow of this Republic, and they saw the traitors could be used for this foul purpose, and because they were determined to give all possible aid to these rebel enemies, and could not assist them as traitors THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 23 and rebels, without disgrace, the French and English politi- cal magicians touched these rebels with the wand of royal proclamation, and lo ! the conspirators were transformed into lawful and highly respectable belligerents, on equal footing with the lawful Government, and France and Eng- land were, of course, neutral powers, and with rights derived solely from their own proclamation, they proceeded to strengthen the rebels with all manner of moral and material support, because they had changed them from traitors to belligerents for this very purpose. The two Powers are mentioned together as concerned in the Proclamation, because from the first they declared that they were perfectly united in their American policy. Every subsequent act of these two Powers seems to have been conceived in the spirit of the Queen's Proclamation ; there has not been a single instance, down to the seizing of the Rebel Rams, in which the English or French Govern- ment deigned to assume even the appearance of friendship. A cold, harsh, unfriendly temper, a spirit that sought occa- sion against us, watching for a cause of quarrel, was evident in all their intercourse. They did not attempt to conceal that they sympathized with the rebels, that they desired their success, and the overthrow of the Republic ; they assumed constantly that the Union was destroyed already, and would never be restored, and their every act was in- tended, it would seem, to prove the assertion true. And unless it was a part of the original plan to interfere by force, when the occasion should come, and crush us in our hour of peril and weakness, there seems no way to explain the conduct of England in the affair of the Trent. Unless British statesmen had then determined upon war, as a certain means of securing the independence of the South, and the destruction of our Government, what meaning can we attach to their acts ? They knew perfectly well that the seizure of the Trent was not intended by our Government ; they kuew that not only did our officer act without orders, but that his act was repudiated by our authorities ; they had official knowledge of all this, and yet they purposely with- 24 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. held all this from the knowledge of the English people, while all means were being earnestly used to inflame the popular mind to a degree that would render a war inevitable. If the English Government did not then intend war, why did it withhold the information which it had of our peace- ful disposition, and of our willingness to make honorable amends for the seeming wrong. It seems impossible to resist the conclusion, that England then thought that with a single blow she could establish the South and free herself forever from the fear and the rivalry of a great American Nation. She knew perfectly that America desired nothing more than peace and friend- ship with France and England, and unless she intended to force us into a war that would be fatal to our nation, why did she suppress the truth, why did she surfer the English people to be imposed upon, and goaded into fury by false- hood, and appeals to national jealousy and pride? These things are referred to, not to stimulate ill-feeling or a desire for revenge, but because we should be admonished by the past what to expect in the future. These acts were the result of settled policy on the part of France and England both, as will be seen before the subject is dismissed, and that policy will not be abandoned, until great changes are wrought in the political relations of Europe. These Allied Powers may be -actively hostile, or ostensibly friendly toward us, as circumstances may demand, but their national policy, in regard to both America and Russia, will remain unchanged until revolution sweeps over Europe. The objects aimed at by the Proclamation are set in the clearest light by what has since occurred. It opened at once for England a great market for all kinds of munitions of war, and every other species of goods which, by swift steamers, and from her adjacent ports, could be run through the lines of our blockade. These goods would greatly in- crease the courage and power of our enemy, and enable the conspirators, in all probability, to compel a separation of our territory, and this would render impossible a great American Nation. THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 25 It enabled England to build a navy for the Rebels, arm and man their ships in her own ports, as she did the Alabama and others, and these could cripple our commerce in two ways, by the destruction of our ships at sea, and by rendering them everywhere insecure, so as to transfer even our own trade to the British flag. These two things have come to pass with immense injury to us, they are results easily foreseen, were inevitable even, and we have a right, therefore, to believe that this was aimed at in the Proclamation. Nor can Americans safely forget one important part of the sad evidence of the hostility of England in particular, that nearly the whole literary power of the Kingdom was employed, as if in concert, to injure the cause of the American Government in the eyes of the world. The most popular letter-writer of England was sent to this country with the scarcely veiled intention of presenting the North and its cause, in the worst possible light to the world, and of painting the conspirators as making a heroic effort for independence. Not alone the Times, which in spite of all denial, reflects in the main more faithfully than any other paper the pre- vailing temper of England, but the graver Quarterlies, which had hitherto shown some candor in regard to our country, joined in the general outcry, and lent their powerful aid in misleading and inflaming the public mind, and exciting against us and our cause the prejudices of Continental Europe. These things were not accidental. They were evidently parts of a general plan, all bearing upon one purpose, the success of the Rebel cause, the destruction of our National Union. The statements and arguments of the British Press were contrary to all the main facts in the case, and we cannot think that educated Englishmen were utterly ignorant of our condition and our purposes. "We cannot but believe in the clear light of all the facts, that the inten- tion was to make a case that should justify the hostile attitude which they had assumed. 26 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. No one will believe tliat.it was any surprise, or thought- less haste, or sudden irritation, that could induce cool, experienced British statesmen to ignore both the principles and practice of their Government in regard to conspiracy and rebellion, to forget that their island has been crimsoned with blood shed to maintain the authority of the regular Government, to cast behind them all the testimony and all the acts of England against human slavery, and place themselves, and the nation which they represented, by the side of conspirators, who were not only banded together to overthrow a regular Government, but to establish a slave- holding despotism. It is evident, that motives of no ordinary power must have swayed the British Government in adopting such a course, and equally strong must have been the influence which swept France away from all her precedents, and severed the friendly relations which had been the growth of more than half a century. The motives of both nations must be sought in the nature and purposes of their alliance, which will be more fully explained hereafter. In carrying out the policy agreed upon by the allies, a separate part was assigned to France, in the execution of which, England cordially sustained her, as she herself declared, for she was careful to assure the world, that she approved the movement of France upon Mexico, and she supported her words by the presence and co-operation of her fleet. Nor does the withdrawal of her ships, after the landing was effected, prove by any means that the ultimate aims of France were either unknown or not approved. Far otherwise. Great Britain has uttered no note of remonstrance ; but, on the contrary, France is commended for daring to defy us on the subject of the Monroe Doctrine, and is given to understand that England will be pleased to see what is called a stable Government in Mexico, and this is a full endorsement of a most iniquitous scheme of invasion and conquest, the most wicked and causeless attack of the strong on the weak, which modern times have seen. THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 27 The work of France then, was not one of personal ambi- tion only, it was a part also of the general scheme of both nations to humble and cripple the Great Republic, to check the growth of a naval, commercial, and manufacturing nation, England the while indifferent to the fact, that the success of the plan would overthrow free institutions and the Protestant faith on all this Western Continent. Spain and England politely escorted the French fleet and army to Mexico, and then left France to plant her army on shore, to begin a causeless war, and capture the Mexican cities, to proclaim a Government in opposition to the wishes of the people; to establish, indeed, a vast French camp on the flank of the Republic, with wishful eyes turned on California, Texas, and the mouth of the Mississippi, de- claring her purpose to be, to check the progress of the Protestant Republic, and reassert on this Continent the supremacy of the Latin race and Roman Church. Such are some of the acts of these miscalled neutral powers, and prudence demands that we should study carefully their meaning. What are the national necessities of these two Governments, out of which this policy has sprung? This question requires an answer. 28 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED CHAPTER IV THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED THE NATIONAL P'/iaCT OP FRANCE AND ENGLAND. In studying the course of these Allied Powers toward America, it is not necessary to assume that it has been dictated by any special hatred of the American people, that all the old friendship of France has been suddenly turned to gall and bitterness, or that England is watching to repay the ancient grudge caused by the separation of our colonies. There is no such animosity between these nations and our own as demands a war. Left to their own impulses, the people of these countries would not only live in peace, but would gladly cultivate friendly relations. But whoever builds a hope of continued peace, merely upon the absence of hostile feeling, or upon such popular friendship as may exist, will surely be deluded. France and England will be governed only by considerations of national policy. Back of all friendly feelings, whatever they may be, back of all influences of the ties of race, language and religion, which might otherwise move England, are the stern necessities of her British policy, by which she will be inevitably controlled. England's commercial and manufacturing interests, Eng- land's power and supremacy among nations, these will be first considered ; all else will be coldly thrust aside. The English people may be suddenly kindled into a perfect blaze of wrath, as in the case of the Trent, but the moment it was seen that British policy did not then demand a war, the angry fires burned harmlessly out. THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 29 On the other hand, it is by no means safe to suppose that, because Mr. Beecher's efforts were applauded by so many thousands, that therefore all apprehensions may be laid aside, and our safe course now is to caress the British Lion into quietness and friendship. It would be a short-sighted and dangerous policy to place any reliance upon such mani- festations as these. The necessities of England's position will override all this. If the Anglo-French Alliance continues, and these powera pursue the policy with which it was formed, they will remain in real antagonism to Russia and America, and the struggle for the mastery will surely come. Let us do our part in the preserving of peace ; yet by all means, prepare for the future. In studying the policy of the Great Powers of Christen- dom, we must remember, that the greatness and power of a nation in this age, depend upon the extent of its commerce and manufactures. War itself has become as much a question of capital and machinery, as the working of a cotton mill. But the capital made for a great and long war can only be created through manufactures and commerce, and therefore, a nation must be commercially great in order to become a first-rate mili- tary power — and to great wealth must be added skill, in the production and use of machinery. Battles by land and sea are fought more and more each year by machinery. These remarks apply with peculiar force to France and England. Their future supremacy depends upon their commerce and manufactures, and armies and navies are needed by them mainly to extend and secure these great interests, which are the sources of their wealth and power. Bonaparte found that, although he could over- run Europe by mere military power and skill, that he could lay no permanent foundation of a great Empire, except upon a manufacturing and commercial basis, such as England had created; and from that time France has been endeavoring to obtain for herself extensive colonies, and to create both a great navy and a commercial marine. 30 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED If we add to these interests, the influence of the great religious organizations of Europe, we shall have the key to the whole policy of England and the great powers of the Continent. European wars just now are not waged for an idea, not- withstanding what France has said. England will make war, if necessary, to protect the sources of her wealth, and to crush a commercial rival; France may do the same to add to her colonies or increase her territory, that her com- merce and manufactures may grow, and she may use the idea of restoring the prestige of the Latin race as best suited to her purpose ; but she will prepare no armies or navies merely to propagate or defend a principle. In order to understand the commercial necessities of the Great Powers of Modern Europe, it is necessary to trace from afar the movements of the commerce of the world. From the earliest ages, to which history reaches even with an uncertain light, it is found that wealth, civilization, and power are connected with the commerce of eastern Asia, India, China, and the Eas.t Indian Archipelago. Wherever a depot could be formed for the reception of the precious merchandise of the " far East," there was a mag- nificent center of dominion. From this source Egypt derived much, or most of her enormous wealth. Her upper and lower Capitals were each connected with the Red Sea and so with India, one by the celebrated ship canal, portions of whose bed still are visible, and the other by a graded road from Karnac to Kosseir, and their wonderful ruins sufficiently attest how Egypt fattened both upon the military and com- mercial spoils of India and the eastern Islands. Solomon with his Indian seaport at Ezion Geber on the Elanitic Gulf, directed a portion of that commerce by sea toward Jerusalem, while Palmyra, that beautiful miracle of the desert, was created by the trade of the caravans, and the enriching effects upon Judea are graphically described in the Scriptures, where it is said, that iron became as stones, and silver as iron, and gold as silver in the streets of Jerusalem. Again, when this trade was centered upon the eastern THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 31 shore of the Mediterranean, it produced Tyre, that ocean queen, and Sidon, scarcely inferior. It was a vast commer- cial idea, and not simply a mad thirst for useless conquest that originated the eastern expedition of Alexander. It was one of 'the most remarkable conceptions of any man in any age, considering the birth, education and position of the young Macedonian, dying as he did almost in youth, in his thirty-third year. It was the establishment of a mighty empire, with an Eastern capital as its center, to be enriched by the control of the commerce of India. For this purpose he founded Alexandria, and attempted to con- trol all the East. A French writer bears the following testimony to the sagacity of Alexander: "Alexander opened to Europe the commerce of the Indian seas, and of Eastern Africa, by a road, which if it was at the present day free and perfected as it ought to be, would cause the way by the Cape of Good Hope to be entirely abandoned." At the same time, Alex- ander and his successors did not overlook that more northern route upon which Russia has her eye now fixed, by the Caspian and Black Seas, and whose advantages were so long enjoyed. Alexander built cities on the south and east of the Cas- pian, while one of his immediate successors attempted to unite the Black Sea and the Caspian by means of a canal connecting the River Kouban, which empties into the Euxine, with the Konraa which flows into the Caspian, thus stretching a line-of navigation eastward toward India. The idea of Alexander was long and fondly dwelt upon by Napoleon, and gave rise to his expedition into Egypt. He saw that if the East Indian commerce could be diverted from its route by the " stormy Cape," and brought once more along its ancient channels, through the Red Sea to Egypt, that it would change the seat of the world's wealth and dominion, and restore to their former importance the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. England has under- taken to monopolize this trade, by conquering and holding the very countries where it originates, and while she makes 32 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED Europe echo with her bitter condemnation of the aggres- sions of Russia, she seems to forget that the annals of earth do not present a record of a more grasping, selfish, and cruel policy than that which has marked her course in India. There is no act of ambition or fraud, selfishness or oppression, which Great Britain has ever charged upon Russia in her acquisitions in Europe and Asia, for the pur- pose of opening a highway to China and northern India, for which impartial history will not find at least a parallel in the manner in which England has sought occasions of quarrel and interference in India, and trampled down the weak and wrested their possessions away, for the purpose of controlling this very commerce of which Russia once enjoyed a part, and which she is now seeking to share with the rest of Europe. The importance of that portion of this trade which once poured into Europe by the Black Sea, must not be forgotten in an estimate of the present course and aims of Russia. An active commerce between India and the West was car- ried on along this route, in the remotest antiquity to which the light of history has reached. The Phoenicians who are said to have possessed a powerful navy two thousand years before the Christian era, established colonies and built cities both on the Dardanelles and the shores of the Black Sea, which flourished upon the trade of the remote East. The description of the traffic of Tyre, in the twenty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, shows that horses, mules, slaves, and other articles were brought from the Black Sea and the Caspian, while from thence also, she hired the soldiers by which her walls were defended. The route traversed by those merchants who brought her the silks and spices of China and India is not mentioned, hut we should infer from other facts, that the course of a part of this trade was by the Sea of Aral, the Caspian and the Euxine. Troy, at or near the entrance of the Dardanelles, was also an opulent emporium of eastern commerce, whose power i8 attested by the ten years siege. This city seems to have been attacked because, as Constantinople now does, it com- THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 33 manded the gates of the Black Sea, whose commerce waa coveted by the rising and aspiring Greeks; and thus, many- centuries before the coming of Christ, the theater of the Crimean war was the scene of bloody conflicts, whose objects were similar to those which have stirred up the strife of modern times — the command of the Euxine and the adja- cent waters, with the traffic of the East. The Colchians, at the foot of the Caucasus, having sprung, as is supposed, from an Egyptian colony became greatly enriched by this commerce with China, India and the intermediate regions, and their wealth and luxury having attracted the cupidity of the piratical Greeks, gave rise, probably, to the famous Argonautic expedition, in which some of the towns of the Colchians on the Black Sea were pillaged. This lucrative commerce was soon after monop- olized by the rising power and maritime superiority of the Greeks, who not only controlled the trade which flowed into the Euxine by its numerous rivers, but extended a line of towns and citadels, or fortified halting places for the cara- vans fa'r eastward toward India. For centuries, the highway from Greece to India lay along the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of Aral, the precise route which Russia is intent upon re-establishing now. About one hundred and fifty years before Christ, the countries on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean con- tended with Rome for the riches of the Black Sea commerce. In this contest Rome was victorious, and the Euxine became a closed sea, a Roman lake, and under Pompey the country was explored toward India for the purpose of extending the commerce by which Asia Minor had been enriched. The civil wars which followed, occupied soon after the whole attention of Rome, and when Egypt fell into her hands the old highway to India by the Red Sea was occupied again, and immense Roman fleets, in the time of Augustus, passed by the ship canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, on their eastern voyages. But this commerce was burthened by the emperors with excessive duties, and this tended to force it gradually back upon the northern routes toward the Black 3 34 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED Sea once more. Even at this remote period the iron and furs of Siberia were among the articles of Roman traffic, the mountains of the Ural then yielding their precious deposits. The importance of the commerce on this northern route to India at this time, may he understood from a single fact. A short time before the Christian era, Phasiona, on the river Phasis, was the great mart of eastern trade, and such was its extent that there were one hundred and fifty bridges across the stream to accommodate the business carried on upon its shores. For some time previous'to the Christian era, and for several centuries subsequent, the direct trade between China and the West, centering upon the Caspian and Euxine, was exceedingly active and important, and few probably are aware of the extent of the Chinese overland trade which Russia at the present time enjoys, and which she is steadily and rapidly increasing. It is a struggle, as is perceived, between the ancient highways of traffic, and the modern new routes from India, which directing the wealth of the Indies upon Western Europe have built up London and Paris, as the eastern marts Avere reared of old around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and upon the banks of the Nile. The removal, by Constantine, of the capital of Rome from the Tiber to the Hellespont, formed a new and most advantageous center for commercial interchange between the East and the West, and Constantinople soon rose to bo the foremost city of the world. To her markets crowded the merchants from China, India, Arabia, Persia and Europe, and her magnificence in consequence was without a rival. The advantages of her admirable position between Europe and Asia, and between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, were understood and wisely used. She was, in all senses, the mistress of the East and West, with the single exception of the spiritual power of Rome. Thus for some centuries she flourished, and then the Arabian power was interposed between her and China and India, and Bagdad and other lesser Arab cities rose on the fruits of this inter- THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 35 ceptecl commerce, and dazzled for a time all the East with their splendor. Constantinople suffered in consequence, but was still, in the twelfth century, the most splendid city of the world. Bagdad alone was worthy to he in any degree compared with the Queen of the Hellespont. But the hatred of the Roman Church and the ambition of Venice and Genoa to possess themselves of an eastern commerce, directed an army of the crusaders against Con- stantinople which they besieged and plundered, glutting at once religious hatred and commercial ambition, and Venice obtained the control of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea together. She excluded as far as possible Genoa from any participation in her advantages, and monopolized and fattened upon the business of Constantinople. For the possession of this commerce long war was waged between Venice and Genoa, but in the fifteenth century the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, and the discovery by the Portuguese of the new route to India, seaward, by the Cape of Good Hope, changed the whole face of Europe. Commerce deserted its ancient seats on and around the Mediterranean, and planted the centers of future dominion in western Europe, whose cities soon became the depots for the eastern trade. But previous to this, as has been already stated, one great commercial and manufacturing city, with half a mil- lion of inhabitants, had been built up in central Russia where the merchandise of India and China was brought to be distributed through Europe, and thus centuries before England had any importance, as a manufacturing or mari- time nation, Russia received by the way of the Black Sea, an enriching portion of the traffic of India and China. But in the meantime, Russia was desolated by a Tartar conquest and then by civil strife, ending in a stern, unyield- ing despotism, that for a time not only crippled her energies but threw her back toward barbarism, and during this period the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch and English, by 36 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED their maritime enterprise and skill, had turned into their newly-opened ocean route, the trade of India. When once more Russia emerged from obscurity, in the time of Peter the Great, the world's great centers of power were altogether changed. Desolation and silence reigned in the once busy marts of the East, the old highways of commerce were all deserted, the Mediterranean fleets and cities had moldered together; in all the East the Turk ruled only to oppress, and exhaust, and ruin, and ocean fleets were conveying the riches of -China, India, and the Eastern Archipelago, to the rapidly advancing cities of southern and western Europe. At this point begins the modern struggle for the com- merce of the East, which also involves the control of the wealth of Western Europe. On this question of the trade of Asia, in connection with the antagonisms of religions and races, the whole policy of Western Europe hinges, and especially has it shaped each movement of France and England in regard to Russia and America. A brief review of these efforts to secure the trade of India and the East, is necessary to explain the meaning of the Anglo-French Alliance, the attack upon Russia in the Crimean war, the invasion of Mexico, and the hostility which France and England have manifested to our own Republic. The policy and efforts of Russia should be first considered, because it will reveal the true reason why she was attacked by the Western Powers. At the time when Russia was beginning to recover from the effect of her Tartar invasion, and the subsequent civil wars, the Dutch, the French and the English, were all seeking to establish themselves in India, and to obtain control of its commerce, and hold it for their own exclusive benefit. In this condition of things — the most important and enriching trade of all the world in the hands of the western Powers, which commerce would soon make them the center of power and civilization, as it had already done for all who had previously enjoyed its advantages — Russia THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 37 perceived clearly that her only hope of becoming a great nation lay in her recovering for herself a portion of the Eastern commerce, and that her only route to India and China was the ancient one — by the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Ural. She saw the necessity of producing those commodities which she might exchange for the precious stuffs of the East, and therefore created a manufacturing system of her own, for the double purpose of stimulating her own industry, opening up her own resources, and to obtain within herself an independent supply of manufac- tured goods, suitable for the Eastern markets. Russia, like England, desired to share in the trade of northern India and China. For her no path was open across the waves, but the old highways leading from the Euxine eastward, though mostly deserted, might, perhaps, be opened and occupied again. But between her and her goal lay the Tartar and the Turk. The question at once arises, was it more criminal, more heartless and despotic for Russia to remove these from her path, than for England to sweep away the natives of Ilindostan. Great Britain was march- ing northward, conquering and absorbing India as she went ; Russia was marching south-eastward, conquering, but also incorporating what she subdued, and making it an integral part of her empire. She has been displacing and incorpo- rating Turkey, while England has been swallowing India, and both for the same purpose, viz : the securing that world- enriching commerce of the East. Russia has thus advanced to the Crimea, southward to the Danube, northward round the Black Sea, and eastward still to the Caspian, embracing that also in her acquisitions, and now, and thus, she has enclosed Constantinople in a semi-circular line of her possessions, from the mouth of the Danube, northward and eastward, round to near the neighborhood of Ezeroum and Trebizond. In addition to this, such is her influence with the court of Persia, that her route lies open eastward. In all this, Russia has invaded no right of England, has touched neither her territory nor her property. She has been endeavoring to open for herself 38 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED a land route eastward, while England held the sea and was conquering and overrunning India for her own exclusive advantage. Tried by the rules of Christian morality, the course of Russia can not be defended ; but on the other hand, when compared with the policy of any one of the great nations of Europe, she will scarcely suffer in the comparison. She stands before the world as one among those powers, swayed by the same ambition, and using against others the same means and the same arts which were directed against her- self, and which every strong one was using like herself for the subjugation of the weak. Not to defend or justify the acts of the Russian court, have these remarks been made, but to expose the hypocrisy of those who, deeply stained as Russia with the sin of ambition, and selfish and wanton aggression, wiped their mouths with an affectation of inno- cency, and cried out against the Czar as if he were the only disturber of the repose of Europe — and where this was done merely as a cover for their own ultimate designs. Let Eng- land compare her own march from the trading-post of Clive, northward over the subjugated provinces of India, with that of Russia from Moscow to the Caspian, and she will find little cause for self-congratulation. She has established a rule there over one hundred and fifty millions of a down- trodden people, the rule of strong and exacting masters over comparatively weak and defenseless races, that will be crushed out and displaced, not elevated to the position of free and civilized communities, who will neither share the glory nor the prosperity of the nation by which they have been subdued. India is a vast plantation owned by England, and worked exclusively for the benefit of the dominant race. But to return to a consideration of the commerce of the East. Russia aims at the trade of the East Indian Archi- pelago, China, Northern India, Persia, and the countries around the Hellespont, the Euxine and the Caspian. To place herself in communication with the wealth of the East Indian Islands she has stretched her dominions to the Pacific, and along its shore, till she now embraces the mouth and THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 39 the valley of the Amoor, including a large and fertile prov- ince obtained from China. This river opens up a commercial highway, as has been stated, far westward through northern China into Siberia, toward the Ural, whence a railway is practicable into Europe, toward Moscow and Odessa. Rivers and canals already connect all parts of the Empire with the Euxine and the Caspian, and then a great northern route stretches out before her, by the way of the Sea of Aral, toward Herat and Northern India. Already this trade has been nourished into great importance. This will appear by the following statement copied from Merchants' Magazine, in an article whose authority can scarcely be questioned : " The Russian caravans carry the furs of foxes, beavers, castors, of Kamksekatka and of America, coral, clocks, linens, woolen cloths, wool, leather, looking-glasses, glass, etc., and give them to the Chinese in exchange for silk, precious stones, tea, cotton, rice, porcelain, rhubarb, gauze- crape, mourning-crape, musk, anniseed, silks with threads of gold, velvets, tobacco, sugar candy, preserved ginger, pipes, combs, dolls made of silk and of porcelain. "In the time of Catherine, this business was valued at 20,000,000 of francs, equally divided between the Russians and Chinese. The business has constantly progressed ever since, and in 1850 the Russians exported to China 28,000,000 francs worth of merchandise. The caravans of Kiatka have not alone the privilege of the commerce between China and Russia; the independent Tartars carry to Oremberg and Troizkai the provisions which they purchase in India and China. A part of this merchandise, and of that brought by other caravans from Thibet, from India, from Khiva, from Bokhara, from all central Asia, from Persia, from Georgia from Armenia, arrive at the great fair at JSTijnei-Novgorod, at the confluence of the Volga and the Olka, where, it is said, 600,000 merchants assemble. To give an idea of the importance of the commerce of Russia with the different countries of Asia, it is sufficient to say that she imports by the Caspian 8,000,000 francs' worth of merchandise, to 40 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED which must be added about 10,000,000, to represent the productions which she receives by land from the Turkish and Persian provinces. She buys 116,000,000 francs' worth of Chinese productions, and brings from Bokhara and Tar- tary 76,000,000. Her exports by land to Asia amount to 170,000,000 of francs. "It would be easy for Russia to bring ail this commerce to the Black Sea, without doing any prejudice to her pro- vinces in the north of Europe. She is doing everything for the accomplishment of this result, and nature has traced the route by which this immense commerce would easily flow into the Euxine. The most considerable rivers in Russia — the Dnieper, the Dniester, and the Don — empty into this sea ; and with them, all the agricultural and manufacturing riches of Russia would descend into the Euxine, attracted there by the merchant vessels of the maritime nations of southern Europe, of western Asia, and of the north of Africa. In order to prevent any obstacle to this powerful current of commerce, which would bring to the south the productions of the north-east of Europe, the rivers just mentioned were connected with the Baltic and the White Sea by means of a vast system of canalization, conceived and commenced by the genius of Peter the Great. " The Danube alone could bring into the Russian ports of the Black Sea the commerce of a large part of western Europe; for the Danube, united to the Rhine by the canal Louis, which puts it in direct communication with France, Belgium, and Holland, offers to commerce the most direct line of communication between Europe and Asia. The Caspian is connected with the Northern Sea by means of an immensely important canal, which joins the Volga to the Meta, a tributary of the Volchov, which falls into the Lake of Ladoga. This lake communicates with the Baltic (Gulf of Finland) ; the Volga itself is connected with the Lake of Ladoga by the canal of Tchkvin; and the canals of Koubensk, and of the north, unite the Caspian with the White Sea. "However great the importance of this net- work of THE NATIONAL POLICY OP FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 41 canals in Russia in Europe, still they do not suffice to carry out but a part of the commercial projects of Peter the Great. It was still necessary to bring eastern Asia and the Black Sea into communication with the Caspian Sea. Peter, as we have already seen, had traced on a map the plan of a canal between these two seas ; this was no more than the renewal of the project of Seleucus, of which we have spoken in its place. At a later period he decided to join these seas by means of a canal between the Clavlia, a tributary of the Don, and the Kamychenka, a tributary of the Volga — an enterprise which had been attempted by the Venitians and the Tartars of the Crimea. " There were great difficulties to overcome before com- pleting this canal, for the Don is higher than the Volga. But Peter undertook to overcome them, and employed an English engineer named Perry, who, after three years labor, was obliged to abandon it to complete fortifications of immediate necessity. Catherine II. caused the enterprise to be carried on for two years ; but the ravine of Peter the Great, as it is called, is still unfinished. " Now, it is probable a railroad will take the place of a canal. The Black Sea has already become almost a Russian lake. The Caspian belongs to the Czar, for Persia has lost the right to keep an armed force there, and her communi- cation with the Black Sea becomes at once of the greatest importance to Russia. Besides, the Caspian receives the Volga, that immense stream which traverses all southern and eastern Russia, which, by the aid of the Kama — one of its tributaries — is connected with the Ural Mountains, so rich in mines of gold, platina, iron and copper ; also the rich productions of all eastern and central Asia, of Persia, of Armenia, and the neighboring countries, flow into the Caspian by different routes. Now, to carry out the com- mercial views of Russia, it remains to put the Caspian in direct communication with all central Asia, as far as India and China. Nature had primitively established this immense line of communication, by making but one great internal sea of the Aral and Caspian. Ever since the epoch 42 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED of the separation of these two seas by the vast steppes of Manquischlaks, a communication still existed, if it is true that as late as the tenth or eleventh century of our era the ancient Oxus (Amou Daria) emptied into the Caspian, placing her in a direct communication with the south-west frontiers of China and the north of India ; but in the present day this river empties into the Aral, but still could, by its numerous tributaries and by caravans, easily bring the pro- ductions of Chinese Tartary, of Thibet, of Cashmere, and of India, by Khiva, to the Aral, which receives the Scria Daria (Jaxade), which is the route of an active commerce, and the best communication with the table-lands of China, Turkistan, southern Russia, and the Black Sea. " From the preceding, it is easy to understand the efforts made by Russia to get possession of Khiva, which is at the head of the Amou Scria (Oxus). Once mistress of this place, Bokhara would soon see her at her gates, and Khokanee, which is near, would become her prey. Then she would at pleasure direct the caravans of China, of Thibet, and of India. After that, it would be easy to create a communi- cation between the Caspian and the Aral, and the Black Sea would be connected with the extreme East. Independently of the facilities of communication by water, just mentioned, a prodigious quantity of merchandise would come by cara- vans from the East to the Black Sea. "In two hundred days, the caravans can make the jour- ney from Chin-Si, on the western frontiers of China, to the eastern shores of the Caspian. From there the numerous steamers can easily transport the merchandise to Astrakan. A large part of the commerce of western Persia, of Arme- nia, of Mesopotamia, and other countries bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the north-east of Asia Minor, goes to the Black Sea, and Trebizond is its principal depot. Now, Trebizond is within a few leagues of the Muscovite frontiers. Russia is preparing to extend herself on the South. She already covets Kurdistan and Armenia, and would like the possession of the Tigris and the Euphrates, bo important to her commercial interests; and in 1829, THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 43 during the war against the Turks, General Paskiewitch, who was at Ezeroum, had the intention for a moment of taking possession of Bagdad, rendered an important city by its commerce with Egypt, Arabia, India, Turkistan, and Persia, and depot of the merchandise from the East which is directed to Syria, Asia Minor, Trebizond, and Constan- tinople. / " Russia, in order to firmly establish her commercial power, tries, like an immense polypus, to stretch her thou- sand arms over the Eastern world. At the same time, she attempts to naturalize in her provinces all the industrial arts of the West, and has made a real progress, which is easy to be proved, and of which Europe makes too little account. The Czars, in their haughty pride, do not wish to be obliged to have to ask anything from the rest of the world, and profiting by the different climates united in their vast empire, endeavor to cultivate the productions of every clime. They have no colonies for the production of sugar; but the provinces of Oral and of Sacalof are covered with immense plantations of beets, from which sugar is manu- factured. Their southern provinces furnish wheat for part of the west; in 1850 the exportation was enormous. The northern provinces produce prodigious" quantities of flax and of hemp. Cotton is cultivated in Georgia, and the country taken from Persia ; since 1845 indigo has been introduced into the Caucasian provinces ; merino sheep, by hundreds of thousands, are all around Moscow, towards the Baltic, and on the shores of the Black Sea — they prosper every where, and produce abundantly. Silk is produced in the southern provinces, and in 1833 the Empe"er Nicholas caused 4,000,000 of shoots of the mulberry tree to be planted. The gold mines of Asiatic Russia are very productive, and furnish annually 100,000,000 of francs to the treasury. Finally, the Czars wished to have their wine independently of France, and the Crimea is covered with vineyards." From what has now been presented, the grand commer- cial idea of Russia will clearly appear. It is certainly 44 THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. second to no conception of modern times, and it ill becomes other nations to accuse her of ignorance and barbarism, when she is working out before the world so vast a problem as the restoration of the commerce of the East, in part at least, to its old highways, that commerce which filled once all the space between the Mediterranean and the Indies with populous cities, and whose ebbing tide left these seats of old dominion to waste and desolation. There is one feature of the operations of Russia which seems to indicate a design to render her commercial scheme independent of the possession of Constantinople. While the Allies were arrested at Sebastopol, she was exceedingly active in Asia, in the neighborhood of Trebizond and the south-eastern extremity of the Black Sea. She evidently intends to possess herself of permanent stations there. "With a seaport at that point, and communication with the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, she would possess a com- mercial line to India and the East, which would be entirely independent of Constantinople and the Mediterranean. These statements present a view of the policy and com- mercial views of Russia up to the time of the Crimean war. As will be more fully explained hereafter, she was endeavoring, in a perfectly legitimate manner, to develop her own great resources by cherishing her manufactures, and to secure for herself an independent channel for her trade with India. If now we turn to the policy and acts of France and England, we shall understand why Russia was attacked, and why America is menaced. Russia was attacked because France and England feared her growing power, and for no other reason whatever. They feared that she would soon become a great commercial power by the overthrow of Turkey, and a manufacturing nation by the development of her immense resources, and therefore they wanted to cripple or destroy her — and the very same reasons have caused their hostility to us. Let not Americans forget that these reasons remain in full force, whatever the present aspect of these powers may be. ENGLAND S DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 45 CHAPTER V. ENGLAND'S DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. "I would not suffer even a nail for a horse- shoe to be manufactured in America." — (Declaration of the elder Pitt). " Nicholson, the royal governor of Virginia, calmly advised that parliament should forbid the Virginians to make their own clothing." Spotswood repeats the complaint : " The people, more of necessity than inclination, attempt to clothe themselves with their own manufactures ; adding, it is certainly necessary to divert their application to some commodity less prejudical to the trade of Great Britain. — (Bancroft, vol. iii., 107). In the same connection, Bancroft also cites the following act of Parliament : " After the first day of December, 1699, " no wool or manufacture made, or mixed with wool, being "the produce or manufacture of any of the English planta- " tions in America, shall be loaden in any ship or vessel, " upon any pretense whatsoever — nor loaden upon any "horse, cart, or other carriage, to be carried out of the " English plantations to any other of the said plantations, "or to any other place whatsoever." Thus, says Bancroft, the fabrics of Connecticut might not seek a market in Massachusetts, or be carried to Albany to traffic with the Indians. An English mariner might not purchase in Boston woolens of a greater value than fifty shillings, lest a larger amount should injure the manufactures of England at home. Another Colonial measure is thus stated by Bancroft, vol. iii., 103-4 : " To make most of the money centre of England, 46 England's domestic and foreign policy. " the Lords of trade proposed a regulation of the colonial " currency, by reducing all the coin of America to one " standard. The Proclamation of Queen Anne was not " designed to preserve among the colonies the English basis ; " on the contrary, it confirmed to all the colonies a depre- " ciated currency, but to make the depreciation uniform and "safe against change; and England therefore," he says, "monopolized all the gold and silver." To these statements may be added what the English his- torian Russel (vol. ii., 181,) says in regard to the character and design of the " famous navigation act, which prohibited " foreign ships, unless under some particular exceptions, " from entering the harbors of the English (American) colo- " nies, and obliged their principal produce to be exported " directly to countries under the dominion of England. " Before this regulation, which was with difficulty sub- "mitted to by some of the colonies, and always evaded by "the fanatical and factious inhabitants of New England, the " colonists used to send their produce whithersoever they " thought it would be disposed of to most advantage, and "indiscriminately admitted into their harbors ships of all " nations. * * * The navigation act remedied this evil ; "and the English parliament, though aware of the incon- " venience of such a regulation to the colonies, were not " alarmed at the probable results." To all these settlements, England thenceforth exported without a rival her various manufactures. These quotations set forth with perfect accuracy the spirit and policy which have governed England for more than two hundred years. Her scheme is very simple in its ele- ments, and its main points are perfectly obvious, They are first to manufacture, as far as possible, for the rest of the world; second, to confine the commerce of the world, as much as in her lies, to her own ships ; and third, as the consequence of these, to draw to herself the gold and silver of the nations, and make herself the Banker and Capitalist for all nations. To accomplish these ends, Great Britain has steadily England's domestic and foreign policy. 47 employed all her sagacity and all her power, and in the pursuit of her purpose, she has been just as selfish and unscrupulous in all her course as she was in her treatment of her American colonies. Were she able to prevent it, she, in the spirit of Pitt, would not permit any nation of earth to manufacture a horse-shoe nail for themselves, or own a single ship. She has hesitated at nothing that promised her success. If, in order to increase her manufactures, her commerce, and her wealth, it was necessary to oppress her colonies, and cripple their industry, it was done. If she needed a country like India, she seized it, annihilated its domestic manufactures, and reduced its millions to mere serfs, labor- ing for her mills, and to employ her ships. If China would not buy her opium, she battered down her towns, and slaughtered her inhabitants, and then forced China to pay the expenses of the robbery. When Russia is making such rapid advances in manufac- tures and commerce, as to threaten her with rivalry, she smothers the enmity of centuries, and unites with Prance to attack and cripple her, and then on the first opportunity, joins with France and the Rebels in an attempt to destroy this manufacturing and commercial Republic, and she has done this in the same spirit and with th^ same end in view, as when she crushed, so far as she could, the manufactures and the commerce of the infant colonies. The spirit that protested against the Virginians manufacturing their own clothes, is the same which now cries out against a tariff which cherishes our home industry, and declares the Morrill tariff a proper cause of war, and the policy which forbade the colonists to ship on any but Pnglish bottoms, is the same that now furnishes privateers to the Rebels, which by rendering our commerce unsafe, transfers to British ships our own proper carrying trade. England desires to see the nation divided, both in order that a rival may be crushed, and because she hopes that thus the South would be virtually an agricultural colony, to supply her looms with mateiial, and furnish a market for 48 England's domestic and foreign policy. her fabrics, while France covets Mexico, Texas, and Cali- fornia, for similar reasons, but at the same time religious ambition is largely shaping her policy. "We may judge whether they will be moved from these purposes by pleasant words. Having thus given the key-note to the policy, both of England and France, it is necessary to look at their course somewhat in detail, in order to understand fully their present attitude and aims. ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 49 CHAPTER VI. ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. The present state of Europe, with its alliances and antago- nisms, the union of France and England, and their hostility to Russia and America, is the result of commercial causes which have been in operation for at least two hundred years, while the religious influences that are shaping the present and the future, reach much farther into the past. And even should France and England separate, the com- binations of the future will be governed by the same general causes which have produced the present, unless one of those great revolutions should occur, which close up eras in the world's history, and form a new starting point for the nations. In the sixteenth century, for the first time, the commer- cial interest in European politics became prominent. In the language of Bancroft, " it formed alliances, regulated " wars, dictated treaties, and established barriers against " conquests. Now, for the first time, great maritime powers " struggled for dominion on the high seas. The world " entered on a new epoch." When the discovery of the ocean route to India by the "stormy Cape" had turned the Eastern trade away from its ancient marts in western Asia, and even from the Italian cities, and was directing it upon western Europe, Portugal, first of all, by the daring, enterprise, and skill of her mari- ners, became the center of this enriching traffic ; and Lisbon for a time was the great commercial mart of Europe. She 50 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. was soon, however, compelled to share this commerce with the Dutch, who wrested from her an important portion of her East Indian possessions. They rapidly amassed immense wealth by this enriching trade, and Amsterdam and Ant- werp became the "great heart of commercial circulation." The commercial prosperity of the Dutch, however, received a severe check by that navigation act by which England compelled her colonies to buy from, and sell to, her alone, an act by which she not only injured her Dutch rival, but hoped to prevent the rise of any commercial or manufac- turing power in America. The power of Great Britain increased exactly in proportion as she extended her com- merce and manufactures, compelling her colonies, and all else whom she could control, to sell to her their raw material, to be transported in her ships, manufactured in her mills, and then resold it to those by whom it was produced, and who were forbidden to make from it even their own clothing. The decline first of the commerce of Portugal, and then of the maritime power of the Dutch, and at length the fall of the Spanish Monarchy, left England with only one formidable rival. France alone had power to confront and threaten her, and thenceforth for about a hundred years, these two great powers were contending directly for the control of the commerce and manufactures, and consequently for the wealth and the power of the world. It will be inter- esting for Americans to study the reasons which suddenly ended their conflict, and united them, first against Russia, and now against America. About the middle of the seventeenth century, we find Great Britain actively engaged in carrying out her colonial and commercial policy, alike in the East and the West. From her American possessions, both insular and conti- nental, she had excluded the rest of the world, and with little regard for the rights or interests of the colonists, sub- jected them all to a commercial system, which repressed their industry, and drained them of their wealth, in order that her own merchants and manufacturers might be enriched, and that England might be made the money ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 51 centre of the world. Had she proposed to accomplish this by a fair development of her own resources, there would have been no cause for complaint. Had she become more wealthy and more powerful than others by her superior skill, energy or industry, she would have been worthy only of admiration and praise. But when she said to the mil- lions of her colonial subjects, you shall make no use of the resources of your country, except such as our home interests demand ; you shall manufacture nothing, but buy all from the English mills and shops; and you shall build you no ships, but your trade shall all be in our hands at home ; she was simply a selfish oppressor, enslaving to the extent of her power, the industry of the world. The colonial system of England, like that of all "Western Europe at the time, was only an application on a large scale of the principles of monarchical and aristocratic govern- ments, to such communities abroad as she could control. As the noble and wealthy landholders considered it quite right to use the laborers merely to increase their own wealth and luxuries, so each home government, esteeming itself to be the lord proprietor of all colonial territory, scrupled not to use the land, its resources, and its inhabitants, in any manner by which it might be most speedily enriched. It was the serf or slaveholding principle applied to nations so far as was possible, and England grew haughty with the increase of her power, nursed her ambition and her pride until she thought to become the great slaveholder of the nations; she aimed to hold in subjection the territory, the resources, the labor of the world. When her colonists were spirited and intelligent, like those of America, she hedged them round, and fettered them with oppressive enactments ; and where they were weak and ignorant, she reduced them, as in India, very nearly to the condition of serfs upon the soil, laboring to supply cargoes for her ships, and material for her mills. So far as lay in her power, she made of the earth one vast plantation, owned in England, and worked for the benefit of British capital. It is not surprising that, with such a 52 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. spirit and aims, the English aristocracy should sympathize with our slaveholding rebels. The present position and policy of France and England, and the motives in which their alliance originated, will be better understood, if we consider the nature of the conflict which these two powers waged with each other for a hun- dred years previous to their new-born friendship. It was a contest for the dominion of the world, and as commerce, and particularly the trade of the East, was the chief source of wealth and power, it was a straggle for com- mercial supremacy, both in India and America. It will appear that the war which France and England carried on with each other from about the middle of the eighteenth century to the fall of the first Napoleon, sprung from the same general cause that originated the alliance itself. Many other causes, doubtless, contributed to produce the European wars of the last hundred years — still the great question which convulsed Europe was, whether England or France should be the great naval and commercial power of the world — and when they found that the power of both might be endangered by the rapid progress of Russia and the United States, they united in the unexpected alliance, in order to cripple these two rivals, declaring from the first, that this alliance reached in design beyond the settlement of the Eastern Question, that it had also a reference to the affairs of the West. "France and England united, will be strong enough to control the world," this was the central idea of the alliance. They fought each other in order that the victor might govern the nations — and when it was found that neither could do this separately, they agreed to attempt it together. During the conflict, and in the alliance, however, their motives have not in all respects been the same. "While England has been controlled mainly by commercial con- siderations, by the wish to be the money centre of the world, France has aimed not only at this, but she has been swayed also by a religious idea, and by the affinities of the Latin race. ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 53 She has sought to strengthen or establish the Papacy wherever her power could reach. To govern Europe as the head of the Latin races and the Papal Church, is an idea never lost sight of by the French Priesthood or the French Rulers, and to secure this ecclesiastical and political power, she, like England, has striven for a hundred years to con- trol the commerce both of the East and the West. Because of these different motives, which have guided the course of these two powers, it will be necessary to observe them separately, although they were engaged in the same field, and in conflict with each other. As the great colonial enterprise of England has been the seizure and occupation of India, and because her deep interest in the Eastern Question had no reference to the welfare of Turkey, but sprung from her anxiety for her Eastern pos- sessions, we may look to her operations on that vast field for an illustration of that spirit which so eagerly desires the destruction of this Republic, in order that America may be reduced again to colonial weakness and dependence, and which is quite willing that France should imitate in Mexico her own East Indian example. In no other quarter of the globe has G reat Britain had an opportunity of exhibiting her real character on a large scale as she has done in India. In dealing with her American colonies, she was restrained by intelligence and power, on the part of those whom she attempted to tread down ; but the feeble Hindoo could offer no effectual resistance, and on that vast field where there was no let nor hindrance, we have a right to infer that the real national spirit of England was revealed. There, she had none to judge and none to restrain ; she was not forced to any act which her judgment or her heart rejected, and she was not compelled to refrain from anything which she desired to do, and if any one asks what is the real temper and conduct of England in dealing with others, it is a perfectly legitimate answer to point him to her course in India, from the landing of Clive in 1751, down to the close of the Sepoy mutiny. Siuce that event, external infill- 54 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. ences, the opinion of the world, and the fear of another and successful revolt, are modifying her spirit and her course. The rise and rapid growth of Great Britain's East Indian Empire, is one of the marvels of modern times, and Americans will better understand the nature of the nation that has sought to destroy us through this rebellion, if they will study the manner in which she has obtained and governed her Indian possessions. In 1750 England possessed a few trading factories, or ports, on the coast of Malabar and Coromandel, with the same right, and no more, of enlarging her territory by con- quest, that Louis Napoleon would have of conquering the United States, if we should grant the French permission to have cotton trading ports opposite Matamoras — or to state the case more accurately, if he should make a bargain with some local authorities there for land, and then declare war if the United States should object to his occupation of our territory. The rapidity with which the Indian Empire grew from this small beginning, is thus stated by the Edinburgh Review, for January, 1863: "In 1757 England had obtained not quite 5,000 square miles. In 1793 she had enlarged her dominion to 200,000 squares miles, with a population of 40,000,000. The former had grown when the charter was renewed in 1813, to 320,000 square miles, and the latter to 60,000,000, which again were increased in 1833, to 462,000 square miles, peopled by at least 100,000,000 of natives. At this day," adds the Review, " the surface extent of land actually contributing to the Indian treasury falls little short of 600,000 square miles, with a population of 120,000,000." The manner in which this vast territory has been acquired, this great population trodden down, is very forcibly pre- sented in the Westminster Review, for January, 1863, from, which the following extracts are taken : " To us annexation is only a long word. By the natives of India it is felt to be an awful reality. As Mr. Ludlow well says, we should view the annexation ' not as swathed ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 55 mummies in a Parliamentary Paper, but as bleeding corpses before the eyes of the multitude, with many a dark-skinned Mark Antony to put tongues in every wound,' The only way in which to bring the consequences of annexation home to us is to put such a case as the following. Let us suppose, that France is the dominant Power in Europe; that neither England nor any other country is a match for her; that she does not wish to commence hostilities against any of them, but offers to be peaceful on condition that her claims to supreme power are recognized. Let it also be supposed that a treaty is concluded, by which, on the Queen of England surrendering one-half of her territories, the remaining half is guaranteed to her and her successors for ever. Suppose further, that suddenly and without cause, France decrees the annexation of England, occupies London with troops, dethrones the Queen, dismisses her Ministers, deprives every one connected with the Court and Govern- ment of their places, salaries, and pensions, shuts every public employment against Englishmen, except perhaps the honorable posts of letter-carriers, policemen and scavengers. How should we feel under these circumstances? Should we content ourselves with a little extra grumbling, and then adapt ourselves to our altered stations ? Or, if Ave felt sure that grumbling and resistance would not better our condition, should we not cherish bitter animosity against those who had treated us so badly, and should we not expect impartial onlookers to pity our fallen fortunes? It is to such straits as these that we have reduced the upper and middle classes of every principality which has been annexed. All have been put on an equal footing; left without hope of change and deprived of gratifying a natural ambition to distinguish themselves in the world. Under native rulers, natives are advanced to places of honor and emolument; under English rule, natives of every class are contemned and degraded. When governed by natives, most princi- palities yield surplus revenues; of this Sattara was a striking example. Lord Dalhousie coveted the large sum which was thus produced; he annexed that State, and the result 56 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. has beeii an annual deficit. If independent States are well governed, the} 7 teach us a lesson ; if badly governed, their inhabitants can draw a comparison in our favor. Should independent princes acquire wealth, they either expend it among their people, or else invest it in Indian securities ; in either case India is a gainer. When Englishmen acquire wealth they remit it to Europe, and thereby help to impov- erish India. " To the policy of annexation let there be an end. Let us begin to conciliate those who have good cause to detest us, and consider it a nobler thing to govern humanely and well, than to acquire fresh territory at the expense of our honor, and by disregarding every rule of law and every human right. By acting thus we shall be the gainers in the long run. In 1800 the Duke of Wellington declared, what is even truer now than when he made the declaration, that the extension of our territory and influence had exceeded our means. ' Wherever we spread ourselves we increase this evil. We throw out of employment and means of subsistence all who have hitherto managed the revanue, commanded, or served in the armies, and have plundered the country. These people become additional enemies, at the same time that, by the extension of our ter- ritory, our means of supporting our Government and of defending ourselves are proportionately decreased.' " To his policy of annexation we owe it that much of what Captain Bruce told Robert Southey more than twenty years ago is true to the letter still : ' If our empire in that country were overthrown, the only monuments which would remain of us would be broken bottles and corks. Along the whole coast our Government is popular, because the people share in the advantages of a flourishing trade. But in the interior we are hated. There is a grinding system of exaction ; we take nine-tenths ; and the natives feel the privation of honors and places of authority more than the weight of imposts. One of them compared our system to a screw, slow in its motion, never violent or sudden, but always screwing them down to the very earth.' It is ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 57 improbable that we shall ever cease to tax, but we can easily cease to torment the natives. Although we may never gain their love, yet we need not continue to merit their unmitigated hate. We may and we ought to refrain from reducing every class and degree among them to the same level of abject dependence on our bounty and subjec- tion to our decrees, thereby wilfully shocking their prej udices and cruelly exciting their fears, causing the man of rank to live in continual dread for the suppression of his title, the landholder for the confiscation of his property." It is fortunate for an American who would describe the nature and results of British rule in India, that all the facts are furnished by English witnesses, and that England has drawn her own portrait as a ruler of colonies. Evidence of the same character, coming from any other source, would certainly be discredited. One fact is quite sufficient to show the main cause of the wretchedness of the great mass of the people of India, and reveals very clearly the pressure not of a Government, but of an oppression. The Government holds all the lands of the country as the supreme Landlord, and the laborers are tenants at will, or hold only by leases at stipulated rates — the rent required leaving for the cultivator nothing but the most scanty food, and clothing, and shelter, so that the laborer can obtain no interest in the soil, has no motive for improvement, and has no hope for himself or his chil- dren beyond his mud hut and his handful of rice. Some beneficial alterations are being made in this respect; the leases are being given for longer periods than they once were, but still there is no approach to that system which is , the strength and glory of America, the absolute ownership » of the land by those who till it. Americans at least understand that it is absolutely essential to the elevation of the laboring classes, that they should be the owners of the soil. Wherever this is not the case, they are speedily reduced to the rudest hut, and the coarsest and scantiest food and clothing, as the sole reward of their labor, 58 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. It is perhaps quite natural, that Great Britain, whose lands at home are nearly all in the hands of the aristocracy, and whose peasantry are but a single step above the condi- tion of serfs, should deem it quite proper that the East Indian Government should own all the lands of India, which they could seize, and allow the native cultivators to retain only the slave's portion of their earnings; and it is not strange that this same aristocracy is in active and earnest sympathy with the slave lords of the South, in their attempt to destroy the free labor institutions of the North. Every oppressor is by instinct in league with all other oppressors, in every attempt to reduce the laborer to the condition of the slave. The actual condition of India, under British rule, and the spirit of the English Government, is well exhibited in the following extracts from the Edinburgh Review, for Janu- ary, 1853 : " Still the utmost that can be predicated even of the Ryots, considered as subjects of the English Crown, is that they seldom, if ever, trouble themselves with discussing the merits of the system under which they live ; being content to do as their fathers did before them, and satisfied so long as life and property are safe. But it is not so with any of the classes above the mere cultivators : quite otherwise. They see in the English Government a power which, however evenly it may profess to hold the scales between man and man, entertains no sympathy for them or for the traditions of their ancestry. They may acquire fortunes by trade ; they may build ships and obtain the honor of knighthood ; and whatever they earn by honest industry they feel that •they will be permitted to keep : but all beyond this is a blank; and they are fully alive to its dreariness. There are no such avenues to advancement opened to them as stirred the ambition and stimulated the exertions of their forefathers. They cannot attain in the civil service of the State to a station more elevated than that of an ill-paid rural magistrate, or a clerk in one of the public offices. Even the ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 59 status of a practising attorney in the Courts of Law seems to be denied to them, though the decision of the judge who settled the question was manifestly delivered under a pain- ful sense of its iniquity. And as to the army, we shall have occasion presently to explain, that it offers no prizes for which it would be worth while for a native gentleman to strive. Now people so circumstanced cannot be loyal in any sense of the term. They may submit to their fate with more or less of resignation ; either because they see no chance of escape from it, or through the influence of that fatalism which enters largely into the faith of all the reli- gionists of the East. But it is impossible that they can nourish the slightest feeling of love for the government which thus grinds them down, far less be prepared to make sacrifices of any kind in defence of it. JSTor do they. By the native gentry of India, — and it is a great mistake to suppose that India has not its gentry of ancient lineage and proud reminiscences,— the rule of the English is regarded not only without favor, but with settled detestation. There is not one among them all but would rejoice to see it over- thrown to-morrow. " In a word, it is idle to talk of the contentment of the 'people of British India with the particular form of govern- ment which we have established among them. They submit to it, because they cannot help themselves, — the masses with the same degree of apathy which caused their co-religionists to submit to the government of the Ameers in Scinde, and to that of the Sikh Sirdars in the Punjab. But no living soul entertains the slightest predilection for us or for our government, while all who may be crossed by it in their schemes of personal or family ambition execrate, while they endure, what they feel to be the wrong. " That we are taking no prejudiced view of this important matter, nor broaching opinions that lack authority on which to rest, a very little research on the part of our readers will enable them to ascertain. The statements adduced here have been held and promulgated by almost every man of note who has made India and its institutions the subject of 60 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. his inquiries. Open Mountstuart's Elphinstone's able His- tory, and yon will find the same tone pervading every page. He speaks of the people whom we thus slight and keep down as having attained to a high degree of civilization and prosperity before the march of Alexander across the Oxus. He describes them as retaining these advantages in the midst of endless wars, revolutions, and schemes. And he attributes the circumstance to their admirable municipal institutions, which survived every change of dynasty except the last. ' Dynasty upon dynasty,' he says, quoting from Sir Charles Metcalf, ' tumbles down ; revolution succeeds revolution, — Hindoo, Pagan, Moghul, Mahratta, Sikh, Eng- lish, are all masters in turn ; but the village community remain the same. This union of the village communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself, has contri- buted more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India through all the changes and revolutions they have suffered ; and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness and to their enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.' Again : ' The main evil of our system is, the degraded state in which we hold the natives. We suppose them to be superstitious, ignorant, prone to falsehood, and corrupt. In our well-meaning zeal for their welfare, we shudder at the idea of committing to men so depraved any share in the administration of their own country. We exclude them from every situation of trust and emolument ; we confine them to the lowest offices, with scarcely a bare subsistence ; and even these are left in their hands from necessity, because Europeans are utterly incapable of filling them. We treat them as an inferior race of beings. Men, who under a native government might have held the first dignities of the State, who, but for us, might have been governors of provinces, are regarded as little better than menial servants, are often no better paid, and scarcely permitted to sit in our presence. We reduce them to this abject state, and then look upon them with disdain as men unworthy of high station. Under most of the Mahomedan princes of India, the Hindoos were eligible ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 61 to all the civil offices of Government, and they rrequently possessed a more important share in them than their con- querors.' " They are more secure from the calamities both of foreign war and internal commotions ; their persons and property are more secure from violence; they cannot be wantonly punished, or their property seized, by persons in power; and their taxation is, on the whole, lighter. But, on the other hand, they have no share in making laws for them- selves, little in administering them, except in very subordinate offices ; they can rise to no high station, civil or military ; they are everywhere regarded as an inferior race, and often rather as vassals or servants than as the ancient owners and masters of the country. It is not enough that we confer upon the natives the benefits of just laws and moderate taxation, unless we endeavor to raise their character; but, under a foreign government, there are so many causes which tend to depress it, that it is not easy to prevent it from sinking. It is an old observation, that he who loses his liberty, loses half his virtue. This is true of nations as well as of individuals. To have no property scarcely degrades more in one case, than in the other to have property at the disposal of a foreign government in which we have no share. The enslaved nation loses the 'privileges of a nation, as the slave does that of a free man. It loses the privilege of taxing itself, of making its own laws, of having any share in their administration, or in the general government of the country. British India has none of these privileges ; it has not that of being ruled by a despot of its own ; for, to a nation which has lost its liberty, it is still a privilege to have its countiwmen, and not foreigners, as its rulers. Nations always take a part with their government, whether free or despotic, against foreigners. Against an invasion of for- eigners, the national character is always engaged, and in such a cause the people often contend as strenuously in the defence of a despotic as of a free government. It is not the arbitrary power of a national sovereign, but the subjugation to a foreign one, that destroys national character, and extin- 62 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. guislies national spirit. When a people cease to have a national character to maintain, they lose the mainspring of whatever is laudable, both in public and in private life, and the private sinks with the public character. This is true of every nation, as well as of India. It is true of our own. Let Britain be subjugated by a foreign power to-morrow; let the people be excluded from all share in the government, from public honors, from every office of high trust and emolument ; let them, in every situation, be considered as unworthy of trust, and all their knowledge, and all their literature, sacred and profane, will not save them from becoming, in another ceutury or two, a low-minded, deceit- ful, and dishonest race.' " These are words of wisdom, put upon record by one who better, perhaps, than any servant of the Company, under- stood the subject which he was discussing. Nor was he,, while thus reasoning, blind to the well-nigh universal degra- dation of the people whose cause he pleaded. No one knew better than he that the inhabitants of the Company's dominions are the most abject race in India; no one was more keenly and bitterly aware of the causes which had produced such a result. For even the wretched satisfaction of seeing the strangers who seek their shores for the purpose of growing rich at the public expense, settle down, and become, by degrees, one of themselves, is denied them. Other conquerors had overrun their territories before, as- sumed supreme power, and dispensed patronage ; but they did so upon the spot, and excluded no man, of whatever race descended, from a share in it. We send out our youth by shoals from England to amass wealth and exercise power for a season ; each batch returning to England, when it has satisfied its own wishes, onty that it may be succeeded by another. What bond of good feeling can exist between the hundred and twenty millions whom we thus govern and the few thousands of white-faced men whom we appoint to plunder while they profess to govern and protect them." Such is the British dominion in India, extending at this ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 63 time over 150,000,000 of people ; such, according to her own witnesses," is the manner in which it has been acquired, and these in general are the results of her government for the millions she has thus subdued. A reference to these facts was necessary, in order to show clearly the nature of her policy, and the unscrupulous selfish- ness with which she has carried it out, when she was dealing" with those weaker than herself. It was important to know that in all her course in India, no moral or religious con- sideration was permitted to interfere with any plan for extending her power or increasing her revenues, that neither the rights or welfare of others were allowed to have the slightest influence in deciding a question of conquest or annexation, and that the only inquiry was, will this increase the British power, and add to the wealth of Englishmen ? It was necessary to know this, in order to prepare us for her subsequent attack upon Russia, and her recent joy at the prospect of our destruction, the desire to attack us in our weakness, so strong, that we barely escaped a war, and for the malicious blow struck upon our commerce through the Confederate privateers. This East Indian history will also enable us to judge exactly how much we can depend upon pleasant words or argument, or appeals made to con- science, or honor, or justice, when dealing with England, unless back of all these, are the ships and the cannon which excite her fears. This glance at the doings and policy of Great Britain in India, will enable us to estimate aright her motives in the Crimean war, and to judge whether we have any reason to expect her friendship in the future. Her policy in India is the same that guides her in her dealings with every other nation. She carries it out on all sides so far as she has the power, and she crushes, if she can, whatever opposes. The one central idea of this policy is, to make Great Britain the manufacturing, the commercial, the money centre of the world. For this purpose she has "seized upon every available spot of earth and made it tributary to her- self, taking the Lion's share of all that could be produced, 64 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. stripping her American colonies by oppressive enactments, and leaving the people of India just enough to enable them to continue their toil for her. As shown in quotations previously made, she struggled hard to render manufactures, commerce, and a navy, impos- sible in America, for the same reasons that she would gladly destroy them now; and she ruined the domestic manufactures of India, in order to compel the Hindoos to raise the raw material for her own mills, and then to purchase from her the manufactured articles, the Indian consumer paying thus not only the profit of manufacture to England, but the freight to her ships for carrying it twice across the ocean. The position of England at the time just preceding the Alliance with France, and the Crimean war, her necessities, dangers, hopes and fears, were the natural result of the policy which she had been pursuing for more than a hun- dred years, to compel the nations to be tributary to her capital, skill, machinery, and ships, to make them virtually mere colonial appendages of her own central power. Her aim was, to control, and bring to her own mills, as far as possible, the raw material of the world, and having xnanufactured it, resell it in all markets, levying upon the people the tribute of her profits, and the freight of her ships. To the full extent of her ability she prevented every other nation from manufacturing for itself, or building up a com- merce or a navy of its own. While her own manufactures were in their infancy, she excluded every rival from the markets that she could control, as she did from the American colonies ; but so soon as her accumulated capital, her skill and experience, and her perfected machinery, gave her the necessary superiority, then she proclaimed the doctrine of free trade to all the nations, knowing well that if she could thus gain access to the markets of the world, her capital and skill would thus enable her to crush the growth of manufactures elsewhere. Particularly did she desire a per- fectly untrammelled trade with Russia and America, because exactly in proportion as she could introduce her own goods, ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 65 would she prevent the erection of mills, and the growtn of a commerce and a navy. In this policy the South has continually sympathized most earnestly with England, because she feared as much as Great Britain the rapid growth of the Free States, and the Southern leaders have persistently opposed any substan- tial protection to Northern manufactures, because of the wealth, the commerce, and the navy, which they would create. If the North could only be restricted to the raising of grain, wool, stock, etc., the supremacy of the Slave States would be permanent and complete. At the time of the formation of the French Alliance, the power of England was based, not upon her military strength, nor upon the extent of her territory, nor upon the number of her people, but upon her capital, her mills, and her navy, and these again depended upon her power to control the lands producing her raw material, and the markets for the sale of her goods. At this time France was becoming a formidable naval power, and England feared that she would attempt to avenge the disgrace of Waterloo ; Russia was cherishing her manufacturus, opening up on all sides her resources, increasing her navy, and growing on towards India. In the West, the United States were meeting her already in the world's markets with the produce of their own looms, while their commercial marine was equal to her own. Such was the condition of England just previous to the alliance. 5 66 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. CHAPTER VII. REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. In addition to the motives which have governed England in her struggle to compel all nations to become tributary to her, there are others of almost equal power that are peculiar to France, and which must be studied, in order to understand her attack upon Russia, her present attitude towards the United States, and her movement upon Mexico. First — France has never forgotten that she was once the Imperial Head of the nations of Europe ; in fact, the politi- cal and religious Dictator of the world. The Empire of Charlemagne is regarded as presenting France in her right- ful position, as Ruler of the Latin nations, and these, it is believed, ought to be supreme in Europe. The Kingdom of Charlemagne is looked upon as the luminous point, the triumphant era in tlie history of France, and the idea of re-establishing her lost supremacy, of making her throne once more the Imperial center of the world, has influenced the policy of her ablest statesmen, and her most ambitious kings. It is well known that this thought was a leading one in the mind of the first Napoleon, and he indicated this most clearly by causing himself to be crowned with the iron crown of Charlemagne, as a sign of what he intended to be, and to do. His expedition into Egypt was connected with this idea of making France the central power of Europe. He hoped to wrest from England the control of the Eastern trade, by holding Egypt, and other Eastern shores of the Mediter- REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 67 ranean, and by bringing the wealth, of the Indies to the French cities, through the old canal of the Pharoahs. He thought in this manner to possess himself of Constantinople, to revive the Eastern Empire, and so render impossible the further progress of Russia towards the East. The declarations and the acts of Louis Napoleon have given explicit notice to the world, that he has fully adopted the main ideas of his uncle, and that he intends to carry them out. His alliance with England, for the double pur- pose of ridding himself of a powerful adversary while he perfected his plans, and of using her for his own purposes ; his attack on Russia, his movement upon Italy, and the occupation of Rome, his position in Syria, the finishing of the ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, in which he is now engaged, the plans which years ago he made of a ship canal aeross the American Isthmus at Panama, the explora- tions which he has made of the mineral wealth of our Pacific coast, and now his occupation of Mexico — all are parts of one gigantic scheme, to make France once more the recog- nized head of the Latin races in all parts of the world, and give to her more than the power and splendor of the Empire of Charlemagne. Whoever attempts to study the career of Louis Napoleon without understanding this scheme, will have no key to his policy. Viewed in connection with this, every movement is plain. But the religious sentiment has also exerted an important influence upon the policy of France. In the time of Char- lemagne, she was the one Empire which, with the one Church, ruled all the Western world. The Roman Church and the Roman Empire, with the French king at its head, they were jointly supreme. The Empire was the earthly ally and supporter of the Church, and the Church gave to the Empire the full authority of what was deemed by all a Divine sanction. Charlemagne was crowned as Emperor of the Romans, and the Roman Church, and Roman Empire, with France as its head, were expected to go down into the future together. The Imperial crown then passed from France into the 68 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. possession of Germany ; but France has not forgotten that she was once the political head and recognized defender of the Latin Church, and from the time of Charlemagne to the present, the French clergy have mourned over their lost glory, and have hoped that in some manner it might be regained. For the double purpose of restoring the Koman Empire, with France at its head, and he the Emperor of France, and of bringing to his support the power of the church, Napoleon caused himself to be crowned by the Pope with the crown of Charlemagne, reviving in the French clergy the hope of the restoration of their former power. For precisely similar reasons, Louis Napoleon has connected his movements with the old ambitions of the French clergy, and of the Catholic Church as a whole, espousing the cause of the Roman Church at Jerusalem and Constantinople, and taking on that occasion the part of champion of the "Western Church, and then pushing Austria aside in Italy, and lifting France to the foremost position among the Latin races ; and, finally, invading Mex- ico, and threatening the United States, with the solemnly avowed intention of restoring in America the prestige of the Latin race, and of course, the power of the Roman Church. These two ideas, the restoration of the Empire, and the supremac3 T of the Roman Catholic Church, must not be lost sight of by any one who wishes to understand the policy of France, and they should be very carefully considered by Americans, because thus only can we know the power of the motives by which the French Emperor is governed, both in his attack upon Mexico, and in his hostility to the Republic. Thus only can we judge whether it is probable that he will abandon for slight reasons what he has undertaken on this continent, or whether it will be necessary for us to decide by arms the question of imposing a French Mon- archy by force upon a people inhabiting our border, with the avowed intention of using the territory, the resources, and the proximity of position, as a standing menace tc this Republic, and to our Protestant Faith. REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 69 We shall find that our danger from this quarter is greater than from England, for Avhile Great Britain declares that she does not contend for an idea, the French movement has in it the dangerous element of religious enthusiasm. True, it is almost dormant as yet, or living only in the bosom of the clergy; hut the history of the church shows how easily a movement for the universal restoration of Romanism might rouse whole nations for a crusade, for what the people would deem a truly holy war. We shall find, that with the exception of a short period in her history, wherever France has carried her arms, she has borne with her a zeal for the Papal church. These facts, in the past history of France, have for us a very grave significance, when they are coupled with the exact words of the Emperor himself, explaining his inten- tions in the movement upon Mexico : " We propose," he says, " to restore to the Latin race, on the other side of the " Atlantic, all its strength and prestige. We have an inter- est, indeed, in the Republic of the United States being "powerful and prosperous; but not that she should take " possession of the whole Gulf of Mexico, thence to com- " mand the Antilles, as well as South America, and to be " the only dispenser of the products of the New World." Whoever will weigh these words in connection with the history of the Latin race, and Latin church, with the schemes of Napoleon, and the course of the present Emperor, will be convinced that the almost immediate future will present to us, and to Europe, the most solemn questions of modern times. It seems almost certain, that our contest with the slave power, fierce and bloody as it is, will be but the open- ing act in a war drama, and that gigantic, though it be, it may prove the most insignificant of the series. The words of Louis Napoleon appear like the throwing down the gage of battle to all Protestant nations, to all free institutions ; nay, more, to every people outside of the Papal church, — and the most alarming feature of the declaration is, that this is precisely its meaning. Such a threat in regard to the Western Continent presupposes the intention to restore 70 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OP FRANCE. the lost prestige and strength of the Latin race and Papal church in Europe also, and the reality of this intention is clearly set forth in every step which the French Emperor has taken, from the Crimean war to the present time, including that proposal for a European Congress, which means simply an attempt to chrystallize the Latin powers around France as the Imperial centre, — and to make the Emperor not only independent of England, hut, as he hopes, to give him the power to crush her if he pleases. We know too well what is implied in the proposition to restore the strength and prestige of the Latin race and Papal church, "both here and in Europe. It means the destruction of civil and religious liberty, the suppression of free speech and free thought, the elevation of nobles and priests, the ignorance, the poverty, the deg- radation of the people. We know that this cannot be accomplished without such a conflict as the world never saw; and yet every sign of the times compels us to the conclusion, that such a stupendous conspiracy against the liberties of humanity is being matured, and that the Latin race and the Papal church will make the attempt under the lead of France, and that we must take the Emperor at his word, when he sets forth the invasion of Mexico as a part of the plan. The scheme is so bold, and so vast, that it seems more like a Satanic inspiration than a mere concep- tion of an ambitious man. The following extracts from a very able article on the Monroe Doctrine, in The New Englander, for Oct., 1863, exhibit the subject in a very clear and forcible manner: " The other dangerous element in the case before us is the growing arrogance and strength of the Papal Power in connection with all the progressive developments of French ambition and conquest. It is curious to see how everything that France does or gains or aims at becomes subservient to the Papal Power, and turns to the disadvantage of religious liberty and of enlightened civilization. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Republic, and the still continued REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 71 armed occupancy of Rome by a French army, as the only means of upholding the Pope in his throne as a temporal prince, we see in Cochin China, in Madagascar, in Turkey, in Spanish America, in Poland, and everywhere, that it is the support and favor of the Pope which constitutes Louis Napoleon's reliance in the last resort ; and it is the exten- sion and consolidation of the Papal Power which gives unity to all his aims, and the strength of a common interest to all his schemes. It is now clearly understood that the outbreak in Poland was but a plan for establishing in the centre of Europe a Franco-Romish interest that should serve as a point of defense and aggression against Russia and the Greek Church. It is Popery, struggling against the advance of freedom and civilization, that has for forty years kept the Spanish American states in turmoil, and kept them from consolidating their governments or improving their condi- tions. In Venezuela, in Colombia, in Ecuador, everywhere, it is the Priests' Party against the body of the people ; the people striving to recover the right of governing for them- selves, and the Priests, aided by a few bigots, a few rich men, a few European Know-nothings, and a good many reckless and marauding brigands, trying to keep the power of the government in the hands of a class, and subject the many to the control of a few. This power has at length been happily put down, at least for the present, by the gallant and patriotic President Mosquera in Colombia. It has succumbed, at least temporarily, to a compromise in Venezuela; while, in the adjoining republic of Ecuador, it has apparently achieved an absolute triumph, in the treaty which was concluded in April last, by President Morena with Cardinal Antonelli in the name of the Pope.* And * This treaty, which has been published in El National, the official journal of Ecuador, contains the following articles, which serve to illustrate the Poeo's idea of religious liberty, where he has things in his own way : " 1 . The Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion is the religion of the Republic of Ecuador. Consequently, the exercise of any other worship, or the existence of any society condemned by the Church, will not be permitted by the Republic. "2. The education of the young in all public and private schools shall be entirely conformed to the doctrinea of the [Roman] Catholic Religion. Tha 72 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. one of the chief ends of the conquest of Mexico by France, is announced to be the ascendency of the Latin race, and the restoration of the Church of Rome to its ancient honor and power in the country. The confiscation already begun of the estates of all Mexicans guilty of the crime of sup- porting their own constitutional government, will prepare the way for the restoration of the estates of the Church, valued at a hundred millions of dollars, heretofore seques- tered for the uses of the state. " In former days, the civilized world has been accustomed to rely for protection against any unwarrantable aggressions of Rome, upon the vigilance and strength of the two great Protestant Powers, Prussia and England. And it is a most unfortunate coincidence, that just at this time, when the Papal Power is so rapidly consolidating itself, Prussia is well nigh powerless for any good purpose, by the insensate relapse of the present monarch into the wildest madness of absolutism; while the government of England is under the administration of a chief who seems to have become practi- cally, but a mere satrap of Louis Napoleon. Mr. Kinglake, in his remarkable volume on the Crimean War, before teachers, the hooks, the instructions imparted,