INTEMATIOML POLICY OF THE
GREAT POWERS.

THE

INTERNATIONAL

POLICY

OF THE

GREAT POWERS.

BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY,
AUTHOR OF ' F E S T U S . '

LONDON:

SAUNDERS, OTLEY, A N D CO.,
66, BROOK STREET, HANOVER SQUARE.

1861

L O N D O N : P R I N T E D BY W . CLOWES A N D SONS, STAMFORD S T R E E T ,
A N D CHARING CROSS.

327. 4
Bl5 .i

CONTENTS.

PAGE

AUSTRIA
PRUSSIA

3
..

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA

41
65

RUSSIA

101

FRANCE

157

GREAT BRITAIN

211

PBEFACE.

THE principal Powers of Europe are identical
with three great races,—the Kelt, the Teuton,
and the Sclave; and these in their primary
aspects and main branches and combinations
constitute the general sum of Continental
population.

All came from the East, as is

supposed, and in the order above indicated.
The East, indeed, appears to have thrown off
its masses of humanity as the sun is thought
by some philosophers to have projected from
its surface the planetary bodies of the universe;
and, like these, the former also became wanderers. Whatever there may be among the
celestial, among the earthly wayfarers the
ruling principle was apparently, at the outset,

viii

PEEFACE.

less attraction than repulsion; and such to a
great degree — notwithstanding separate and
defined positions—it still continues.
The outward tendency of civilization has
always manifestly been westward; and while
those peoples more strictly called Eastern,
because there more permanently situated, have
rapidly arrived at a certain degree of eminence,
and then become stationary or retrograde, the
nations of the West, though dating their civilization later in life, have always shown—at
least during the historic period—a more elastic
and progressive career.
Of these, even, some are far more advanced
than others in the arts, the elegancies of life,
and the general results of civilization, both
substantial and refined.

But in this very supe-

riority—it is obvious to the lightest reflection
—is partly involved a danger of a most serious
nature—it might almost be characterised as
a fatality, the history of the world upon this

PREFACE.

ix

point being painfully explicit. It seems, therefore, almost incumbent upon those nations who
have consciously attained to a certain pitch
of civilization, either to prepare for a gradual
but sensible decline, from the consequences
of over-refinement, over-stimulated intellect, or
minutely-divided industry; or, springing back
to that position from which the race originally
started, to cultivate, in some degree at least,
those warlike

aspirations and

propensities

which are the universal instinct of humanity
in its present condition, and which, however
apparently incompatible with reason, were probably implanted there for some good purpose.
In vain

morality abjures,

abhors, religion condemns, war.

philanthropy
The tradi-

tions of man's heart are unfortunately all in
favour of i t ;

and nations not unfrequently

draw the sword as their most solemn manifesto.

War indeed is sometimes felt to be a

necessity, irrespective of success; sometimes

X

PBEFACE.

a glory, independent of its object.

No doubt

this is a sad reflection, but it forces itself
upon the mind.

There are times when moral

influence is sufficient for the adjustment of
affairs between nations, or within their own
separate confines; and well it is when a people
can obey contentedly the solemn mandates of
a Solon, or a Samuel; or even listen assentingly
to the admonitions of a Burke, wisest of merely
human legislators ; but periods constantly
recur in the history of the world when the
only accepted authority is that of the sword.
The profession—if anything could, it might
be thought—of a common religion would have
tended, if not sufficed, in compliance with the
imitative and emulative propensities of the
human mind, not only to a greater resemblance
in internal institutions, but to a more marked
approximation towards the moral standard of
that Divine code by which the several nations
affirm themselves to be bound; but it has not

PREFACE,

XI

so proved; for, while at different soras, on doctrinal points—many of which were altogether
beyond the range of the understanding—the
various sections of Christendom have indulged
in the bitterest animosities and the fiercest and
most deadly persecutions, they have recently,
abandoning all controversy, moral or mystical,
agreed simply to ignore altogether the plainest
and least debateable precepts of their religion ;
so that, by implied assent of all, not only may
nominal professors practise, but the priests^ofs
every Church may preach, and the purists of
every denomination justify, those enormities
which are the natural efflorescence of the
warlike passions; and they thereby virtually
proclaim either their own inconsistency or
the utter powerlessness of their faith to control
the proclivities of our original constitution.
Christianity, in fact, is confessed by all the
peoples in Europe; and so sincerely, that it
is never appealed to when its decision might

xii
be effective.

PREFACE.

Mankind has, therefore, yet to

see, and to consent to, the introduction of an
influence capable practically of diverting the
grand current of the world's affairs from those
channels in which they have hitherto uninterruptedly flowed from the days of Nirnrod
to Napoleon,—the channels of ambition, and
interest, and luxury, and national aggrandisement.
If a philosophic mind, speculative rather
than sceptical, should here pause for a moment
to inquire why this should be so; why the
supposed interests of different nations should
so far diverge as, in the face of Christianity
and philanthropy, to lead to a policy of unremitting reciprocal hostility, the answer may
unhappily too readily be found in the conclusion furnished by experience: that the ineradicable diversities of race, original varieties
of temperament, of social habits, nay, even of
mental processes, sow in themselves the seeds

PREFACE.

xiii

of permanent antagonism; that sentiments,
sympathies, and antipathies are as ultimate
and irresolvable facts as the genera of animals
and minerals in the mixed constitution of the
world; that charity or philanthropy, the only
common bond which religion supplies for our
dealings with others of the same or different
creed, is, when applied to masses of men, wholly
inoperative; that the highest development of
the species appears in somewise inextricably
involved in the attempt to achieve by force a
national, or tribal predominance; that however false to their faith, men must be true
to their nature; and that just reason, no doubt
identical with true religion, whose holy and
united influence should subdue or chastise the
fatal discord of the inferior elements of our
nature, never is, like the prima materies of
philosophy, to be found in its pure or original
shape; but asserted only by the theorist and
believed in solely by the neophyte, is never

xiv

PREFACE.

humanly beheld except as disguised by sophists
or distorted by fanatics; corrupted by the ignorance of peoples, or rendered contemptible by
the presumption of kings.
When, if ever, in the lapse of generations,
mankind shall, not the less, emerge from
the night of national antipathies and the
dubious twilight of cherished animosities into
the broad day of universal sympathy, and
the pure and hallowed light of a charitable
and practical religion; when strife shall have
refined itself into competition, and competition become elevated into emulation; when
the mysterious stream of time, so often turbid with the blood of nations, shall have
been changed by the priest and prophet of a
regenerated humanity into a river rolling with
gold,—the gold of peace, and wisdom, and
felicity : history will doubtless be enabled to
trace, under the inspiration of her Divine Interpreter, in one continuous and luminous

PREFACE.

XV

narrative, the gradual conversion or the sudden
transmutation of these elements and bases
of society, whereby every separate agency of
civilization shall be shown to be identical with
the finger of Providence, and the hand of man
the veritable stamp and impress of the hand
of God.

But, while the world awaits that

change, to us, and to any save of enthusiastic
and momentary vision, much of this is impracticable.

The key to the past is still hidden

in the future; we can only accept the relations
of things as they are.

AUSTRIA.

B

AUSTRIA.
AUSTRIA,

the successor of the Holy Eoman

Empire, for a long period the centre of European
policy and always of diplomatic activity, forms,
with its component nationalities, races, and religions, a vast and complex Power, outwardly
at least compact; the exigencies of whose condition it is impossible to contemplate without
deep interest; and the permanence of whose
position as a leading Power is apparently and
simply a beneficial necessity.
With one third of her population Evangelical Protestants, Greek Catholics, and Jews,
the solid majority, still attached to the Church
of Eome, have always given to Austria a preB2

4

AUSTRIA.

ponderating influence in matters of religion
throughout Central Europe; as her long and
severe contests, both internally and externally,
with Bohemians, Swedes, and others, and her
want of sympathy at the time with her only
hitherto reforming Emperor, sufficiently testify.
Notable for obedience to ecclesiastical authority,
Austria, by her recent Concordat with Rome,
assumed a somewhat reactionary attitude; but
its operation, having been perceived to be
inimical to the common equality and impartial
toleration of different forms of religion which
had been for a long time effectually established
throughout the empire, has been in all directions judiciously restricted.
the Church in

its

The position of

spiritual capacity and

authority, as well as in certain matters relating to temporalities, not being satisfactory,
it was only natural and just that the ruling
powers at Eome and Vienna should seek a reconciliation of their interests; and that while

AUSTRIA.

5

the former was redoubling its exertions, through
the many legitimate channels at its disposal,
for the conservation of the secular power in its
present form and circumstances, the Emperor,
wishing to displace, by priestly help, the
tendencies of the people to press upon the
springs of government, had, in reality, by
surrendering certain privileges to the Church,
aimed, by diminishing his power, to increase
his influence.

But although in Austria, as

everywhere else, a reaction has taken place
during the last twenty years in favour of the
Church, and although it thus became necessary
to reinaugurate a freer and more perfect connection between the national Church and its
spiritual head, yet, considering the temper of
the times with regard to religious,dogmas and
sacerdotal authority, the Imperial government
acted unwisely in permitting suddenly so great
a change, and at the same time magnifying it
by authoritative announcement. Measures such

6

AUSTKIA.

as this, and treated in such manner, are beyond
all doubt profoundly impolitic. Like damp gunpowder, they may be totally inoperative; they
may be fearfully explosive.

In such circum-

stances the Church enlarges her dignity by not
exerting her authority; which could only have
the effect of adding to social antagonism and
political passion that bitterest and most subtle
of human sentiments which in different circumstances the laity of all communions distinguish by names indicative of various degrees
of execration, but the bigots of all sects agree
to denominate zeal.
The main characteristic of Austrian policy,
both in its domestic and foreign aspects, is
well known; it is the support of what is called
legitimacy, which means the dynastic heritage
of nations by individuals of particular families;
the conservatism of ancient rights and constitutions ; and the maintenance of legally instituted
authority.

These are good principles in them-

AUSTRIA.

7

selves; necessary, or for the most part highly
useful, to the stability of society; and the only
fault to be found with the advocacy of them is
when they are adduced as antagonistic to social
progress and the natural expansion of popular
rights in ages more enlightened than those in
which their beginnings are to be traced.

There

are more good things capable of improvement
than bad ones, and such are mostly the constitutions of nations.
In considering, first, briefly the relations of
the government to the different

states of

which the empire is composed, the proclivity of
Austrian policy hitherto has not only not been
in the direction last spoken of, but unhappily
too often towards the repression or taking away,
as in the case of Hungary for the crime of
its revolutionary outburst, what popular and
legislative rights the citizens claimed still to
possess.
These advantages, it is true, excited the

8

AUSTRIA.

active jealousy of some of their fellow-subjects
in less favoured sections of the empire, and, so
far as any liberal institutions formed naturally
to a great extent the admiration and ideal
of others less favoured, might seem to justify
the Government in its subsequent treatment,
if the application of it had not been in the
wrong direction ; for, while after the successful suppression of the revolt the wiser course
would manifestly have been to diminish the
disparity between Hungarian and other seminational institutions, by elevating these to a
higher level with it, the object of its Austrian
rulers appeared to be, by utterly prostrating
the privileges of that troublesome and obstinate
state, to effect a general provincial uniformity
on the basis of certain other divisions possessing
no rights nor privileges whatever, save that of
unqualified dependence upon the central and
imperial authority,—an

object analogous to

that sought in the religious sphere by means

AUSTRIA.

9

of the Concordat. But in the development of
this process of degradation all parties, it is
needless to say, were discontented and disappointed : not only the Hungarians themselves,
who keenly felt their reduced condition; not
only the other constituents of the Sclavonic
race, who suffered proportionately in the disparagement of their head; but also a large
proportion of the Germanic element of the
empire, which saw in the suppression of all
legislative independence the death-blow to every
free institution of a similar nature; but, more
than all, the Government itself—conscious of
the failure of the regime adopted by it under
the influence of advisers then fortunately no
more, and which may be denoted

simply

by three words, Suppress, degrade, centralize
—was discontented, disappointed, discomfited ;
and under the pressure of considerations forced
upon its attention during the closing events
of the Italian war, pointing to the imminent

10

AUSTRIA.

danger of a revolutionary coalition between the
so-called patriots of Hungary and Northern
Italy, came to the wise conclusion of altogether
altering the system upon which it had hitherto
acted; of conceding something to the spirit of
the times, and of widening and elevating the
foundation of imperial authority by the hitherto
unthought-of expedient of establishing popular
rights; and by respecting the natural dignity
of a people claiming the privilege of a share
in their own government.

This so worthy

object, under the auspices of an enlightened
administration, has been successfully accomplished in the rehabilitation of the Old Imperial Council on a broader base than heretofore and with enlarged powers, consisting of
members partly nominated by the Crown,
partly elected as representatives of provinces;
the constitution of which important ruling
body not inaptly expresses at once the social
exigencies of the empire and its political posi-

AUSTRIA.

11

tion between the dumb autocracy of the East
and the democratic garrulity of Western nations.

Such an institution, elastic and doubt-

less improvable in various functions, is of the
utmost value in itself, and easily capable of
adaptation by other states in an approximate
political condition ; for it is from the comparative imperfection, and consequent expansibility,
of rude institutions, that their benefits result:
and no one but certain sages of the British
press—those who from the first have merely
ignored or libelled the Austrian Eeichsrath—
would be capable of considering democratic
institutions suitable for that somewhat heterogeneous empire, the honest attempts of whose
rulers to walk in the ways of a constitutional
government were worthy of a more earnest and
more sympathetic welcome.
There is, indeed, no denying the fact that
the establishment of the Imperial. Council has
entirely disarranged the bearings of the old

12

AUSTRIA.

parties in the state, and their representatives
abroad; the Austrian Government and the
supporters of the new general system of popular
representation and election now actually occupy the place of the van, the movement, the
Liberal party; while the cause of Hungary has
a selfish and domineering character attached
to it which is repulsive to men of liberal sentiments, but who look below the surface of
things*

For what is the object, and what the

grievance, of the Hungarians?

Why should

they be encouraged to insist upon an autonomy
which results in a refusal to pay their just
share in the general taxation of the country?
What ground of superiority exists on their part;
that their troops should not be liable to take
service in all the varied districts of the empire
along with those of the other nationalities?
Does the fact of their having given a king, to
the empire ,three hundred years ago justify
these presumptions and exemptions ? Are the

AUSTRIA,

13

actual rights of living nations, their peace and
prosperity, to be sacrificed with impunity to a
pedantic and black-letter spirit of reyolution
which would imperil the well-being of millions,
on account of the omission of certain ceremonies and formalities of coronation when the
state was in the throes of a sanguinary convulsion, for which the complainants are themselves responsible ?

And, finally, who are

they for whom and by whom these demands
and pretensions are set and kept on foot?
Are they—as it will be, of course, supposed—
the whole, or the vast majority, of the people
of Hungary?

Far from it.

They are the

Magyars, who do not form one-third of the
population, the masses of whom are mostly a
despised and powerless class.
The truth is, it is only in England, where
free discussion is held to be of more importance
than accurate judgment, that, amidst the misconceptions natural upon such matters, and

14

AUSTKIA.

the national foible of our day for encouraging
rebellion, any enthusiasm is felt in favour of
what are called Hungarian rights and liberties.

The Germans generally, and even most

of the Sclavonian populations around, would be
astonished at the interest manifested on that
theme by many eloquent orators and soulstirring editors in this country; a fact which
can only be accounted for from the former
being a little better acquainted with the merits
of the case than the sages of Fleet-streetcum-Finsbury and their followers.

The Go-

vernment of Austria is in general more liberal
than the character and tendencies, in divers
ways, of several of its constituent elements
would lead an incautious observer to suppose ;
as may be noted in the instance of those interesting and romantic mountaineers of the
Tyrol, who are actuated by a bitter and contemptuous hatred of all professing the Protestant form of faith; and whose animosities

AUSTEIA.

15

the Imperial Government, in deference to the
just rights and natural feelings of others their
fellow-subjects,
strains.

sternly and warrantably re-

But the laws of Hungary, for the

reimposition of which so many publicists and
agitators assume the most frantic attitudes, or
utter the most delirious nonsense, are, many
of them—as in their persecuting spirit against
Jews and heretics—simply a disgrace to the
tolerant principles wisely prevailing in the
present age, and the enforcement of which
were tantamount to the reinstallation of a
mediaeval savagery that would bear comparison
with the triumphs of the Inquisition.

These,

be it understood, in defiance of the more humane, enlightened, and comprehensive system
of laws obtaining in the more strictly Germanic
states of the empire, are the standards of
Magyar legislation—the legislation of the dominant race in Hungary, and which those hereditary heroes are sadly solicitous to restore.

16

AUSTRIA.

And why did the Hungarian rebellion fail?
Because it was not supported by the masses of
the population; and because it is undeniable
that, in the face of Magyar domination and
Magyar laws, the great body of the people
sympathised, naturally and reasonably enough,
rather with the legions of the Czar, whom,
though owing political allegiance to the Emperor of Austria, they, as Sclavonians, consider
their natural head.

Nor, on the other hand,

need any more be said to account for that
more than respectful distance at which the
Court of Vienna placed itself

immediately

afterwards in relation to its imperial friend and
saviour.

Benefits may be as oppressive as

wrongs.
It is much to be regretted that Hungary, in
a territorial aspect the main element of the
grandeur of Austria, should, in its social and
political condition, prove a chief source also of
her embarrassments; though these, perhaps,

17

AUSTRIA.

may not be so wholly insuperable as some
well-known patriots would lead us to suppose ; and who, constantly speaking of Switzerland as an independent state, maintain that,
in certain contingencies, Hungary could at
least do what Switzerland has done.

But—

apart from the natural reflection that, while
one Switzerland may be for Europe a needful
luxury, two might be a superfluity—to retain
Hungary is a necessity for Austria, if she is to
continue one of the dominant Powers of Europe; in other words, if the present equilibrium of races and forces is to subsist.
A few words will suffice for the treatment of
the position and policy of Austria towards
Poland, as far as they are directly concerned
with each other.

Her share in the first par-

tition, bearing in mind the recent robbery of
Silesia by Prussia, may be regarded as an act
of political precaution, instances of which are to
be found in the history of eyery country, and
c

18

AUSTRIA.

are rather to be justified by the event than by
the means or the motive; for, as contributing
to the division of the Sclavonic race, and subjecting it to the counterpoise of others, opposed
under a common dominion to their individual
predominance, the Western nations generally
may be credited with the benefit actually derived from diminished danger and relief from
alarm.

The Sclavonic race, generally supersti-

tious and unenquiring thralls of ecclesiastical,
military, and imperial authority, must always
be distrusted by the more enlightened but less
socially cohesive races of Keltic and Teutonic
origin, in whose mental characteristics may be
numbered a propensity to reasoning, and, as a
necessary accompaniment, a tendency to limit
the exercise of irresponsible power.

The nor-

mal state of the Sclavonic mind is favourable to
despotism.

Their political revolutions, which

have never effected any improvement in their
laws, have, after the Oriental manner, had

19

AUSTBIA.

principally in contemplation a personal change,
not a

constitutional advance.

They

have

cushioned their rack, and padded their yoke;
they cultivate the beautiful but servile arts ancillary to despotism; and are safe even from
themselves; while united in imagination they
remain divided in allegiance.
Now, as many honest and enthusiastic exiles,
inoculated with ideas of French democracy, are
fond of picturing to others an independent
and united Hungary and Poland, each a living
protest respectively against Eussian and Austriam despotism, it may be well to contemplate
for a moment this political theorem, and en^
deavour to ascertain, with what precision we
can, the probable consequences.

But if there

be any truth or reliance to be placed in ethnology and its dependent sciences, we know
that Hungary, Galicia, Bohemia, and other
provinces now forming part of the Austrian
empire, are occupied with a Bclave population ;

c2

20

AUSTEIA.

and it may be certainly inferred that in case of
a successful attempt on the part of Hungary to
escape from Austrian rule, these members of
the state above alluded to would cast in their
lot with hers; while Austria herself would be
reduced to the condition of a minor Power,
dependent entirely on German elements.

We

then behold Hungary and Galicia, or the principal part of Austrian Poland, independent
Powers, face to face with Eussia. Could matters
long remain so ? Evidently, not a twelvemonth.
The Poles of Galicia, akin to those of Eussia,
would, if in any more independent position, be
an example and incitement to perpetual discontent on the part of the .latter resident in
Cracow, in Warsaw, and other districts of the
Eussian empire.

War must follow; and the

old feuds between the Great and Little Eussians (that is, the Poles and Muscovites) would
inevitably be revived.

But, except on the sup-

position of a peaceable secession, of all things

AUSTRIA.

21

the most unlikely; and granting, therefore, the
existence of hostilities between Hungary and
Eussia, the result of these with the mass of the
population of the former belligerent power, consisting of Slovaks and others who dislike while
they submit to the Magyars, may readily be
foreseen.

Galicia would be ceded, by way of

peace-offering, to Russia, who would thus acquire,
on very easy terms—what she has notoriously
long speculated upon—the Carpathians as a
frontier.

But her toleration of Hungarian

independence would be simply parenthetical;
and all the nations of cognate origin would soon
be glad to find themselves sitting in peace under
the shadow of the great Sclavonian tree.
Let us then beware how far we assist the designs of doubtless well-meaning and eloquent
exiles, who, burning with hostility against the
authority which has expatriated them, are eager
to propose or sanction any combination which
appears to promise plentiful distress or embar-

22

AUSTRIA.

rassment to the object of their hate, quite
regardless of the more general and ulterior
results to the highest civilization and most solid
liberties of Europe; whose only safeguard
against an inconceivable calamity consists in
the maintenance of the present politic, if somewhat complicated arrangements.

Similar con-

clusions might be demonstrated, mutatis mutandis, respecting the resuscitation of Poland,
and all the chimerical schemes and aspirations
in its behalf.

There are many things which

when once lost can never be restored, whether
that loss has been produced by natural process
or by violence; nor as yet has the world seen
any instance of youth, or life, or national independence, twice flourishing in the same subject
in a condition of perfection.
Exposed to perils on all sides, these two
inferior states, whose independence is by many
thought so desirable, would, it is needless to
prove by any additional reasons, at the earliest

AUSTRIA.

23

period possible, again fall irretrievably under
the domination of one of the surrounding
Powers ; for it is perfectly idle to suppose that
those who are essentially of the same blood and
language can operate as any check upon each
other, unless allotted territorially to other
Powers whose interests are not coincident; and
while at the same time among this sovereign
fraternity of states, a certain proportion of
territory, population, or physically productive
power is a necessary condition. Finally, putting
out of view as wholly untenable any proposal
for a republican form of government, there
remains, apart from the Imperial Houses, no
central rallying point in either of these provinces in the shape of a traditional family, or
any other, which could stand as the nucleus of
an independent government.
There is every reason, however, now to believe that much of the selfish and arrogant
pretensions of Hungary are

being quietly

24

AUSTBIA.

abandoned, and that all classes of her population are being brought to perceive that, in the
wise reformatory measure before named, conceded both to herself and sister provinces, a
juster, more uniform, and more provident
government, gradually granting to all its subjects a high equality of popular rights, may,
by effectually conciliating its various nationalities, happily and permanently consolidate the
whole.
The principle of nationalities is a force both
conservative and destructive; one which in
its milder form is productive of a wholesome
tone among the various members of civilised
society, but abundantly capable of exhibition as
a ruinous and deadly irritant.

It is a principle

which, while indisputably one of the most
powerful which actuate society, is, when operating in its pure and simple capacity, a barbarous principle; and, although the foundations of barbarism and civilization are common

25

AUSTRIA.

and concentric in human nature, it is only
when modified and harmonized by the compression of surrounding influences and restricted
by the interpenetration of rival interests, civil
and political, that the stability and force requisite for the action of government can be combined and secured at the same time with the
claims of a just and refined humanity.
War is the inevitable result of vicious and
selfish policy.

But whether the world would

get on better without evil of any kind, is a
problem which, while sternly set before us by
the necessities of our nature, religion is always
striving to solve individually, and law and
diplomacy internationally and in the mass.
In order to penetrate the causes of the recent
war in Italy, and fully appreciate the policy
and position of Austria in relation to that
country, the

following

considerations will,

doubtless, have their due weight.
Power is in the north.

The pressure of the

26

AUSTRIA.

great dominating Powers of Europe is southwards and towards the sunny sea which bounds
the Continent in that direction, opening an
exit for the products, providing an adit for the
introduction of luxuries to the hardy and industrious inhabitants of the interior, and affording
their governments the opportunity of taking
part in other great events by the establishment
and employment of a suitable navy.
In possession of the fertile plains and populous cities of Venetia and Lombardy, ceded to
Austria finally by treaties conceived in a spirit
of hostile repression to France in the day of her
humiliation, and in the gradually but palpably
growing preponderance of Austrian influence
among the Italian States — of whose urban
population many always cherished the traditions, still troublesome, of ancient self-government and republican independence—in these
ominous antecedents, overshadowing a number
of minor states, for ages the common arena

AUSTRIA.

27

of French and German " difficulties," were
paraded the ensigns of that bitter rivalry which
fails never to mature, as we have seen, into
active warfare ; and which, abruptly terminated
for the present by the loss of one of those provinces, may even now any day be renewed on
the principle of winning both or losing all.
To a nation like ourselves, isolated from all
direct concern in the struggle, the results may
be a matter of much indifference, and popular
sympathies be with one or other belligerent as
the conditions or interests of domestic policy
may chance to decide; but apart from the
pretensions of the Court of Turin, which may
be reserved for future consideration, and on
certain grounds, social and moral, for the convenience and interest of vast masses of continental population, it is unreasonable to expect—
it may be unwise to wish—to see Austria denuded
of her remaining possessions on the north-east
coast of the Adriatic.

The command of the

28

AUSTRIA.

Adriatic is traditionally attached to Yenice;
and this Austria can never suffer to become the
subject of dispute.

For it is to be observed

that, while the new kingdom of Italy has, compared with its superficial area, an extensive
sea-coast and many most important harbours
both for purposes of naval armament and commercial intercourse, the vast empire of Austria
is mainly dependent for those objects upon
Yenice and Trieste.

To those who contend

that Austria ought in such case to be content
with Trieste alone, it is scarcely necessary to
reply that the upper part of the Adriatic is a
narrow sea, and that two ports, so situated,
each in possession of what must in all probability be considered for some time to come
as hostile powers, cannot, unless by miracle,
occupy such a position without ensuring perpetual collision between the respective navies—in other words, chronic warfare between Austria
and Italy.

There are others who, referring to

AUSTRIA.

29

many fine ports and naval stations on the coast
and among the islands of Dalmatia, affirm
that, on the supposition above referred to,
Austria would find these suitable and sufficient;
but this is a mistake as far as regards commercial purposes, at least; for with the exception of the narrow strip of territory bordering the gulf which belongs to Austria, these
ports are the outlets to countries in which that
Power has either no interest, or the inhabitants
of which are totally destitute of those habits
and commodities which alone render such
places of importance.

In addition, it must be

remembered that, as undoubtedly the highest
interests of England are

involved in the

maintenance of Germany at large as a great
and powerful confederation by land and sea,
the preservation of Venice to Austria, as in
many respects the leading power of the Teutonic
race, is a matter of vital value not only to that
individual state, but to all nations of Germanic

30
origin or alliances.

AUSTRIA.

On the other hand, Genoa

and Spezzia have those unsurpassed natural
advantages adequate to all requirements of the
honour and welfare of New Italy.

The case

of Venetia is certainly not one which invokes
our sympathies on account of popular recollections associated with the enjoyment of
past political rights, or even of good government, or amity with the sister states of Italy;
for, however great and reasonable may be the
native aversion to Tedeschi or forestieri, it is not
easy to believe that the citizens of Venice,
under the present rule, can look back with
regret to the selfish, irresponsible oligarchy
which expired in 1797; with one or two exceptions in its career, so much more interesting
in poetry than illustrious in history.

Our

feelings in its favour are, therefore, connected
with its aspirations for the future; and as the
Austrian Government is rapidly assuming a
constitutional character, and the province itself

AUSTEIA.

31

is by emigration and other causes becoming
daily more German, it is reasonable to hope
that, the causes of discontent being effectually
diminished, the Venetians, by taking advantage of the political privileges offered by the
advanced and liberal system under which they
are now included, will ultimately recognise the
beneficial results to be reciprocally secured
by a more cordial union with the empire.
Bearing in remembrance the ruinous afflictions
which she had suffered from 1795 to 1815, it
is scarcely to be deemed a matter of wonderment that the policy of Austria, generally, since
that period should have been directed by the
most determined hostility to every measure or
event savouring in the remotest degree of resemblance to democratic liberties; but although
grace must be conceded to the sentiments of
a Government so situated, it is certain that this
wild resistance to every impulse of democracy,
and all desire for popular liberty, is as unwise

32

AUSTRIA.

as it is ineffectual.

The conservative forces

of society, the displacement of which the
Austrian Government appears so much to have
feared as the probable result of any administrative innovations, will, there is no doubt,
even if driven from the political platform, sufficiently fortify themselves elsewhere under
the friendly banners of religion, or education, or
loyalty, or law.

But, in the mean time, acting

under the influence of the dread referred to,
Austria, as the centre of European absolutism,
having effected treaties with the Ducal Courts
of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, all allied to
the Imperial family, constitutional governments were not only rendered impracticable,
but the forcible suppression of every movement
in favour of popular rights was guaranteed. In
the States of the Church a similar object was
secured by the military occupation of Bologna
and other fortified towns, garrisoned by Austrian
troops; and with Naples an express treaty was

AUSTRIA.

33

concluded to prohibit the slightest manifestation of liberal or constitutional tendencies on
the part of either the King or the people.

The

final outcome of all this was the war of 1859;
and the definitive abandonment by Austria,
as has been, or will be done by every state in
Europe, of the principle which till that period
formed the foundation of her policy.
On whatever side Austria is viewed^ her difficulties undoubtedly appear to be great; and
because, from her very complex system, she is
probably more sensitive to the least derangement in the condition of Europe than any other
State, it thus happens that, while the various
nationalities of which the empire is composed
she is compelled to employ to check each
other, so that in the minimum of their reciprocally irritant forces a sort of «equilibrium is
effected, just sufficient to sustain the foundation
and action of Government, it is certain that,
from the variety of races and nations comprised
D

34

AUSTBIA.

in her dominions, Austria has not only to be on
her guard against the centrifugal tendencies of
some of her constituent elements, but, several of
these being mostly in a state of chronic discontent—the natural consequence of her hitherto
neglected legislation, or the centralizing system
so long substituted for it—she is at all times
perhaps less absolutely secure than her jealous
and powerful neighbours, either more or less
socially advanced, and all more politically
uniform in their internal constitutions, who
surround* her confines.
In the mean time, the alleged ingratitude of
Austria to Eussia, after the gratuitous suppression by the latter of the Hungarian revolt,
shown in her vacillation and final neutrality,
so embarrassing to the Emperor Nicholas, during
the war on the Danube and in the Crimea, has
effected a wholesome coolness between the two
Powers, an estrangement indeed between the
two peoples, which it is to be hoped no abortive

AUSTBIA.

attempts at insurrection, though

35

concealed

under heaps of immortelles and the disguise
of prayers intoned before a senseless statue,
by alarming their united interests, may altogether remove.

On the other hand, there can

be no doubt that the presumptive interests of
these governments, resting mostly on the unreasoning instinct of fidelity in the people to
their rulers, instead of any rational attachment
to moral principles or social aims, supply sufficient motives for their reunion, whenever it can
be effected at the expense of a common victim;
for which position, the Principalities, it was
thought, by reason of their more liberal institutions, were not unlikely involuntarily
qualify themselves.

to

But the state of political

society in Europe at the present time, it must
be confessed, is such, that both the elements of
power and the bases of calculation are disordered
and inverted or invalidated.
Although therefore, apart from Italy, where
D2

36

AUSTRIA.

her star has suffered detriment, Austria has longceased to be regarded as an aggressive Power,
yet in certain contingencies dependent on the
Turkish question, and if no disruption be precipitated by the attempted foundation of a
new Eoumaic dominion, her claims upon the
Christian populations of Servia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and other parts of European Turkey,
would to many of them appear quite equal in
point of attraction to those upon which Eussia
calculates for the advancement of her own designs.

On the borders of the Ottoman empire,

therefore, no less than on the Drave and the
Danube, Austria has to contend against the
same rival striving for the same object.

To

divide the Danube between them as the common highway and part boundary of the two
empires is probably the secret and not ill-judged
design of these Powers; for there can be no
doubt that, if exclusively under their control as
anticipated, it might and would be greatly im-

37

AUSTRIA.

proved as a medium of commercial intercourse
between the western and eastern portions of
Europe, and? even between Europe and Asia.
In spite of the financial embarrassments too
frequent in Austria, and maugre the sad predictions of many ill-disposed friends, her ruin is
not yet even probable.

The resources of the

empire are almost boundless ; and these must
be far more seriously encroached upon than
they have been during the last fifty years—a
period of unparalleled trial—before insolvency
can be pronounced.

Agriculture is improving;

her production suffices for her own consumption; her exports are increasing: the area of
her deficiencies is diminishing; manufactures are
extending; neither famine nor penury is known
among the people.

Nor is the army that mon-

strous incubus upon the energies and resources
of the state which has been supposed.

Military

service in these great Continental states being
compulsory, it must be remembered that where

38

AUSTEIA,

the habits of life are simple, and the mass of the
people uninstructed, provisions plentiful, labour
cheap, and manufacturing and commercial enterprise scarce or restricted, the army becomes
an administrative establishment into which the
youth of the country enter as into a provident
institution.

Where military service and agri-

culture are the ruling if not all-inclusive ideas
of the subject, the army is used by the Government as the common school of such physical
and moral discipline as it considers desirable for
the many, and as the main organ for the diffusion of loyalty to the Crown and the propagation of a spirit of reciprocal forbearance among
the various classes and populations of the empire.

Among these it forms

the natural

resource of thousands to whom compulsory
service is a relief, as they would probably be
otherwise without remunerative employment
during the most active period of their lives.

PRUSSIA.

PRUSSIA.
PRUSSIA,

as the leading Protestant Power on

the Continent, is in this respect, as in so many
others, the rival of absolute and faithful Austria.
The Prussian people are not noted for a vital
and profound sense of dogmatic religion. Many
degrees, doubtless, of mental culture and religious orthodoxy are to be found between the
enlightened classes, denizens of the universities and capital cities, and the superstitious
who await with anxiety the next exposure of
tEe Holy Coat at Treves.

The national mind,

however, generally, and of the cultivated classes
especially, is marked by a speculative, argumentative, and philosophical tendency,

Tole-

42

PBUSSIA.

rant almost to a fault, and temperate nearly to
excess, their creed is nullified neither by a
gloomy egotism nor a fervid fanaticism.

The

Protestant bishopric of Jerusalem, which Prussia
and Great Britain united to establish, the diocese of which precisely coincides with the periphery of the episcopal residence, recommended
itself to the popular sympathies as a species of
spiritual knighthood, and an almost allegorical
crusade, which, whatever effect it might produce upon Paynim incredulity, was certainly a
proof that modern Germans knew better what
was consistent with the genius of Christianity
than our Cceur-de-Lion and his followers, or
than their own Teutonic knighthood, the pious
slaughterers of the Borussians.
The form of government, originally and till
recently a pure autocracy, having been at the
first foundation of the kingdom imposed upon
the people, and not having, as in early constitutional states, grown from them, the intermediate

43

PRUSSIA.

power of the state is found to be the army,
which, being necessary and co-extensive with
the population, partakes of the character of a
civil as well as military institution.

This ser-

vice, comprising the youth and enthusiasm of
the entire nation, is mostly, for the time being,
the simple reflex of royal and official absolutism.

On leaving the army, if no more lucra-

tive occupation presents itself to the choice of
the young soldier, derived from private means
or family influence, he is accounted most deserving who is most loyal; every degree downwards of subserviency standing for as many upwards of promotion in the civil service of the
state to which he is now attached.
Except in the capital and a few large towns,
the sentiment of political rights for the people
does not deeply influence the national mind.
The cultivation and laudation of freedom, indeed, as a theme, is pursued with ardour at
the universities principally.

If the indulgence

44

PRUSSIA.

of a theory has not realized more tangible results, it is, probably, that they are not required;
for among a people where there is no lack of
employment, nor its due reward, settled laws
justly administered, education encouraged, a
religion of their own choice, and conscience unconstrained, the degree of political power which
they may claim as a class is a matter not of
indifference, but of less importance and of
doubtful advantage.

The people may, in this

sense, have too much power to use it for their
own good, as is invariably the case with democracies.

The highest results of civilization are

found not in endowing with uniform power the
masses, but with varied privileges the great coordinate classes of society.

Political liberty

implies with us the unlimited right of public
meeting, free discussion by tongue and pen,
representative institutions, parliamentary control over taxation and the application of the
finances of the state ; but not to every nation

PRUSSIA.

are these powers indispensable.

45
And if with

some the cultivation and exercise of the deeper
capacities of our nature, philosophical habits of
mind, the graceful studies and refined achievements of art, have more of vital attraction than
with ourselves, each may be considered to possess equal advantages.
With a government of autocratic origin and
habits, supported by a highly conservative aristocracy, in favour of alliance and assimilation
to Eussia, rather than any more westward
Power; and with a bureaucratic administration,
—which, as every institution has a better and a
worse side, may be said to signify in the latter
sense the popular element in a state of social
subornation and political perjury, constrained
to bear witness in favour of superior authority,—
territorial influence may be expected to predominate, as it does, even in many properly
public proceedings, and forming naturally the
great reserve of the arbitrary authority of the

46

Crown.

PRUSSIA.

A considerable enlargement, never-

theless, in late years, of civil liberties has been
fairly won by the people, in the minds of whose
leaders and teachers England and her institutions are the great and guiding exemplar.

As

a national consequence, the forms of a constitutional monarchy, and the establishment of an
Upper and Lower House, have given Prussia a
pre-eminence as the head and patron of free discussion, political as well as philosophical, which
men of liberal views in all countries are naturally inclined to approve; and from which it is
hoped the principle of the adoption of representative institutions is destined to attain a
wider range than it has yet done on the continent of Europe.
With all this, whether as a corollary from
foregoing conditions, or as a characteristic of
pure Teutonic mind, the most remarkable features of Prussian policy, as apparent in its external relations, are inconsistency and indeci-

47

PRUSSIA.

sion.

When any question requiring co-opera-

tive solution is submitted to the consideration
of her government, while others are prompt
and

energetic,

authoritative

or

obstinate,

Prussia is for the most part vacillatory.

Not

to go back to any remote period, it is sufficient
to refer to her conduct in relation to France,
from the anti-republican manifesto of Pilnitz, in
1791, to her projected invasion of that country
in 1793, in which a retreat was the only thing
accomplished ; to her acceptance, in 1794, of a
British subsidy in support of war; to the treaty
of Basle, the year following, by which she
as treacherously secured the advantages of
peace; to her subsequent adhesion to the northern maritime confederacy and attack upon
British interests.! at the moment that Power
was making sacrifices and exceptions in her
favour ; her invasion of Hanover in compliance
with the arrogant demands of France in 1806 ;
her rupture immediately afterwards with that

48

PRUSSIA.

Power, and her renewed subservience, after
defeat, to Napoleon, as manifested in the toleration of the Berlin decrees and in the treaty
of Tilsit; her support of the Russian invasion
in 1812; and, finally, in 1813, the initiation by
the Prussian government of that great alliance
against the despot her own vacillation and servility had contributed so grossly to aggrandise.
Internally her conduct has been almost
equally inconsistent, though due

allowance

must always be conceded to the ill-directed
and extravagant course of popular illusion and
national ambition, as may be noted in her
when, after passing through a period of pure
autocracy, the reactionary effect of the first
French Eevolution, as a member of the Holy
Alliance and one of the great despotic triad of
the North, in 1846 she was seized with the
natural desire for constitutional institutions;
her

tendencies being

rationally

developed

among all classes, and honourably encouraged

49

PRUSSIA.

by the king, when the unhappy outbreak of
the French introduced also into Prussia a
degree of democratic violence and unjust assumption on the part of both sovereign and
people which, at first directed unitedly against
other and external objects,

ultimately, as

might be expected, issued in a collision between themselves.

In this struggle the sove-

reign having succeeded, though only by open
duplicity, in securing the safety of those social
institutions which all classes are interested in
preserving, at any cost, against the onslaught
of turbulent and momentarily demented myriads, subsequent reflection induced the former,
fortified by the support of the more judicious
section of his subjects, himself to abandon, and
suppress in others as far as he could, those wild
and lawless schemes of absorption and annexation which formed so long the day-dreams of
dyspeptic editors, and the mental cloudland of
so many beardless patriots.

Ultimately, it is
E

50

PRUSSIA.

gratifying to find that the sober and practical
attractions of a limited constitutional monarchy
have proved sufficient to secure the political
devotion of the citizens, and preclude the prospect, each successively threatening, and both
alike to be dreaded, of a return to anarchy or
to absolutism.
In 1854-55, and during the whole of the
negotiations previous to the war in the Crimea,
as well as in the actual hostilities, Prussia held
aloof with Austria both from Eussia and the
Allies, apparently bent upon embarrassing,
rather than assisting, either party; although,
in this instance, being but remotely connected
with the contest, its causes, and its consequences, her motives for non-interference,
coupled with dynastic alliance and the pacific
predilections of the king, are sufficiently obvious. In 1859 she waited till Austria had
lost her finest province before adopting any
decisive measure; and in 1860, on the ques-

51

PRUSSIA.

tion of Savoy, said nothing till it was too late.
She then spoke out very emphatically.
As it is frequently difficult, nevertheless, to
decide whether reluctance to engage in hostilities, or even to adopt bold measures, arises
from sluggishness or astuteness, the backwardness of Prussia in the matter of the Italian war
may be reasonably well accounted for on the
principle, perfectly understood in Germany,
which may be thus formulated: any positive
loss to Austria is at least a negative gain to
Prussia; there being no possibility of the converse ever proving true.

The latter, it was

thus foreseen, would look with complacency on
the loss by her rival of those possessions beyond the Alps the absence of which tended to
leave both upon terms of more equality.
That there is reason to fear Prussia will
almost always prove an unsafe or unreliable
ally may be inferred from the fact that, while
the tendency of her constitutionally inclined
E2

52

PBUSSIA.

population is, of course, to the friendship
and support of liberal governments, theories,
and measures of administration foreign and
domestic, her active advocacy or support of
such is always liable to be paralysed, at marked
political crises and doubtful contingencies of
peace or war, by certain overwhelming exigencies in two most important quarters connected simply with territorial considerations.
If Austria and Eussia at any juncture combine
in an offensive attitude, Prussia must eventually join them or remain neuter.

While these

are at variance, she is comparatively free.
But under no circumstances can Prussia afford
to enter into actual hostilities with Eussia or
with Austria unless one of these is her ally.
Again, in regard to the Ehenish Provinces,
her position, in the event of a war with France,
is such as to necessitate naturally the utmost
degree of anxiety.

To these considerations

may partly be ascribed her vacillating policy

PRUSSIA.

at different times.

53

But the fact remains.

Prussia is a variable star, and only nominally
of the first magnitude*

Her interests, however,

are identical with those of Austria in precluding the further insidious advances of Eussia
towards the heart of Europe; and since both
powers have been relieved by the death of the
late Czar from the oppressive tutelage of that
imperial head, a more dignified and independent course of action may not unreasonably
be looked for.
Identical also are the interests of all three
on one vital point, viz., in repressing—however
harsh it may appear to uninterested spectators,
if such there be—any manifestation of Polish
nationality.

In fact, it is their equal and

united interest so to balance and modify their
treatment of that people that, under their respective governments^ not one of them—neither
Austrian Poland, Eussian Poland, nor Prussian
Poland—may have greater reason than another

54

PEUSSIA.

to complain or to congratulate itself.

Poland,

therefore, although as a nationality extinct,
remains, among the Powers which divided it,
the pivot of their peculiar international policy.
The opinion has been entertained that the
circumstance most to be regretted—since the
division is irremediable—is the disproportion
of the allotments; for while Eussia has seized
two-thirds of the territory, the remaining third
only has been subdivided between Austria and
Prussia; and various reasons could doubtless
be adduced why it might have been better
had the proportions been reversed, or the distribution been, at least, more equal. In favour
of it, it can only be said that, in relation to the
other states, the repressive power of Eussia is
of course proportionally greater; and that, if
the act were, as its promoters contended, for
the advantage of the European system, agreeable to the peace and progress of society and

55

PRUSSIA.

the more general security of order and civilization, the arrangement finally adopted is
sufficiently capable of justification.
Neither carelessly nor callously, the writer
would remark, is this term justification used
while speaking of the dismemberment of a
once powerful and independent state; but, in
truth, the disordered condition of Poland,
owing to the internal factions of its own mercenary, tyrannical aristocracy, and the disorganization effected by the unjust interference
of Charles XII., the baneful effects of which
were palpable for more than half a century;
added to the danger of French intervention,
believed to be imminent by those Powers in
more immediate contact with the royal republic—a mass of political contradictions

and

anomalies—rendered England and the rest of
Europe somewhat

indifferent

to its fate;

assured, moreover, as the judicious statesmen
of every country must have been, that, even

56

PRUSSIA.

were it parcelled out among its more potent
neighbours, the condition of the great masses
of the Polish people could not possibly be
deteriorated by their incorporation with any
regular government, however despotic, but, in
all probability, be sensibly improved;

and,

conclusively, that since its fall appeared no
less than inevitable, it were safer for all, in
regard to future contingencies, that so formidable a prize should be distributed among a
plurality of competitors than permitted solely
to aggrandize one.

Thus a measure apparently

and theoretically unjust proved to be practically wise, and one in which both distant
spectators and immediate actors were almost
'equally interested and benefited.

For so long-

as Poland stood by its absurd constitution—in
which the veto of a single noble, however treacherous or mercenary might be his vote, sufficed to
nullify the unanimous resolutions of successive
senates—in which, too, by reason of its elec-

PRUSSIA.

57

tive sovereignty, the seat of regal faction and
imperial intrigues, and while the inability of
the law to provide for the succession during the
life of the actual wearer of the crown secured
a constantly recurring quantity of anarchy and
corruption, its royal rivals and its vast and illregulated population rendered it to the rest
of Europe a source of universal and perpetual
peril.

The further consideration that, while

Poland remained even doubtfully an independent and united Power, there only lacked a
crowned leader of military genius and energetic character, and the advent of a suitable
opportunity, to jeopardize or embarrass, or, at
all events, compel to a state of perpetual
armed vigilance, the surrounding Governments,
furnished, doubtless, another weighty and decisive argument for the tripartition ; while the
distrust entertained by the Courts of Eussia and
Austria in relation to the ambitious views and
victorious arms of Prussia, in connexion with

58

PRUSSIA.

other causes recorded in history or only half
concealed in private memoirs,, amply account
for the different proportions of the allotment.
While, therefore, for the removal of this cause
of general uneasiness to Europe, civilized society
is paradoxically indebted to the rapacity of
Eussia and Austria, it is not a little, perhaps,
owing to the determination of the Prussian
King to render his own state, by military
organization, and the extension of his dominions, a co-ordinate member of the first rank
of continental monarchies.
The Westphalian provinces, separated by a
land-strait from the bulk of the kingdom and
inhabited almost wholly by a Eoman Catholic
population, form, from

their

heterogeneous

character in position, race, and religion, eminently the weak point of Prussia; for, in the
event of any convulsion or considerable superficial change in the conditions of European
society, while there is every probability that

PRUSSIA.

59

certain of the intermediate states would attach
themselves, by the laws of social attraction, to
the greater mass of their Protestant brethren
near at hand, so, by the operation of similar
causes, the inhabitants of these provinces have
a tendency to gravitate politically in the direction of the two most liberal Eoman Catholic
Powers of the Continent.

But, at the same

time, it as a proof of shortsightedness on the
part of agitators to encourage or embitter
reflection upon such topics.

Interest, more

effectually than religion, teaches charity to the
dominant majority; and there is little doubt
that in this reciprocal subordination of Protestant to Eoman Catholic and Roman Catholic
to Protestant rulers, humanity and liberty are
on the whole gainers.
Distinguished by a loyal, enthusiastic, and
concentrative population, even those outside
her borders being actuated by what may be
termed centripetal tendencies, it is in her rela-

60

PRUSSIA.

tions with the minor states of Germany that
Prussia appears in her most interesting and important aspect; but with what degree of consistency or sincerity she has assumed the championship of Germanic nationality, Germanic
unity, and constitutional liberty, has yet to be
assayed; a deeper inquiry even may be preferred to ascertain how far the principles of
popular control, the practice of free assembly,
and the enjoyment of unrestricted discussion,
essential to the integrity of constitutional
government, are compatible with the habits of
a population taught to be soldiers before acquiring the rights of civil life, and what may be
the value of these conditions when co-operative
and when opposed, qualified by the antecedents
of a state so long recognisable as a mere
stratocracy.
Having, however, by means of this assumption, and the preponderating influence accruing
from her position in the Commercial Customs

PRUSSIA.

61

Union, as steward and dispenser of the revenues
of divers petty States of the Confederation—a
position which, with the Union itself, Austria,
as might be anticipated, has always selfishly,
stedfastly, and vainly

opposed—acquired

a

commanding grasp over various political contingencies which, while awakening the fears of
some, stimulate in a high degree the expectant
patriotism of not only her own subjects, but a
numerous clientele on all sides of her actual
dominions, the intentions of our self-styled
" Sword of Germany " at any future crisis may
fairly be estimated by the supposed gravity, in
any particular direction, of her interests.
So long as Prussia was an aggressive Power in
any other quarter than eastwards, it was the interest of western Europe generally, and England in
especial, to support Austria, as in her resistance
under Maria Theresa to the encroachments of
the Prussian monarch, on account of his dominions being conterminous with those of Hanover,

62

PRUSSIA.

in the prosperity and independence of which
England was, of course, vitally concerned.

But

of all the Powers of Europe, the one which, at
the present moment, gives most unmistakable
evidence of ambitious designs is Prussia; and
though the tendency of the territorial and aristocratic element of Prussian society is towards
the adoption of an exclusive and self-isolating
policy, yet the policy of annexation, or the
unification of Germany, is without doubt more
popular both in ministerial circles and in democratic discourses.

The result in such case

would be that Prussia would have, as it is
wished, a more compact domain and a more
decided policy; no longer " halting betwixt
two opinions," a character so singularly symbolised by her territorial configuration; and
perhaps an absolutism more defensible because
possibly necessary.

GERMANY
AND

SCANDINAVIA.

GERMANY
AND

SCANDINAVIA.

SCATTERED

like the asteroids between the

orbits of Mars and Jupiter, lie, betwixt the
borders of France and those larger and ulterior
bodies of our political system situated in the
northern and eastern quarters of Europe, the
many irregular and fragmentary statelets of
Germany.

Manifold are their tendencies, their

interests discordant, their characteristics conflicting, no less than their apparent destinies.
To enter into a minute estimate of these and
their several bearings upon each other, in reference to the greater states and to the general

66

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

scheme or figure of continental politics, is fortunately not necessary for the general reader;
although, as regards German policy in its
exclusive sense, it would be found as requisite
to study them as for the mathematician to
master the intervening text between any remotely successive problems of Euclid.

It will

obviously be sufficient to suggest a few considerations connected with the present state of affairs
to exhibit a specimen of the attractive complications which beset the mind of the observer in
noting accurately the curious configurations of
German policy.
The Germanic Confederation, of which all
these states are sovereign members, was naturally disposed, politically intended to be, and
still to a large extent undoubtedly is, ,a great
central conservative Power, calculated to preserve the peace of Europe from, on the one
hand, the outbreaks of democracy, and., on the
other, from the inroads of despotism.

This

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

67

laudable object the German people generally
have pretty faithfully sought; and the states
conjointly, in the constitution of their Diet, the
apportionment of its functions, and the regulation of its powers, may be said to have secured
the perfection of political conservatism.

Un-

happily, the tendency of all mortal perfection
is' to decline; and with the advance of popular
intelligence and the expansion of the sphere of
public opinion, the legislative deficiencies of
the Diet have become more apparent, and its
executive authority less capable of enforcement,
defiance or neglect of which among both the
stronger and weaker members seems likely to
become soon the sole symbol of unanimity.
The question of the political hegemony of
the Confederation, disputed between Austria and
Prussia, or rather by their literary champions,
chiefly at present in the speculations of the
press or the declamations of university orators,
and in which, as there is no possibility of agreeF2

68

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

ment, all arguments have equal force, nevertheless excites considerable interest in thoughtful
minds, and enlists their sympathies accordingly
as they are attracted by historical or progressive associations ; for to this contested position Austria would naturally lay claim as the
first of German and imperial Powers, and as
hers by heirship of the ancient empire; but
Prussia, from rivalry with Austria, by right of
a younger strength, superior enlightenment and
intelligence, and popular support

This ques-

tion, which in its more practical bearing on the
military leadership of the Confederation in
time of war, occupies not unfrequently the field
of constitutional discussion, the minor kingdoms
and some less considerable principalities treat
with a sagacious modesty which cannot be too
much admired; contending that, as they cannot
presume to decide between such high pretensions
as those put forward by the grand competitors
before named, the right might more justly and

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

69

without any suspicion of sinister designs be
relegated to themselves, whose interests, as collectively the weaker party, whether considered
in relation to a possible enemy, external or internal, to the Confederation, are most vitally
involved; and the plea appears reasonable, but
is no nearer adoption, it is to be feared, on that
account.
The present dualism, as it is called, of
Germany, is regarded by some, those especially
of the national Verein party, as prejudicial
to the honour and interests of the nation;
though it is somewhat difficult to an unexalted
mincl to discover in what the detriment consists.
Others would be content with merely enlarging
the boundaries of the two great primary Powers
by the aggregation to each respectively of a
number of lesser states, so as to divide the
whole Teutonic territory into a Northern and
Southern Germany; but when it is considered
that the population of many of these minor

70

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

states, naturally intelligent and inclined to
intellectual studies, refined by the influence of
education and the arts, distinguished by simple
habits and domestic virtues, with few burdens
and fewer responsibilities, are amongst the
best-conducted and happiest in Europe or the
world, the benefit to be derived from the projected disarrangement of the present order of
things appears to be at least highly problematical.
The honour of a country, it may be conceded, if not of a material, is far from being
of an insubstantial or unimportant character;
and it is really found that one at least of the
principal grievances which the small states
have to complain of under the actual system
is that, in consequence of the inertness and
incapacity of the Diet to assert its authority,
their subjects are unable in foreign countries
or at sea to vindicate their dignity when
insulted, or when injured to obtain redress.

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

71

An emigrant from Schwartzburg-Bodolstadt in
the aqueous wilds of Paraguay, or a scientific
traveller from Kniphausen among the saline
sands of Independent Tartary, may be robbed
or maltreated, it is urged, with impunity,
while neither the empire of Austria nor the
kingdom of Prussia will man a paltry squadron
or levy one battalion in his behalf.
sweeping conclusions drawn from

Such

palpable

and only possible exceptions it is unnecessary
to combat: but the idea of an united Germany
and a national flag appears to have taken root
in the mind of the nation; and one thing is
certain, that it is vain to contend against the
general tendencies of the times, whether for
good or for evil, either in social or political
matters.
The great question indeed of the future,
upon which, as usual, enthusiasm is universal,
but judgment inexact, is that of the reconsolidation, under more popular conditions, of a

72

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

German empire.

Although this is manifestly

a project of that doubtful nature that, while it
might by bare possibility be achieved by
peaceful means, such as would be implied in
the dissolution by the Diet of its own authority,
and the re-election on a more popular basis of a
common parliament at Frankfort or elsewhere,
which should not be devoted exclusively to
the consideration of petty dynastic interests,
but the broad measures of national utility, and
the general improvement of society in its most
important aspects, yet it might on the other
hand require or occasion a convulsion similar
to that experienced by Europe at the close of
the last and commencement of the present
century.

Were it only a question of the sword,

the settlement might be simple enough in
nature, though in all probability more cruelly
protracted in the process of solution than may
be anticipated.

But the inquiry naturally

emerges, of what advantage would such a

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

73

change be to European interests generally, or to
Germany and the German people themselves ?
And here, taking the hypothesis of a third
independent Power, the difficulties in which
the subject is involved, though sensible only
at the present moment to a deliberative judgment, would at the most unhappy and unthoughtof junctures, infallibly obtrude themselves.

It

is undoubtedly the right and the duty of a
people to constitute itself under such conditions
as to secure peace, prosperity, and safety at
home, and respect abroad. Setting aside, therefore, as irrelevant, the dissatisfaction with which
France who forcibly dissolved the

former

empire, and Eussia who selfishly sanctioned
the fact, would naturally regard the foundation
of another, and the introduction of a new
Power into Europe, while the

consent of

England might be fairly assumed as probable,
there is no question but that from its nearest
neighbours, and its national kindred in the

74

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

first degree, that is from both Austria and
Prussia, it would be met with a decided and
strenuous opposition,

But if, in spite of those

troubles in Hungary and in Poland which
might at such a crisis be safely calculated upon,
the project as a whole, and in its main object,
were to miscarry and end in a double partition
between Austria and Prussia, as appears the
most probable issue of the plan, then the
dualism already alluded to would be permanently and in all likelihood beneficially established.

Beneficially, of course, supposing the

maintenance and growth in each dominion of
representative institutions and responsible governments, not to speak of prudent parliaments.

For, how imprudently a representative

assembly, popularly elected, can act, and
honestly, as it were, betray the people who
delegated them, is notably evident in the
elevation by the Frankfort Parliament in 1849
of an Austrian Archduke, though believed to

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

75

be liberally inclined, as the administrator of
the embryo empire then in contemplation.
A more directly suicidal step was never taken
by even a democratic congress.

The jealousy

of Prussia and the contempt of the country
insured its downfall.
Throughout this cluster of states, traversed
from one point to the other, and to opposite
extremes, by Gallic antipathies and democratic
sympathies, by the hopes and fears of a progressive society, by the sense of insecurity
inseparable to the possession of power from all
innovation however reasonable or imperative;
and the frequent antagonism arising from constitutional inclinations on the part of the people
to the somewhat despotic predilections of the
ruling powers, encouraged occasionally, if not
originally instigated, by foreign

corruption

through the medium of family and other
influences; the diverse religious prejudices of
various states, and their voluntary or com-

76

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

pulsory toleration of each other's peculiarities,
—these form a sample of those important
questions which agitate or concentrate the
public mind, which in the flow and reflow of
popular opinion can only be viewed as indicative of a transitionary or preparatory state,
the probable results of which it is not easy to
define nor desirable to attempt.
As at present constituted, the weight of Germany is thrown into the scale of Conservatism;
and with the example of Prance before her,
and her own long-extended historical recollections, and with the perils of Panslavism and the
contingent perturbations of a resuscitated Poland, and an ignorant, hostile, or selfish Sclave
population on all sides of her, it is difficult to
wish it otherwise.

That the Germans, as a

people, are desirous and deserving of a greater
amount of political liberty, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, freedom of action in state
affairs, than they at present enjoy, is certain;

GERMANY AND SÖANDINAVIA.

77

nor is there any recklessness or ferocity or
fanaticism in their character in any such degree
as to suggest the fear that the innovations they
contemplate would be attended with consequences fatal to others or prejudicial to themselves.

It is greatly to be hoped that the

views of extreme democratic parties may not
be allowed to prevail; and that if possible—
former failure notwithstanding — the existing
machinery of legislation connected with the
functions of the Diet should be utilized; that
the overwhelming and antagonistic influence
of Austria and Prussia should be altogether
removed from the Confederation; that a uniform principle of popular franchise and representation should be adopted, as well as of
customs, taxes, rates, tolls, and other objects
of fiscal regulation, in addition to the rights
of independency secured to each state, and in
analogy with the proportions of military obligation and organization already established by
the central authority.

78

GKEKMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

With these and other similar conditions it
might be possible to effect the unification of
Germany, considered as comprising the minor
states distinguished from the two larger ones.
A division even between these, though necessarily extending, in some measure, and intensifying the existing antagonism between them,
might possibly prove beneficial or satisfactory
on the whole, as securing to each individual
Teuton, within their respective territories, a
share, however atomic, in the rights and dignities of a powerful Fatherland.

And such is ap-

parently the tendency of popular opinion, that
Dualism promises to be the destiny of Germany.
In its present subdivided state, a discriminating
glance at some of the more notable, though
minor, members of the Confederation, their
characteristics, position, and interests, may be
not useless in the attempt to form a brief and
rapid estimate of the internal policy of the
Teutonic Governments.
Hanover, it is obvious, occupies, with regard

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA,

.

79

to Prussia, a peculiar and perilous position.
In this respect the policy of Prussia was formerly—i. e. before the separation of Hanover
from the British Crown—of more apparent importance in a territorial point of view to England than at present; and though it is not
impossible that in any case of peril occurring
to Hanover, in connexion with its neighbours,
from external sources, a regard to ancient
connexions and the obligations of treaties—
which, it is needless to add, are constructed in
express terms to endure for ever—might induce
Great Britain to interpose in its favour, either
by arms or diplomacy, yet it is certain that
among our own statesmen a growing indifference to Hanoverian difficulties may be noted,
arising from the arbitrary and reactionary
tendencies of its government, too often in
direct opposition to the wishes and requirements of an educated and enlightened population; which in this state and in certain

80

0ERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA»

neighbouring duchies feel, it is suspected, a
somewhat dangerous confidence in the future
liberality of Prussia.
that the

Yet it must be confessed

repulsion which

the Hanoverian

Government, supported by a very considerable
party, feels towards Prussia and the ambitious
views entertained by that Power, is readily to
be conceived and only natural; for in the history of the world there are but few independent
states who have chosen to play the part of
voluntary victims for the good of others, especially their inferiors in position.

The domi-

nions of Hanover, with its maritime advantages,
and other independent territories, intervening
between the provinces of Westphalia and those
of Prussia proper, give rise, it is clear, in the
minds of Prussian statesmen, to a great temptation, which in these days, when subjects vote
away their kings with as little ceremony as
formerly kings disposed of their subjects, might
present, probably, no very astounding obstacle

GEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

81

to a Government accustomed to play a leading
part in popular elections, and give due and
imposing effect to democratic demonstrations;
but to impartial observers of such a movement
it would appear most unwise should the population so transferring themselves, in obedience
to a clamour

for theoretic unity, neglect

very scrupulously to exact, from a Government
thus increasing its territory and power, efficient
guarantees for the parallel extension of civil
liberties. Otherwise, indeed—and in the excitement attending national crises such things are
frequently lost sight of—but little might be
gained for which the friends of freedom would
have reason to rejoice. This expectant attitude,
however, to which allusion has just been made,
on the part of various minor states, Prussia—
whose future it is more easy to conceive than
safe to foretell—naturally encourages; and it
is an attitude of which other more strictly
constitutional states, whose position is better
a

82

GEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

secured, or thought so to be, might more freely
and hopefully approve, could any firm reliance
be placed upon the validity of institutions nominally asserting the principle of popular control
over the Government in a state so situated as
is Prussia in respect to her outward relations;
and where, within, the entire population being
compulsory conscripts, the one grand reality of
the social system is the army. But the required
security is felt to be wanting.
Bavaria, principally Eoman Catholic, from
proximity of position, royal alliances, trading,
and other interests, mostly follows the lead of
Austria.

Though nominally a constitutional

monarchy, its political action is so checked
and overruled by the Diet that the wholesome
inclinations of the people are in a great degree
nullified.
Saxony—Lutheran Protestant as regards the
majority of the population, but the reigning
family, the original protectors of Luther, now

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

83

Koman Catholic—is theoretically a democratic
state in the shape of a constitutional monarchy,
but practically a bureaucracy in the hands of
the sovereign;

while the democratic party,

therefore, sympathises mostly with Prussia, the
party of independence, headed by royalty, inclines towards Austrian policy.
Wirtemburg—also for the most part Roman
Catholic, and a constitutional state—adopts a
policy more independent in some respects than
the other minor monarchies ; and its king may
be considered as the head of that party, gradually assuming more importance, composed
for the purpose of asserting the dignity of these
greater mediocrities of the Germanic system;
and this course is doubtless partly traceable to
the position of Wirtemburg with regard to her
western neighbour.
The Duchy of Baden has Chambers, and is,
nominally at least, a constitutional state.

The

Duchies of Brunswick identify their interests
G2

84

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

with those of Hanover.

To the Mecklenburgs

Prussia has a reversionary claim. To the same
power the Duke of Saxe Coburg has, with a
sublime confidence, intrusted the entire control of the military forces of his state, in such
a manner as to induce the belief that that
measure implies a prejudgment on his part, at
least, of the military leadership of Germany
before referred to.
The question of a fleet to an inland people,
like most of the members of the Germanic
Confederation, would appear at the first glance
to be of singularly small importance, or even
of remote probability of occurrence; but, as
recently the National Unionists have laid the
foundations of a navy by improvising a flag,
and commenced in earnest a penny subscription for a military marine, consisting, or to
consist, of a hundred gunboats or more, which
are destined to immortalise the maritime renown of the miner and the mountaineer in

GEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

85

Saxony, Wirtemburg, and a number of petty
principalities which Nature has sedulously
secluded from all idea of the sea, it is not improbable that the shallow ports of the Southern
Baltic may shortly witness, under the command of Prussian and pro-Prussian admirals, a
respectable and efficient flotilla, the employment of which supplies, at least, another foregone conclusion as to the naval leadership of
Germany.
The dispute involved in the relations of
Germany through Holstein with Denmark is
peculiar and important, not only in the bearings indicated, but through a much wider
range.

Though asserted to be a simple ques-

tion by ex-amnestied writers of high revolutionary rank, who, like the Magyars, with ostentatious inconsistency, are 'always appealing
to ancient authority, and always endeavouring
to overthrow it, there is, probably, no matter
of political debate which precipitates in its

86

GERMANY AND SCAOTOTAVIA.

train so many and considerable interests connected with the equilibrium of rival states,
the laws of nations, the rights of races, their
fears and aspirations.
This duchy and its half-sister, the most important fraction of the Danish dominions in
Europe, was from 1848 to '51 the scene of a
civil war instigated by the National party in
Germany, and, of course, the Prussian Government—who, with its king and people, unwisely
and criminally consented to render themselves
the organ and exponent of that movement.
But though the German Parliament and the
Prussian people showed neither reluctance in
inciting rebellion, nor hesitation in attacking
the gigantic power of Denmark, yet at this moment Eussia interfered with a forbidding and
somewhat disquieting attitude, warranted, as
she asserts, by the contingent succession of
the Czars to the dukedom of Holstein—an
assertion which is, unfortunately, too true.

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

87

Prussia and Germany are naturally in want of
a deep-sea harbour, which is to be found at
Kiel.

Eussia would not let the shadow of a

chance slip by, which might give her a station
on the German Ocean.

Austria sent troops to

the support of the King of Denmark, and as
earnest of opposition to the ambitious policy of
Prussia.

Sweden is interested in confining

Eussia to the ports of the Baltic; and it was
doubtless in the face of possible complications
of the most serious character that Prussia
finally retreated, not without military discomfiture, from the Holstein contest.

It is urged

by the National Unionists that, were the Duchies,
or even Holstein only, incorporated with Germany, the strongest possible bar would thus be
presented to the hostile advance of Eussia; but
the peculiar position of the Danish possessions
is such that, unless Europe is prepared remorselessly to sacrifice Denmark as an entirety,
she must be permitted to hold as her own

88

CKEEMANY AND SCANDINAVIA,

the whole of the peninsula and islands of
which her states are composed.

Higher con-

siderations, as they may be justly deemed in a
certain sense, those of race, religion, and language, have occasionally, in all ages of the
world, but righteously and beneficially, been
made to yield to the more imperious obligations of natural position.

And if the German

nation, whether in its present merely federal
form, or in that of the hoped-for Germany of
the future, honourably and disinterestedly advocate the principles which they profess, and
which surely imply those of good policy and
humanity, it is certain they could, under even
the untoward circumstances alluded to, as a
friendly Power, afford equal support to that
wilich they boast of being able to furnish were
the disputed provinces in their actual possession.
In the mean time, as the moral influence of
Germany alone must be amply sufficient to
ensure the good government of the Duchies.,

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

89

as far as that can be achieved by the almost
complete autonomy to which the Crown and
Legislature of the rest of the Danish dominions
have consented, the strife which has so long
subsisted might, it is evident, be effectually
closed by the adoption of that judicious proposal understood to have emanated from the
British Cabinet, by which the semi-sovereign
condition of the Duchies in their legislative
and administrative capacities should be secured
on the condition of their renunciation of their
"vote and interest" in the Germanic Confederation.

By this they would be naturally

freed from their present liability to Prussian
influence;

and, one cause of perpetual mis-

understanding

removed, the pretensions of

Prussia to interfere in the domestic concerns
of her neighbour must be supported, if at all,
simply by open force.

Of all the minor but

independent states in her vicinity, none has
more reason to look with distrust upon that

90

GKEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

ambitious member of the sovereign brotherhood
of European States than Denmark.
Some ardent theorists, of more comprehensive views than those which usually form the
subject of speculation to practical men, and
who love to look forward to a period when a
redistribution of territory throughout Europe
should be effected on principles very different
in the main from those which have hitherto
prevailed, have conceived, as a solution of the
pending difficulties between Germany and Denmark, the adoption, as a boundary between the
two populations, of the river Eider, the ancient
limit of the empire of the Eomans and of
Charlemagne, and whereabouts the Teutonic
language ceases to be spoken in unmixed
purity; and the ultimate reunion of Denmark
with the other Scandinavian crowns.

By this

arrangement the command of the Baltic would
justly pertain to the race most interested in its
preservation; and Germany and England, dif-

CKEEMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

91

fering from, but not opposed to, each other or to
Scandinavia, would constitute a powerful league
mutually protecting and protected, yet never
more than sufficiently so, against their common
rivals.

This league may be said to exist

virtually, if it be not recognised; the principles of their social and political organization,
their laws, the analogies of their language, the
affinities of race prove i t ; their traditions and
their aspirations secure it.
Every nation has undoubtedly been guilty,
in the course of its career, of some fatal presumption or inconsistency of conduct, for which
it has dearly paid; and of this truth there can
be no more striking illustration than the
punishment inflicted upon Denmark for its
desertion of the cause of the Sea-Kings, in the
attempt made by Gallic ambition to dispute
the maritime supremacy of this country; the
peculiar interest by which, in a material point
of view, the Powers of the North are advan-

92

OEKMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

tageously and naturally united.

For a Scandi-

navian nation, whose most cherished traditions
are "of the brine, briny," to combine with
Sclave, or Gaul, or Teuton, against that free
supremacy of the seas established and represented by the British flag, was a political
solecism which providentially brought upon
itself an early and enlightening chastisement.
The peculiar lesson implied in those events
alluded to — that, though Britain needs not
their assistance, she looks for that practical
respect from secondary maritime Powers which
ensures at least their amicable eloignment
from contests in which they are unable to
act decisively — will probably not

require

to be repeated in that or any neighbouring quarter.

That France or Germany should

seek their alliance is only natural; and that
they should accept an offer for mutual defence
amongst themselves, and against the common
object of their precautions, is just; for the

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

93

superiority of one or other on land, and the
value of the maritime forces at their command,
in various possible complications, involving the
designs of Russia or parts of Germany, is perfectly manifest: and since the integral territory
of Norway and Sweden is now guaranteed by
both France and England as against Russia, the
most prudent course that Denmark could possibly adopt, for the security of her own entirety, would be the intimate and absolute
alliance with France, however distasteful

it

might prove, for opposite reasons, both to Germany and Russia.
I t is not often, it may be added, that in the
views of superficial statesmen, or even those
generally worthy of a better name, the political
interests of France and England assume an
aspect of patent and paramount identity; but
in relation to one eventuality before adverted
to, such may be said to be the case.

To pre-

vent Russia obtaining a footing in the Sound,

94

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

by which means her navies might overawe the
Northern Germanic countries, and intercept,
threaten, or compete with the commerce of the
world in that quarter, and especially of Great
Britain and France, must ever be a matter of
vital importance to the ruling authorities of
those countries.

In the face, therefore, of the

insignificant resources of Denmark to resist a
hostile attack from Eussia, the treaty to which
a few years ago each of those Powers was a
party, wherein the claims of the

Eussian

dynasty to the Holstein succession were formally
recognised, may be looked upon, if not of questionable validity, as an ill-judged measure ; not
the less objectionable because the adverse consequences apprehended from it may appear to
be remote.
Of the internal constitution of these kingdoms but little need be said.

In Denmark,

independent of the Holstein question—which
the Danes now threaten to settle with their

GEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

95

own hand, and the expungement of which,
whenever it occurs, will be a public blessing for
which the human race ought to unite in voting
some substantial testimonial of gratitude—its
domestic policy, whether in the hands of a Bottwitz or a Madwig, is neither of a very hopeful
nor exciting nature.

It is just constitutional

enough to ensure that mediocrity of progress
which is generally safe, if never entirely satisfactory ; and as to Eoyal authority, if the fact
of every tenth man being a public official appointed by the Crown, be any proof of what is
meant by a strong government, Denmark
might, indeed, afford a brilliant and encouraging example to all nations in search of that
fugacious boon.
That Sweden and Norway—" a little more
than kin, and less than kind "—are too nearly
related to permit of actual union, would appear, from the failure of all efforts in that
direction, to afford a singular instance of

96

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

that wise disposition of nature which precludes the stagnation of society and its consequent degradation in these cold and congestive regions of the world, where, if neighbouring people did not quarrel, they might, having
nothing else to do, possibly die of inaction.
Nature and Fortune have, therefore, it may be
supposed, provided a number of anomalies sufficient to keep alive that amount of discontent
necessary to vital movement in a people, however slow; inasmuch as, in addition to a reactionary legislature, presided over by a revolutionary dynasty, the peculiarity of the Swedish
constitution is that, while nominally liberal,
it is actually conservative to an unjust, and
therefore unsafe, degree.

Eor, although it

embraces a system of representation, yet in
consequence of this being effected by means of
social classes strongly, or rather violently, demarked from each other, a proper fusion is
thereby prohibited of the political elements of

GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.

97

national life; and the true result of constitutional government being wanting, the weight
of legislative power tends towards the greater
numerical force embodied in the stationary
sections of the clergy and the landed prop rietary.

H

RUSSIA,

H2

RUSSIA.
RUSSIA, the representative of the Scythia and
Sarmatia of antiquity, the type of irresponsible
power, the symbol and significator of material
despotism, is naturally distinguished by a policy
selfish and saturnine, and in its application all
but monotonously successful.
It has been a matter of wonder to some that
for so long a time the schism between the
Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches
has been permitted to endure; and until the
commencement of the eighteenth century reasonable hopes were entertained on the part of
pious doctors of the Western communion that
offensive differences might be eliminated, and a

102

EUSSIA.

salutary union between the spiritual rivals
effected.

But after the adoption of the head-

ship of the Eusso-Greek Church into his secular
sovereignty by Peter the Great, those hopes
vanished.

It is now the object and interest of

Eussia to maintain and widen the schism, for
as, in matters of faith, a spiritual sovereignty if
at issue with a secular one would necessarily to a
piously disposed mind appear invested with superior sanction,—the opposing authority, though
never so haughty and potent in its civil aspect,
would beyond doubt proportionately suffer in
point of prestige.

All chance of this state of

things being now nullified by the union of the
spiritual and secular authority in the Imperial
Crown, the infallibility of a Pope is at once
protected and practically enforced by the omnipotence of the Emperor.
As solemnity adds dignity to every act of
State, and dignity is an essential attribute of
power, it has been the invariable custom of

RUSSIA.

103

Bussia—in all her diplomatic dealings with the
states of the Continent, as well as by her own
official and, as occasion serves, non-recognized
interference with European populations, those
especially of Sclavonic or Roumaic race—to
sanctify all political projects, whatever their
motive or purport, by an appeal to the superior
independence of the Greek Catholic Church ; in
which, apart from the authority of the Emperor,
no power exists capable of modifying to the
extent of a hair's breadth the bases of faith as
already and of old established; and at the same
time of putting forward the Imperial Government as the invincible champion of the freedom
and purity of orthodox Christianity.
That in these pretensions is a certain amount
of sincerity—for in proportion as men are ignorant they are undoubtedly sincere—and in their
maintenance a certain degree of good, must be
conceded ; the latter, because it may be taken

104

RUSSIA.

as an axiom that the predominance of priestly
power is more prejudicial to human progress,
whether considered socially or intellectually,
than any political despotism the world has
known; and that there are limits in subserviency
beyond which the most arbitrary governments
do not wish to trespass; and the former, because
they have been systematically asserted under
the test of powerful hostility and severe humiliation.
But as regards those countries among whose
populations the championship of a particular
form of Christianity would constitute no claim
to admiration or veneration, but rather the
reverse, Eussia very cautiously abstains from
obtruding upon Turk, Tahtar, or Chinese, the
fanatical aspect of her adamantine character;
and, quite content with subduing, never dreams
of converting enemies, who by adoption of
Western creeds and habits of thought, might

RUSSIA.

105

speedily become inoculated with notions of
Western liberty, and finally perhaps prove more
dangerous as subjects than as foes.
And this is a consistent and intelligible
policy; dictated first by a sense of the necessity
of self-preservation, and ultimately adapted by
a not unnatural expansion of principles to the
furtherance of those schemes of aggression,
which, resulting in the grandeur and predominance of a particular people, certainly but indirectly contribute to national good, the enhancement of its positive value and repute
among the nations of the world.
The primary policy of Kussia has therefore a
religious front; and this it is which gives generally so much of dignity and weight to her influence in Europe; and partly because her
religion is not of a missionary, argumentative, or
combative character, in which there is frequently
much of implied disadvantage, but avoiding
controversy is simply affirmative, in the face of

106

RUSSIA.

all varieties of the Christian faith, of its own
absolute truth and pre-eminent orthodoxy.
And although it is at all times difficult to
disentangle the political from those religious
considerations by which her public conduct
appears to be overtly or ostensibly at least determined, this becomes in the Eastern or Turkish
question, both from the immense importance of
the matter and the mystery in which it is involved, an almost utter impossibility.

Constan-

tinople itself, the queenly city which appears
to dominate two continents, is not more attractive to the Imperial government from its
commanding position, abundant resources, and
luxurious environs, than to the humblest peasant
of the salt and sterile steppe, from its being the
sacred birthplace of the faith which he professes.

Whatever, therefore, the motives by

which the Government of the State may be
actuated in its relations to Turkey directly, or
its oblique relations with other Powers in refer-

RUSSIA.

107

ence to the Sultan's dominions, the religious
element of Kussian policy constitutes a basis
which the most illiterate or obtuse intellect
may appreciate; and illustrates that perfect
identity of State and people, awful almost in its
extent and simplicity, which subsists and operates habitually within the bounds—if such a
term be applicable—of that mighty empire. In
that empire the unit is as the whole; there is
neither majority nor minority; all movement
is uniformal; religion, race, and government,
form as it were with their intersecting influences
one circular system of centralized authority.
Let the ultimate fate of Turkey be what it
may, the policy of Eussia in respect to the East
must be held to have culminated in those measures which led to the Crimean war; but as it
culminated it exploded.

Upon the considera-

tions connected with this fatally grand event,
which has undoubtedly shaken and somewhat
loosened in certain directions the system of

108

RUSSIA.

Europe, it would be inexpedient on the present
occasion to dilate.

It began as all remember

with an ecclesiastical wrangle about the possession of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre.

When

these melancholy words were first whispered
round among statesmen and diplomatists, there
were but few even of those who assisted or
presided in the chancelleries of their respective
states to whom that ominous expression suggested that the key to another chamber of
death which was about to number its inmates
by thousands of thousands, situated beside the
then secluded city of an inland sea, was soon to
be unlocked by that ensanguined key, the sword,
which has already opened to mankind the
entrance of so many miseries.

What began

with a squabble between a handful of Greek
and Latin monks, speedily developed itself as a
contest between the three chief empires of the
world.

The ultimate object of the Eussian

Autocrat was no secret; and that

object

RUSSIA.

109

France and Great Britain were naturally and
by every motive of sound policy bound to
defeat.
So long as Russia remains the great homogeneous power she is, unequalled in quantity,
unbroken in continuity, with an overpowering
predominance in two continents, and considerable territorial extension in a third,—held together as this dominion is, not by those slack
and easily severable ties by which the colonial
possessions of this country are attached to the
British Crown, but in a strict and stern union,
—it is only right and reasonable that the other
leading Powers of Europe should do their
utmost to preclude if possible all further aggrandisement on her part in any quarter: much
more, therefore, in her obtaining possession of
a city which is itself the crown of the world,
and which in her hands would give her the
command of the Mediterranean, and in fact
universal supremacy.

no

EUSSIA.

If one can only imagine her designs in Poland,
Hungary, Servia, Bosnia, and elsewhere, eventually realised, and herself firmly seated in
the midst of faithful populations, with Constantinople for her southern and Petersburg her
northern capital—her fleets sweeping the Baltic
and the Mediterranean and the Northern Seas;
and her armies, by their number alone less
formidable than by their servile devotion, along
with that of the multitudinous people from whom
they spring, to the irresponsible will of one
man, over-lording the Sclavonic continent,'—it
needs but little argument to justify in the minds
of Western statesmen, of Keltic or Teutonic
stock, any political combinations which may
avail against the possibility of such calamities.
"Without indulging, as certain writers do, in
the habit of holding up Russia on all occasions
and in all junctures as a gigantic hobgoblin to
the rest of Europe, it is not unwise to contemplate contingencies; and it can do us no harm

RUSSIA,

111

to bear in mind that a race which looks upon
its chief as a god, and whose only social
instincts, so far as manageable in masses, are
war and religion, is a dangerous race to those
addicted to the practice of the arts of peace,
the study of philosophy and science, free speculation and inquiry, and belief in the beneficial
efficacy of public opinion resulting from the
unrestricted and amicable communion of a vast
variety of classes ; and that while the unlimited
progress of other European races is far from
being fraught with danger to the liberties or
the enlightened civilisation of other nations,
that of Sclavonism as at present constituted is
tantamount to the cultivation of an unitarian
despotism hostile to human happiness.

This

despotism nevertheless the Sclavonic family are
found fondly to favour, because although it
somewhat reduces them as a people in point of
political privileges, which they little regard, it
exalts them as a race.

112

BUSSIA.

But although Eussian policy, as already
stated, attained in the Mentschikoff negotiations its point of greatest elongation, and failed,
yet, without dwelling any longer upon that
event, it must be allowed that the same course,
though in a less haughty attitude, is still pursued ; and appears calculated, unless met with
perpetual

opposition

equally

vigilant

and

strenuous, to be ultimately attended with permanent, as it is even now with temporary, success.

In this success is the evidence of a strik-

ing peculiarity of Eussian policy in relation
especially to all the semi-civilised communities
of the East.

Other nations exert an influence

undoubtedly more or less natural or justifiable,
as the case maybe, or as circumstances may
require; but Eussian influence can only be
described as pressure—on all sides incessantly
accumulating pressure.
If to these considerations, which justly arise
in the mind from contemplating the situation

113

RUSSIA.

and social condition, the commercial interests
and prospects, the capabilities and expectations
natural and political, of these rich, important,
and yet imperfectly developed regions, such
as the Principalities, Bosnia, Servia, Roumelia, and others which nominally pertain
to Turkey, partially acknowledge her suzerainty or rejoice in the assertion of an independence they are incapable of exercising, but
the populations of which, from other motives,
to which allusion has already been made, entertain more regard and openly affect more
submission towards Eussia herself—we add the
spell of her immense power, her active protectorate of the common faith, her organized
and recognized pecuniary retainership among
the subjects of other states, we may not be
surprised at the effect which the control of
this powerful machinery, moral and physical
is calculated and intended to produce,—namely,
the disintegration of the Turkish Empire. We
i

114

RUSSIA.

shall be compelled only to admit that nothing
but the united efforts of the other great Powers,
Great Britain and France combined, with some
renewed vigour and vitality in its own internal
system, can suffice to sustain it for even a
moderate period.

Should this resisting power

be diminished or attenuated in any sensible
degree by a misunderstanding between France
and Great Britain, its downfall is certain.

The

solution of the Eastern question, indeed, simply
signifies the dissolution of the Turkish Empire,
primarily; and, secondly, the substitution of
another " Power " in its place.

If left to itself

there is every reason to believe Turkey would
soon die a natural death; and the doubt humanely arises in the mind of a spectator whether
a natural death be not preferable to an unnatural life.

But supposing this to be so in

ordinary cases, in this one many most potent and
absorbing considerations, because inwoven with
the strongest passions of humanity, the hopes

115

KUSSIA.

and fears of nations, induce, strangely enough,
those most interested in the decease of the
sufferer to struggle to prolong his life.
There is no other European nation at present constituted, and of first rank, which would
or could dream of occupying as its capital the
city of the Sultan.

But Eussia has set her

heart upon it. On the other hand, except under
the pressure of defeat which it seems impossible seriously to contemplate, to afford her
that gratification would be little short of absolute insanity on the part of the nations of
the West.

It would be the abdication of a

superior power in behalf of an inferior—inferior
in all respects except that massive yet pointed
unity of organisation, civil and military, proper
to their race, and which has enabled them to
act with such tremendous force hitherto in the
affairs of the world.
Eussia, it is said by some, on the contrary,
is an advancing, improving Power.

She only
i2

116

RUSSIA.

lacks a more commanding sea-board, a more
genial clime, a more direct intercourse with the
civilising tendencies of the South—the sunny
cestus of the globe, to secure the love and admiration of the human race, and to take her
proper place at the head of universal progress,
as the leader of religious order in the State,
and the patroness of conservative piety in the
Church; and that the substitution of her dominion, or indeed of any other Christian Power,
for the effete and barbarous sway of the Seraglio,
(for that should be the diplomatic title of the
Turkish Government rather than the Porte)
with its thousands of unhappy victims, masculine and female, its unconscionable corruption
and political profligacy, and its legalised system
of extortion towards its own subjects, the majority of whom are of course Cliristians—would
be a blessing to the world.

And much of

this, so far as the assertion of the more general proposition extends, is indubitable;

but

RUSSIA.

117

that Eussia is that Power which the world
wishes to see, or would be benefited by seeing,
substituted for Turkey, is, indeed, more than
doubtful.

There are peculiarities observable in

her character and constitution which forbid the
voluntary entertainment by others for a single
moment of such a project.

Upon this Great

Britain, France, and Austria are in sworn trine,
or in absolute conjunction.
Before dismissing this question, it is of course
to be conceded that the perpetuation of the
Ottoman power, if not by its own inherent
vigour, at least by the antagonistic inclinations
of others, and the opposing forces brought to
bear at different angles by the various converging interests of surrounding nations, may yet
by bare possibility be secured in its own despite ; a*nd in this respect, and this only, its
maintenance may be considered as contributing,
under the universal impartiality of Divine decrees, to a more humane and liberal govern-

118

EUSSIA.

ment of mankind than might take place, were
such a position not fortunately occupied by an
Eastern people, of Mohammedan profession
and a fierce and fanatical disposition;

their

presence on the verge of a continent professing a religion practically patronising persecution and aggression on all other forms of
faith, constituting a pledge for good behaviour,
equally valid, it is obvious, in opposite directions, and operative even to the very extremities of the globee
To affirm, as the partizans of Eussia and
some writers among ourselves have done, that
the Turks have no right to be in Europe, because they are Mohammedans, is virtually to
assert one of two things: either that Christians
only have a right to live where they please, and
enjoy the fruits of their conquests; or to admit
that we have no right in Asia or elsewhere
than in our own immediate quarter of the
world.

To fall back upon the superiority of

RUSSIA.

119

religion, race, enlightenment, art, science, or
what not, is as unsatisfactory a process in disputing with Turks as kicking against thorns;
for these are the very points in debate, and
involve the possible expansion of the principle and its application among ourselves to a
fatal and even internecine degree.
Still it is undoubtedly to be wished for the
sake of the Christian population of those fine
and fertile provinces constituting European
Turkey, and who manifestly cannot sympathize
intimately with the government, both severe
and careless9 under which they find themselves,
that some solution of their political difficulties
satisfactory to themselves, to Europe, and to
that formidable Power whose protection is so
oppressive, should yet be attained.

If, there-

fore, at any time it should happen (and in certain circumstances it may be permissible to
suppose a case—say, at the death of a Sultan)
that the confusion of affairs social, political, and

120

RUSSIA.

perhaps financial, were such as to induce, in
the face of divided councils or rival claimants
to the succession, the Christian population of
the metropolis and the surrounding districts,
gradually perhaps embracing the whole of
European Turkey, to rise in self-vindication of
their natural independence, and, without bloodshed or unjustifiable outrage, render themselves
lords of the crisis; and suppose this state of
things effected by the joint efforts, where practicable, of both denominations of Christians; and
measures taken judiciously and not improbably
in concert with the ministers of Foreign Powers,
for the permanent establishment, with popular
consent, of a monarchical government, regularly
organized, not too theoretical in its construction,
nor impracticably liberal in the popular element
of its constitution, guaranteed, it may be, ultimately by the collective protectorate as at present existing,—such an event, there is no doubt,
would form the best and the only natural solu-

KUSSIA.

tion of the Eastern question.

121
It would remove

from Christendom the irritating anomaly of
Moslem domination and the peril of a mighty
and desolating contest always impending; it
would introduce a sense of tranquillity, security,
and dignity among the inhabitants, which has
never been experienced by them during nearly
half a millennium.

In a material point of

view it would lead to an immense expansion
of the natural resources of that district, and
which it principally requires now to render it
one of the most prosperous in the world ; while
as a State, from its variety of genealogical subdivisions, it would operate as a check to Russia
politically; and as a rival, ecclesiastically, with
doubtless the best effect upon the religious
sympathies of the entire Greek Catholic persuasion, which is now left universally exposed
to the designs of Russia throughout the world,
simply from the fact that she forms the only
Power professing the same faith which occupies

122

RUSSIA.

a dominant position among the nations of the
earth.
Whether

such a movement as that just

sketched by way of hypothesis were likely to
extend itself to the neighbouring kingdom of
Greece, and with what effect, it will of course
be impossible to speak with certainty; but
there is reason to suspect, from the late Czar's
contemptuous expressions of opposition to any
idea of the aggrandisement of that state, that
such a result would be neither improbable nor
unwelcome to the most considerable portion of
the intelligent and wealthy classes of Eoumelia,
Macedonia, Southern Thrace, and other important regions.

To all these populations the

disadvantages of a state so small and comparatively unproductive as Greece are already
sufficiently obvious; while, on the other hand,
as the basis of an organisation actually established, a settled government, a constitutional
sovereignty, an army, a navy, an independent

EUSSIA.

123

commercial class, enjoying recognition in all
the richest and most important countries of
Europe, and practising negotiations with success
in all departments of trade, present the prospect
of too many and considerable benefits derivable
from such an amalgamation to be altogether
discarded as impracticable or impolitic by disinterested well-wishers of a rising people, in
deference to the selfish prejudices of a haughty
and overreaching competitor.
Such being the perils, attractions, and capabilities of the Oriental question in the abstract,
to Russia, many of which remain in full force,
it may not be uninstructive, nor perhaps unadvisable, if we are to estimate rightly the
grandeur of the arc of Eussian policy, to retrace, briefly and rapidly as can be, the actual
development of these conditions, in the position,
and bearings upon each other, of the European
Powers generally interested in this greatest of
political problems.

124

EUSSIA.

The original complications of France, Russia*
and the Porte, as regards the matter of the
shrines, the lighting of lamps, and the locking
of doors, which ostensibly gave occasion to the
subsequent unreasonable demands of the Eussian Emperor, having been disposed of by
voluntary retractation on the part of the French
Government, the reproach of originating the
late calamitous war is justly laid at the door of
the Eussian people, of whose territorial cupidity
and fanatical ambition Nicholas was, botli by
position and sympathy, the exponent and the
head. His foregone conclusions upon this point
are clearly proved by his dramatic conversations with Sir H. Seymour, and sufficiently
known by what may be signified as his " deepsea soundings " at a prior period.

Distrusting

any possible degree of integrity in the Turkish
Government, and discouraging, from motives
which it is needless to characterise, the slightest
tendency to improvement, either of an ad-

RUSSIA.

125

ministrative or popular character, in the affairs
of the State, and less accurately than ambitiously informed, it is to be feared, by his
agents, of its political and commercial position,
both advancing, the Emperor—who evidently
considered it entirely from an enthusiastic
point of view—believed that the last hour of
" t h e sick man" had chimed; and he was
anxious to take advantage of the inevitable
dissolution, as he conceived, of that State, before any revolutionary projects could be brought
to weigh, at such a juncture, upon the necessarily agitated condition of Europe, and to
forestall the interference of any other Power at
that probable crisis.
But, as the world cannot be turned upside
down in a corner, and as the destruction of a
very considerable state must be attended with
circumstances of some publicity, and as every
sacrifice requires salt, his Imperial Majesty
found it necessary to prepare in a certain de-

126

BUSSIA.

gree the minds of other governments for the
great events which he intended to produce,
but which he wished to be considered selfevolving.
Proposals similar to those he had made personally at our own Court in 1844, he had
caused to be made or insinuated, between that
period and 1852, to the French Cabinet; but
not finding them responded to in the manner
he had anticipated, the Emperor appears to
have thought less and less of the once wishedfor concurrence of France, from that incapable and degraded state, the natural effect of
unrestrained democracy, into which it was supposed to have been precipitated by the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, and the unsupported and despicable machinations of the
preceding system of government.

Believing,

moreover, from the condition of affairs in Austria, and the civil and pecuniary embarrassments of that state, which, by owing its national

RUSSIA.

127

preservation to his friendly suppression of
the Hungarian rebellion, had become, by the
consequent gratitude of its people—the ruling
classes, at least—and the youth and inexperience of its ruler, almost a dependency of
Eussia, or so far that he might with tolerable
certainty calculate upon its non-interference
with any schemes of his own; and that, in
fact, as His Imperial Majesty failed not to remark, " W h a t would suit him, would suit
Austria;" while Prussia, as if in anticipation of
the minute and ignominious part to be taken
by her throughout, he never once named, her
interests as a then satellite of Eussia seeming
altogether out of the lists,—it appeared clear to
the mind of the Emperor that, by the connivance and with the complicity of England,
to whom " the flesh-pots of Egypt" and Canclia
might serve as allurements, opposition from
any other quarter would be perfectly nugatory.

Of Greece, although so inconsiderable a

128

BUSSIA.

state as regards area, and generally an " accessory after the fact" to his own policy, whatever
it might be, Nicholas seems to have entertained some jealousy—a jealousy not occasioned by any manifestations on the part of
the Greek Cabinet—to him subservient enough,
German enough, and only quasi-national in
spirit itself—but by views which might possibly be advanced on behalf of the Queen of
the South, in case of the disruption of the
Ottoman Seignory, by the Western and more
liberal Powers of the Continent, who had formerly stood sponsors for the nascent nation of
the iEgean—concerning which his suspicions
might colourably arise from the relative traditions possessed in common by Greece and Russia and Byzantium with reference to the orthodox faith and the political domination of the
East.

Any event of this description, as was

before intimated, tending to a counterbalance
of Eussian influence and protection in the

EUSSIÄ.

129

affairs of the Greek Catholic faith, he naturally
deprecated and most earnestly desired to avoid.
Emphatically, therefore, did the Emperor denounce, in any contingency whatever connected
with the expected break-up of the Osmanli
dominions, permission of the slightest political
advantage or territorial aggrandisement to
Greece.
The juncture seemed favourable;

and, if

his information had been correct, the Emperor's reasoning, from the point of view universally adopted by his people, was substantially justifiable; for there can be no question
that in such an eventuality as that contemplated, the positive interests of Kussia subtend a palpably greater area than the negative and always partially divergent interests
of Great Britain and France.

But these, if

neither equal separately to the first, nor perfectly equivalent between each other, on all
grounds, are still sufficient to prevent the unK

130

EUSSIA.

natural preponderance too likely to accrue
from the realisation of such a project as that
alluded to; and this the Emperor discovered
too late—having omitted to compute the elements of one other, and one only, possible
combination by which that defeat could be
effected.
An union of sentiment between the cabinets
of a newly-elected republican autocrat and
the rigidly constitutional sovereign of Great
Britain appeared, without doubt, to the Imperial cogitations the most preposterous of suppositions ; particularly while individuals of the
latter Government were publicly denouncing
the conduct and character of the new French
potentate, the somewhat hearty acceptance of
whose advent to power by another distinguished
member had occasioned a serious internal division in the Ministry; and while, throughout
the land, the British Press, with unrivalled
generosity and foresight, were alternating be-

131

RUSSIA.

tween the not very consistent prophecies of
French invasion and French downfall—between
joy over the statistics of a decreasing population, and dread of an increasing power.
Eelying, therefore, on the sincerity of this
display of cordial misunderstanding, and the
hereditary hostility of the two nations, Nicholas
ordered demands to be made of Turkey in
relation to the protectorate of the Greek Christians which were palpably inconsistent with
the Sultan's rights of sovereignty in his own
dominions.

To the audacious matter of these

demands, Prince Mensehikoff, the Imperial Envoy, added that insolence to the Porte and that
general arrogance of manner which fortunately
aroused, to an unwonted degree, the indignant
attention of all the resident diplomats of Constantinople : who hesitated not to express both
publicly and privately their marked disapproval
of such uncourteous demeanour to a friendly
Power; and which has stamped the delivery of
K

2

132

BÜSSIA.

this message with a peculiar and ineffaceable
infamy.
These demands, by the judicious and spirited
advice of the representatives of France and
England at the court of the Sultan, were resisted.

Modifications proposed on the part of

the latter were refused.

An ultimatum, addi-

tionally offensive on the side of Russia, was
rejected ; and the Prince retired.
Notwithstanding the somewhat ominous conjuncture in opinion and advice of the representatives of these two courts at Constantinople,
Nicholas, on the departure of his Envoy Extraordinary, finding that his projects had been
reciprocally communicated to each other by
the Western Powers, and unitedly condemned,
abandoned all further disguise of his intentions,
and ordered the occupation of the Danubian
Principalities.

The Pruth was accordingly

passed, and Jassy and other places occupied by
Russian troops, by command of the Emperor,

RUSSIA.

133

as a material guarantee in the event of the
Porte finally refusing submission to his terms.
It was at this crisis that the design of Turkey
as a dissolving view settled, unfortunately, into
a steady transparency, about which there could
be no misconception.

But as the detail of

events is not here to be looked for, and as from
this point the flowers of diplomacy were rapidly
transfigured into fruits of war—of which most
now living have enjoyed at least a mouthful, in
the shape of income-tax and other necessaries
of life—it will be sufficient to add that it was
the unlooked-for and almost incredible union
of the governments, legislatures, peoples, and
armies, for the time being, of France and England in a policy at once just, generous, and
sagacious, that has given new life and increased
certainty to the principle of national independence ; and the vindication of the fact that,
in the dealings of governments, as of man with
man, right is to be considered before race or

r34
religion.

RUSSIA.

How far beyond the radius of this

truth—and men often pay dearest for the simplest lessons—the world at large or the more
immediate belligerents profited by the war,
will probably never be precisely communicated
to each other.

One thing is obvious, that the

introduction of Sardinia into the contest, like
the addition of a fraction to the sum of millions,
sensibly diminished at the time—though, not
being thought of now, it has ceased to impair—
the general impressiveness of the event; for
that England and France united should require
the assistance of the arms of a petty state
which it was necessary to subsidise, and not
more immediately concerned in the conflict
than Switzerland or Belgium, it were unreasonable to suppose.

The three vast and ultimate

elements of European society, neither of which
can be vanquished or even seriously invalidated except by union of the two others, were
in deadly shock; and such an interference was

RUSSIA.

as uncalled-for as ineffectual.

135
Another 'remark

to be made by way of conclusion is, that,
whether for the better or the worse, the circumstances of her defeat have led naturally to a
somewhat sullen isolation of Russia from the
other governments of Europe, and a professed
indifference towards them, the effect of which
on the great Conservative party of the Continent, whose ostensible leadership was vested
in the Imperial Czar, may be traced, to the
joy of some and the discontent of others, in
that position of manifest disparagement which
the legitimist and dynastic interests of various
nations now occupy.

Aggression in the East

and conservatism in the West formed the plot
and underplot of the drama in which Eussia
was before that period engaged; but another
stage and another character may lie before
her.
In relation to Poland enough has been already
said to render it unnecessary to spend much

136

BTJSSIA.

time in moralising over the changes of sublunary affairs.

Poland was a Power in Europe

when the. Dukes of Muscovy exercised about as
much influence on the events of the world as
do at present the Princes of Monaco; and when
the head of the Teutonic knights, predecessors
of his Prussian Majesty, received with humble
thankfulness the gift of part only of the province
from which the present royal title is derived.
The Poles were always a turbulent and unsteady people, and—too much addicted, from
the earliest periods of their history even to the
present time, to "sublime and sanguinary
manifestations," to use the lofty language of
their most recent protest—themselves provoked
finally the fate to which they succumbed; and
remain a lasting monument to the civilised
world of the consequences of a people, surrounded by governments possessing a regularly
organised delegation of social authority, claiming for themselves the privileges of a barbarous

EUSSIA.

137

liberty wholly incompatible with the interests
of advanced society.
The Poles, for the most part Eoman Catholics, neglecting all practicable improvements, and still devoted to the pursuit of
their one grand impossibility, may be distinguished as of all the nations of Europe
the most highly uneducated.

In the mean

time, the toleration even of their religion as
Eoman Catholic is another of those points
which the subtilty and craft of the Eussian
Government has established as a means of
control; for so long as the Poles retain any
recollection of their independency, and so long
as the necessity of securing possession of the
land—a yard westward being well worth a mile
eastward—is imperative in the mind of the
governing race and dynasty, so long the policy
of precluding the possibility of complete sympathy among the people, and of keeping open,
in fact, a source of disaccord, which can always

138

RUSSIA.

be intensified into animosity as occasion may
serve between any two classes, or races united
in nothing but subjection to the same Imperial
Crown, and not unwilling to be the instruments
of each other's degradation, is too obvious to
require further proof, or those parallels even
which might be adduced from other governments more popularly responsible.
Neither are the Poles entirely exempt from
liability to reproach in their dealings with
others; their treatment of the Cossacks for
two hundred years has rendered those tribes
their hereditary foes; and the presence of these
at Warsaw, Lublin, Mödlin, and other carefully
watched places in that kingdom, is in unison
with the general tenor of history and all state
policy in such matters; based as it is upon a
principle which Great Britain also has acknowledged, and upon which she still acts.
Since the accession of the present Emperor,
the intentions of the Eussian Government to-

BUSSIA.

139

wards Poland, as evinced by acts, have been
both liberal and amicable; so much so that
further

concessions are impossible, without

danger at least of exciting the jealousy of other
portions of the empire.

For not only Poland

but Finland and Lithuania have recollections
of constitutions, the separate existence and
rival action of which would doubtless be inimical to that imperial unity of administration
which it has been the perpetual aim of Eussia
to establish throughout her dominions.
The Sclavonian mind, i t may be assumed, as
a general rule, is rather imitative and appreciative than logical or speculative; and while
devoted to unity of sentiment and demonstrations in mass, seems not to be endowed with
that energy which in Kelt and Teuton in their
combinations is ever prompting the individual
to eminence in arts, or civil life, or even to
martyrdom in these pursuits, nor for the attainment and transmission of popular liberties.

140

RUSSIA.

Great exertions are lavished with theatrical
pomp on puerile demonstrations, which might
be reserved for more effective purposes.

A

peculiar costume, a fanciful arrangement of
colours, a torrent of sentiment, strikes an observer from its uniformity as fictitious, or mechanical ; the object being multiplied, the effect of the impression is proportionately diminished.

A family in mourning excites our sym-

pathies ; but a nation in mourning has the
effect which a ceremony or spectacle intended
to be impressive might be expected to have.
This is not the way in which liberty has been
won by those who loved it best, and best knew
how to obtain that highest of earthly blessings.
But although the Poles have at all times made
but ill use of their opportunities, vainly enacting
impossibilities, and giving authority to suicidal
absurdities,—demanding absolute unanimity in
a deliberative multitude, and dignifying with a
kingly veto every individual member of an ill-

BUSSIA.

141

assorted, irresponsible, and eminently corrupt
assembly, — yet it cannot be concealed that
Poland has a certain claim to sympathy which
Europe recognizes; and that while the troubles
of Eussia in Poland are likely enough to synchronize with the abolition of serfage, the position of that province adjoining now constitutionally-governed countries, independently of its
history, necessitates probably at no very distant
period—whatever internal complications in other
quarters of the Russian empire may be the
result—political concessions of a substantial and
satisfactory nature. These concessions, if sought
with prudence and pacific perseverance, may
unquestionably be looked for with confidence;
but the misfortune is that a party, as headstrong as it is weak-brained, is counselling
measures of a totally different tendency, and
which involves the assertion of national independence^—a ghost which refuses to be laid, but
still only a ghost.

142

RUSSIA.

I n the mean time it is owing to the reciprocal
relations of Hungary and Poland to Eussia and
Austria, which are to each other in the position of
contradictories and sub-contraries, their mutual
interests directly amicable and obliquely hostile, that the gloomy discord of the two empires
has not before now broken out into more fatally
overt manifestations.
Siberia, in respect to that nucleus of empire
which has been located in various times at
Novgorod, Moscow, and Petersburg, and which
appears to have at present a strong tendency to
gravitate towards the shores of the Bosphorus,
being almost entirely unproductive to its Imperial owner of moral or political influence,
exhibits but the splendid powerlessness of a
cometary appendage.

The voice of its people

is never heard ; Europe only knows of it as a
land of snows, and fogs, and furs, of mines and
pines. To a Eussian criminal, however, whether
real or supposed, the name Siberia signifies that

RUSSIA.

143

comparative degree of punishment to which
death ranks only as positive; supplying, indeed,
an equivalent to purgatory among the professors of a creed deficient in that potential
article of belief, so reasonable, so consolatory,
and withal so remunerative.
Yet it must be admitted that in the relations
of Russia with China, more intimate and
favoured than those of any other people, an
indirect aspect of rivalry, commercial and
political, brings intermittently this enormous
province within the scope of British observation ; while its territorial position with regard
to Persia, Tartary, and the many minor independencies of Central Asia, restless and refluent
as the sands of their deserts, excites perpetually
an instinctive caution in the minds of the
Trade-kings of the East, the Lords of India,
who forget not that it was to Russian intrigues
We owe the Affghan war; and that as the
progress of Russia is inevitably towards more

144

RUSSIA.

fertile districts and positions more potential
than those she at present occupies, her object
is undoubtedly to obtain a commanding point
upon the Eastern Ocean both for naval and
commercial purposes. Whoever else may sleep,
Eussia is watchful over expiring empires; and
is always ready to administer such death-bed
consolations as the successor to power has
naturally on his tongue.

Her advance in this

direction has been uniformly stealthy but
steady.

But it is possible that too much

success may some time shake the solidity of
her empire.

And at all events, in case of

" anything happening " to the Chinese empire,
it may become a question which only an
Imperial Legislature can solve, whether our
own petty possessions at Hong-Kong would
be found sufficient as a fulcrum for the support
of British interests in that important region.
But although Eussia has doubtless her mission, external and internal, to fulfil, among the

145

RUSSIA.

national families of the world ; and although
she has, partly during the great Bevolutionary
war, giyen evidence of what that mission is, as
well as by her conduct and attitude since the
Congress of Vienna, both with regard to the»
events of the last forty-five years and the
observance of treaties—a conduct and attitude
eminently distinguished by a consistency and
dignity appropriate to the great conservative
power of the Continent; yet, since the Crimean
war, which, if it effected nothing else, had the
glory of having broken up for ever the offensive
confederacy of the double-headed eagles, it
cannot fail to have been observed that Eussia,
whether from motives of choice or necessity,
has shown but a very inactive and reluctant
interest in the affairs of Western Europe. And
for her own sake, and in face of her own
internal difficulties, this is probably the wisest
and safest course she could pursue.

The

time is gone by, it may be hoped, when
L

146

RUSSIA.

Kussia appeared, and with some reason, in
the imagination of many, to occupy towards the
rest of Europe a position analogous to that of
Macedon towards the states of Greece in the
days of Demosthenes,—and the suggestion is
uneasy enough; but to such the reflection must
be consoling, that just as her last foes, the
brave mountaineers of Caucasus, have been
vanquished, and the first symptoms of territorial repletion manifested by this constrictor
of nations, her attention should now be, as it
probably for a long time will be, mainly, if
not exclusively, centred in herself.
By the measures recently adopted by the
Imperial Government in relation to the serfs,
the general population being elevated, the
relative position of immense classes and strata
of society is, of course, dislocated—to be found
perhaps, at some future time, ranged against
each other in anticlinal attitude.

In any case

the initial struggles of a nation towards freedom

147

BUSSIA.

are always attended with painful or disastrous
circumstances; and since her troubles appear
seriously to have commenced, and it is difficult
and even distressing to contemplate the possibility of an irresponsible despotism exercised
over fifty or sixty millions of free men, the
present system of government will have infallibly to give way; in which event the
achievement of national benefit depends naturally on the character the contest may assume.
Democracy is the most—perhaps it might be
said the only—artificial form of government,
and if man were entirely a pure intelligence
it might even be characterized as the most
reasonable.

But having a blended constitution

in which instincts and passions frequently
opposed to the dictates and deductions of
reason play the most important part, mankind
in general have found it safer and on the whole
more conducive to their happiness to be content
with a less pretentious position than that which
L2

148

RUSSIA.

by the strict division of human rights they
would be justified in assuming.

If men were

not secretly conscious of this fact, what despotic
force could withstand the merely expressed
wish of a united people; a power which like
the mesmerist has only to say " I will, so and
so/' and dynasties and despotisms vanish ? But
the truth is that men, instinctively knowing
themselves better than political theorists can
teach them, have always sought safety in a
power able to repress and control themselves,
giving sufficient effect to the demand of a
general sense of justice that it should act on
all sides with uniform pressure.

This security

different nations have found according to the
innate characteristics of race, religion, culture,
and other disposing circumstances, in various
forms of government.

The pure and simple

races find it in despotism; which is not tyranny,
but in certain conditions of society an express
result of the popular will.

The mixed races,

RUSSIA,

149

more advanced in civilization and general
social condition, look for this security rather
under classified institutions and complex political systems, endowed with self-reparative and
expansive energies.
Eussia, it need scarcely be said, will be long
before she arrives at such a condition; but, unhappily, it sometimes happens that in periods
of political agitation, visionaries and enthusiasts
will precipitate conclusions for which the more
cautious section of society^ being wholly unprepared, are fain to relapse into extremes
which cause the fruitless ruin of an originally
well-intended enterprise.

Eevolutiönary ten-

dencies, it may be taken for granted in Eussia,
may be and would be defeated; endeavours for
a share in the government, as a right, by
certain sections of the nobility and people
are far more easy to be conceived, and would
be far more difficult to subdue.
But if the Emperor be not prepared to concede

150

RUSSIA.

something in this way, he had better not have
released the serfs from servitude; for their discontent will probably become greater than
before, and if greater, more embarrassing; as
they will have naturally become possessed of
an order of ideas and opinions which find no
legitimate

means of development and ex-

pression.
Should this ever prove the tendency of things
in Russia, and representative institutions at any
time be established, there would require to be
provided, for the proper working of the system,
different centres and limitations of localities;
and this, it is possible, may supply the means
by which the divulsion of the empire may be
effected, undesignedly perhaps, but doubtless
beneficially.

For it seems unreasonable to

suppose that this mighty aggregate of nations
and territories should always, or even for long,
enjoy that perilous pre-eminence which would
necessarily pertain to it as an integral power;

RUSSIA.

151

and which as one and indivisible, though of an
inferior character morally and politically, it at
present occupies.
Lastly, this may be noted, that however
available it may have been in times past for
aggressive purposes, the social constitution of
Russia, though superficially regular, and somewhat elaborately organized, is, in view especially
of the new order of things inaugurated by the
recent reforms, essentially defective.

The no-

bility, though hereditary, have no real power as
a class in the government of the State, and no
substantial privileges of a public character but
those attached to them as individual officeholders, in a manner and for a period entirely
at the discretion of the crown.

Neither have

the citizen class any political rights or immunities, except also as individuals invested with
official authority.

All power devolves down-

wards upon the people ; nothing emanates from
them.

The only aspect in which Eussian

152

RUSSIA.

society is capable of being viewed with any
degree of satisfaction, is in its intimate connexion with the land, in which all classes, even
those of the lowest degree of serfdom, are inalienably interested.

Russia, therefore, which

has already announced herself as one of the
powers of the future, and is evidently looking
forward to a vast extension of her influence at
no distant date in the affairs of the world,
presents the somewhat singular spectacle of
an autocracy based upon practical socialism.
Hitherto, by permission of superior authority,
and to a limited extent in certain literary circles in one or other of her capitals, opinions
have not been altogether without their representative organs; but the contemplation of a
vast and entire nation without any rights of
their own, and not ever likely, therefore, to pay
much respect to the rights of others, claiming
proudly for their chief ally the great democratic
Power of the New World, is not suggestive of

BUSSIA.

153

very confiding or encouraging reflections to the
supporters of constitutional governments, and
the originators and conservators of civil and
religious freedom, equally against the tyranny
of the one or the multitude.
To what extent the new Imperial scheme of
emancipation will operate, and how far the
interests of the class proposed to be benefited,
formerly restricted to the land, may become
modified by their freedom, has yet to be seen.
Their gain in one direction may possibly be
counterbalanced by their loss in another.

At

the same time the stereotyped immobility of
Eussian society as an universal characteristic is
lost.

A fluctuating class will be at the disposal

of the Government, which may possibly enable
it to fortify itself against popular movements
not unlikely to ensue, and the issue of which
may eventually prove of the highest consequence to other and distant nations, as well as
to " all the Eussias."

FRANCE.

FRANCE.
I T is not uninteresting to observe, that all the
great states of the West are, ethnologically, to
borrow a term from a sister science, of conglomerate formation.

In some the constituent

elements are combined in more equal proportions than in others: the former being the case
in Great Britain, which may be considered
Eelto-Teutonic; and Austria and Prussia, as
each a mixture, though in different ratios, of
German and Sclavonic population.

On the

other hand, the two most homogeneous empires
of Europe are Eussia and Prance.

In France,

at the commencement of the historical epoch,
the Gauls—akin to the Gael of Caledonia., the

158

FRANCE.

Galatians of Asia Minor, the Kelts, and the
Kymri of Wales, or Galles—are found undisputed possessors of the land.

No traces, at

least, of an earlier people in that capacity—out
of the Drift—are discoverable.

With these

the Eomans—their conquerors, and theinselves
of a kindred race—largely intermixed ; and
finally, the Franks—a clan of Belgic Gauls, of
mixed origin, and producing but little effect,
apart from their conquest, on the general population—after subduing a small section of the
country, finally succeeded in imposing their
name upon the whole. Upon antecedents like
these depend the nature and direction of national
policy.

Pure races are always of an aggressive

character, nor is it until they become mixed
that they become stationary or contented. Different varieties even of the same stock perpetually contend together, until a social combination has been satisfactorily effected.

These

characteristics, however, of race-—wherever the

FRANCE.

159

battle-ground was situated, whether in Germany, Belgium, or Italy—may be considered as
originating in the natural rivalry of Kelt and
Teuton.

While it is difficult to say which has

gained or suffered more than the other, the
result, as at present shown by territorial possessions, is satisfactory enough, both in its present aspects and future probabilities.

The

aggressive, or rather dictatorial, character of
French policy is doubtless owing, in a great
degree, to the comparative unity of origin of
the mass of the French people; the German
element being — since even the Burgundian
stock has been for more than a thousand years
subordinately blended with the Gallic—comparatively insignificant, even taking into account one or two other provinces on its borders,
of later acquisition; to the ardour and noble
egotism of the Keltic mind; and to the grand
idea of internal unity which naturally developes
itself into a theory of external predominance.

160

FRANCE.

These principles have been uniformly and
necessarily prevalent in France, whether, as a
Power, it be considered in the earlier periods
of its career as feudal, despotic under Louis
XIV., democratic under the Convention, or a
mixture of autocracy and democracy, as under
the Napoleons.
France is unquestionably the index-finger of
the European Pentarchy. In almost everything she takes the lead of the Continent, as
her natural prerogative, as her uncontested
right, Not always the first in invention or in
speculative opinions, whether political or philosophical,—but in the practical application of
them, in comprehensive but compendious theories respecting them, in deductive reasonings
from them,—it is to her as the indicator of civilizing improvements and elevating moral movements that the world will be in all probability
indebted for the currency of an idea, and its
general adoption. To know the theory of any

161

FEANCE.

science or art, social or physical, to be able to
estimate its symmetrical proportions and its
harmony with others, it is even now necessary
to obtain access to French literature.

English

or German writers will probably give more
copious details, and occasionally grander, if
somewhat disproportionate, views of particular
subdivisions of science, or objects of thought;
but nowhere, except under the guidance of the
master intellect of France, can the totality of
such matters be effectually approached. Along
with this completeness, nevertheless, it is eonceded, the idea of limit is essentially connected;
and so it happens that in some departments of
literature the indefiniteness, irregularity, and
want of roundness, so to speak, in the AngloTeutonic mind, is occasionally productive of a
grandeur of effect which all the form and finish
of French art, all its constructive and systematic
force, fail to accomplish.
The title accorded to her sovereigns, of Eldest
M

162

FRANCE.

Son of the Church, is another proof of this
reputation of European leadership pertaining to
her by hereditary right; for it requires but little
reflection to recognise in this appellation the
fact that the early conversion of the Gauls to
Christianity was the soundest proof of the superiority of their intelligence over the other subject nations of Eome, and their quick appreciation of all civilizing influences that can
possibly be afforded or desired.

To this title

assumed by her rulers may be added, with at
least equal justice, that of the most liberal and
enlightened of the national members of the
Boman Catholic Church.

For though Pepin

and Charlemagne were the primal patrons and
establishes of the Church in its temporalities,
yet from the days of Boniface VIII., and even
previously, it is evident that servile submission
to the Head of the Church in his secular aspect
—•for his resemblance to Janus is well-known—
rarely or never has formed a feature of French

163

FEANOE.

character; while in regard both to doctrinal
tenets and ecclesiastical administration, their
repeated assertion of what are called the Gallican liberties, is a sufficient vindication of
their independent temper, and their just conception of the limits to which even the loftiest
human authority is amenable.
The i J i cal constitution which France at
present possesses is the very best she has enjoyed at any period of her history.

For any-

thing approaching to a shadow of constitutional
government, beyond what may be denominated
merely mediaeval institutions, such as the lits de
justice and provincial parliaments, it is only
necessary to go back to 1789. The first fatal
error committed by the nation, and that from
which all subsequent disasters flowed, was the
amalgamation of the three orders of the StatesGeneral in the one, so-called, National Assembly.

True it is that the original deflection

of France from her proper orbit was caused by
M2

164

FRANCE.

the perturbing influence of the American revolution, her interference in which was succeeded
by a righteous, but rigid and rapid, retribution
of calamities ; but America, with all its faults,
was prudent enough to avoid that unnatural
desecration of political affinities, which consists
in the forced amalgamation of all orders of
society in one turbulent and ill-assorted assembly.

Of the issue of this terribly fierce

republicanism it is needless to recall the recollection, or of the stern and sanguinary period
which succeeded; or the merely military rule
of the first Empire.

The Eestoration was a

compromise of forces, material and moral, traditionary and revolutionary, which eventuated
in a failure more significant to its supporters
than satisfactory to its enemies.

The system

inaugurated and perfected by Louis Philippe
was a gross delusion—a mockery of representative government, the fallacy of which was palpable to all, even the populace, at the very

165

FRANCE.

moment they were engaged, with apparently
patriotic ardour, in giving it effect.

The elec-

toral colleges never numbered much more than
a quarter of a million in their lists; while the
civil places in the gift of the Crown, or disposable by the Ministry, were upwards of three
hundred thousand.

In the Chamber of De-

puties the King had it mostly his own way;
and when he had it not, it was because he cared
not.

Occasionally, beyond doubt, he found it

politic to practise an indifference he possibly
might not feel; while at other times, having
intrigued successfully with the Opposition to his
own Ministry, he would condole, with every
appearance of sincerity, with the Cabinet he
had himself defeated.

Torrents of ministerial

eloquence have been known to pour forth at
his command, only to be lost in the desert platitudeB of predetermined minorities.
could not last for ever.

But this

The system, on the

whole, was unsatisfactory to the country.

Be-

166

FEANOE.

forms were desired and proposed, and a popular
movement set on foot for securing them.

The

King unwisely resisted the projected improvements until too late ; and the solemn feast of a
Regifugium was a third time celebrated in Paris.
The revolution of February followed rather than
succeeded.

Here again was repeated the mon-

strous error of a single chamber elected by universal suffrage.

Connected with its inglorious

career, two only things are known which give
to it the slightest degree of interest; namely,
that it was in its defence an ingenious republican general invented the praiseworthy and
philanthropic process of effectually nullifying
the system of barricades, which had more than
once lent to revolution and insurrection a lamentable success never again to be realized; and
that, during a fit of temporary sanity, and in
support of the traditional policy of France,
succours were despatched to Rome to protect
the independence of the Pope. The Assembly,

FBANCB.

167

it is sufficient to add, lasted long enough to
disappoint every hope that was entertained of
it by the real wellwishers of their country;
and by the factious conduct of its sections,
which refused to unite for any object except to
oppose all government, it disgusted the press,
which it both restricted and flattered, and
affrighted and humiliated France.
It was at this juncture that the President,
the elect of the people, who had been elevated
to his position by a national vote, comprising
a greater number of intelligent" voices than
ever before recorded in the annals of nations as
united for the attainment of a single purpose,
took into his own hands the guidance of the
state; and subsequently called to imperial
power by the same commendatory suffrage, he
proceeded at once to solidify the social edifice,
shaken and tottering as it was, by a constitution which, if not securing everything that is
desirable in national life, is still adapted, with

168

FRANCE.

eminent sagacity, to obtain probably the greatest
amount of good practicable under the present
condition of the society in which it is established.
On the broad base of universal suffrage both
the imperial monarchy and the popular representation are founded.

If to Englishmen the

constitution appears in any point defective, it is
in the want of prominence given to the aristocratic element of society.

The preservation of

the influence proper to each of the great coordinate classes appears essential to the prosperity and stability of a state.

It is not enough

that the extremes of executive power and democratic opinion be embodied in a government,
if the intervening condition supplied by the
judgment of an aristocracy be wanting.

Borne

fell by the absorption of all power in the hands
of the Emperors.

The Florentine Eepublic fell

by its total exclusion of the aristocracy from
their natural share in the government; the Vene-

FRANCE.

169

tian by a like error with regard to the people.
But aristocracy and nobility are not the same
thing.

In England the influence of the inter-

mediate branch of the legislature is wisely provided for. The Peers are even a more highly and
widely representative body than the Commons.
In France nobility exists, but not aristocracy:
as an order, only socially, not politically.

The

absence of a landed senatorial class, with independent co-ordinate legislative power in the
state, is undoubtedly a misfortune; because such
a class, while giving dignity to social traditions
and stability to national policy, secures, as far
as human prudence can, the treatment of questions both internal and foreign, under conditions
totally removed, and equally, from the passing
passions of the populace, and from those influences to which from various quarters fluctuating and elective assemblies are always liable.
Nor is such an institution necessarily obstructive, further than as deliberation is fortunately

170

FBANCE.

preventive of that precipitate success at which
the ardour of individual legislators, and even of
parties, occasionally aims.

The true path of

national improvement, and of social and moral
elevation, is, like that of all elevations, circuitous. No one ascends a mountain perpendicularly.

Earth herself confesses only an oblique

inclination to the zenith.

If something is lost

in the actual enjoyment of a right by the lapse
of time, something, on the other hand, is gained
in that sense of general security winch instinctively accompanies the known unwillingness to
change.

It is the indirect action of the opinion

of the enlightened and reflective minds composing the wealthy and leisured classes of
society, and of which this order is the natural
interpreter, that eventually decides for good all
public questions of importance.
Although, therefore, it is to be regretted that
in France this order of the state has not all the
perfection attachable to it theoretically, yet the

FBAMJE.

171

Senate being composed of members named for
life, and comprising many individuals of worth
and ability, social eminence, moral influence*
and ecclesiastical dignity, it enjoys very sensible
advantages over a similar institution in another
quarter of the world.

A senate should either

sit by virtue of its own hereditary and indefeasible right, or by nomination of superior
authority. To sit as temporary and accountable delegates of the classes which underlie it
socially, but override it politically, is absurd.
But if France be, as has been recently said
by an authority of some eminence on matters
of that kind, " t h e most democratic nation in
the world/' then the revolutionary change which
destroyed the old laws of succession to property,
and necessitated the subdivision of land in certain degrees of equality among children, was
the next best alternative, as the state is now
virtually based on a conservative democracy.
This fact, for which neither the English press,

172

FRANCE.

Parliament, nor people has made due allowance,
sufficiently accounts for that change in the sentiments of the great body of the French nation
towards England, which appears incredible and
unintelligible to so many editors, M.P.'s, and
colonels of volunteer regiments, who labour so
heartily to raise up a feeling of animosity in
the people of this country against those who
have ceased to return it in kind.

The landed

proprietary of the country, i.e. the people of
France, numbering several millions of families,
and in a far greater proportion to the total
population than our own, as distinguished from
the comparatively unsettled, and therefore less
responsible, population of the great cities, who
are naturally more excitable from being congre*
gated in masses, have come to understand the
advantages of a government which wisely but
sternly made known its intentions from the day
of its accession to be no longer at the mercy of
a militant mob perambulating the purlieus of

173

FRANCE.

Paris.

These classes were not answerable for

the Eevolutions of July and February.

The

revolution for which they are answerable is
that of December.

And after their experience

of what the press and the populace of Paris
could effect for and against any government,
and for and against each other, their recollection of metropolitan barricades and socialist
massacres, both under the auspices of distinguished republican generals, they are scarcely
to be blamed for the support of a man in
whose elevation they saw the probable realization of a government far superior, at least in
strength and moderation, and in attention to
the just material interests of the community,
to the frightful burlesque then being enacted
by the Legislative Assembly.

Never was there

a more perfect accord between power and opinion.

The moment the President and the

people came in view of each other they sympathised.

Society now, in France, far from

174

FEANCE.

being permeated by a despotic rigidity, is rather
like the free and fluctuating ocean, which, while
capable on the surface of wholesome agitation*
and occasionally conflicting currents, is still indisposed, in its interior depths, to disturbance,
and in its foundations immoveable.

They who

inferred, either in England, Germany, or elsewhere, that the elevation of Louis Napoleon to
power was a menace to this country, have been
simply convicted, by events, of very extensive
ignorance.

A vagrant princeling, whose sole

inheritance was a dream of empire, may be excused referring to his star—they who have
nothing else have always their star; and when
arraigned before a pompous tribunal, if he spoke
of a cause, a principle, a defeat, they were ideas
which served to cover with a sort of dignity
the issue of a reckless, luckless, bootless expedition.

But the responsibilities of power insure

a very different style of oratory; and the establishment of the empire has proved from the

175

FRANCE.

first the triumph, on the part of France, of an
amicable people, a peaceful government, and a
policy, in the main, conservative.
Now the great difference between a limited
or constitutional monarchy and an autocratic
government is, that in one the executive or
monarchical authority is responsible, through
its ministry, to the representatives of the
nation; in the other, the ministry are responsible to the executive power only, by which
they are appointed. This is the case in France;
and so far, theoretically, it is a despotism.
For although the people are truly and efficiently represented, yet the body so returned has
no constitutional controlling power over the
conduct of the executive.

It is certainly useful

to the Emperor as an indicative organ of public
opinion; and doubtless he duly attends to the
signs proceeding from such a source—carefully
and conscientiously attends to them, for they
are of the utmost importance. But, under these

176

FKANCE.

conditions, all the energies of government obviously press in only one direction; and if any
considerable accident happens to the statemachine, there is no counterbalancing power
provided in the civil constitution able to check
the downward rush of things which usually
takes place in such circumstances, or steady
the ranks and straighten the line of that tumultuous march of events which at such periods
may always be anticipated. All the great bodies
of state—in fact, the Ministry, the Council, the
Senate, the Deputies—are almost merely ramifications or conditions, variously modified, of the
executive power.
Now in a very simple state of society, such
as mostly prevails under governments inspired
by the paternal principle, the course of admimstration is regulated by a single and unqualified impulse imparted from above ; but society
under more complicated conditions requires,
and indeed naturally generates, a systemized

177

FRANCE.

antagonism of interests, by the due friction of
whose opposing forces the persistency of progress and the permanent welfare of the community are at once reconciled and secured.
Such ought undoubtedly to be the case, it may
be said, in France, were one theory of government universally applicable; for, practically,
France is the freest country in the world—certain manifestations of political liberty, calculated to imperil public tranquillity, only excepted ; and the press may by some be supposed
to afford sufficient field for the deployment of
these peaceful hostilities among the higher and
more refined forces of civilization, to which
allusion has been made.

But here unfortu-

nately other quantities occur, which, by their
mass or their movements, more or less detract
from the roundness of the calculation.
In view of the interests of those vastly
preponderating classes of the community, the
strength of the state, the dominant class, averse
N

178

FRANCE.

to needless change, and opposed to further political experiments at their expense—all, in fact,
that may be entitled to claim the national name,
—it is not of course to be supposed that these are
left without their proper safeguards. These are
both negative and positive; and the first is the
Press.

The press of Paris, though on the whole

conducted with dignity and talent, is not to be
taken unreservedly as representative of the
opinion of France on all subjects.

On ques-

tions of domestic national interest, the proprietary masses not seldom look upon it with suspicion or indifference, or, it may be, with hostility.

They view indeed with anything but

disfavour the warning, prosecution, or extinction of a journal whose obstinate or fatal
freedom of speech might possibly prove unfavourable in moments of agitation to the present orderly and prosperous condition of things.
An unrestricted press is very well, perhaps—
though that has never been known in France,

179

FRANCE.

nor hardly anywhere; but peace, prosperity,
increasing trade, agriculture improving both in
its means and its results, commerce extending,
a revenue unequalled in former periods, unsurpassed in amount, victorious arms, a rectified
position among the nations who once gathered
round her to look with wonder and almost incredulity on the depth of the humiliation to
which she could be reduced—all these are solid
triumphs, substantial prizes, for which France
feels itself indebted to the present government
—any one of which almost might in her eyes
be cheaply bought by the extinction at one
blow of the whole political press. Whether the
press be in fact the vital organ by many supposed, or whether its asserted sensibility and extreme tenacity of life be traceable only to some
old Whig tradition, may perhaps be doubted;
that it will bear, even among Anglo-Saxons,
considerable laceration the moment society feels
itself in want of a strong hand, certain PreN2

180

FRANCE.

sidential amenities practised at New York and
other places at the present moment satisfactorily
testify.

Be this as it may, it is the interests

of those vast, sober^ frugal, industrious, honest,
and hard-living masses of society, with whom
the personal and domestic virtues of a Christian
people are principally found, which the Imperial Government is both bound and inclined to
protect; and which necessarily, in the consideration of all governments,—except perhaps those
tentative productions existing in the boundless
vacuity of editorial brains, dreaming of the
vice-presidentship of provisional administrations,
—outweigh a thousand dubious benefits attributable to the mere expression of political speculation, or the petulant discussion of measures
deemed advisable by those whose only possible
interest is the welfare of the whole nation.
Whatever the degree of representative character, moreover, which the press of Paris may
be justified in vindicating for itself, it is certain

181

FRANCE.

that from the impulsive nature of the population
to which it appeals, its triumphs have always
been identical with the overthrow of government, and its subjection and restriction necessary to the normal conditions of civilized and
peaceful society.

From the excitable cha-

racter, therefore, of the population of large
cities—preeminently, the metropolis—in which
political ideas once cast abroad have a tendency
to ferment with perilous rapidity before the
clearer judgment of the total community has
time to be expressed with decision, it is satisfactorily found that the interests of society as a
whole are opposed to the unrestrained action of
this attractive but dangerous power.

To colder

constitutions and a more perfectly balanced
system like our own, it may, under ordinary
circumstances, be harmless; but in France a
thoroughly free press has hitherto meant political licentiousness in the widest extent.

In

the mean time the rural proprietary, the steady

182

FRANCE,

masses of the State family, who had never
heretofore been consulted or instructed in la
haute politique of dethroning kings and establishing republics, provisional governments, national
workshops, and all that, confess themselves, and
yeiy justly, wearied not only of such proceedings, but of all symptoms and tendencies in
that direction, such as the political penmen of a
metropolitan press too often find it lucrative,
in periods of popular commotion, to stimulate.
The Imperial Government, it need scarcely be
added, has been the only one which, by destroying the anonymous character of the press
and wisely rendering its writers individually
responsible, has been enabled to reconcile considerable freedom of opinion with administrative
energy and social security.

And it is in sym-

pathy and compliance with the interests of this
vast and almost all-inclusive class that the
operation of this institution is felt to require
checking so soon as ever it indicates the slightest

FEANCE.

183

inclination to pass that boundary mark which
the conservators of the public safety have
established.
The other safeguard specified as one of a
positive nature, is connected with the army.
The army, drawn, of course, from those classes
recently considered, is a far more really representative institution than the press, and in some
respects a substitute for it.

A national army

and a national press, each in full vigour, can
never coexist, unless in a land where military
honour is yet to be understood, or where civil
rights are not worth having.

The press has no

ruling idea, if it be not that of total insubordination : it is Babel.

In the army, order, dis-

cipline, stand for all others.

Whatever the

original associations of the private—the analytical tendencies of the mind of his officerthere can be no question of the contempt with
which the ablest and most exciting article will
be conned by a full colonel, intrusted at a

184

FRANCE.

perilous time with the preservation of the public
peace, nor of the quiet ferocity with which his
orders relative to the author, editor, printer,
and press, would be executed.

This is what is

expected of the army as an institution everywhere, and a duty it has been frequently called
to fulfil in France.
The conscription is not an invention of imperial tyranny but a republican institution, and is
variously regarded as a right to be claimed, as a
duty to be discharged, or as a privilege to be
desired.

The army has been sometimes opposed

to the government, and sometimes to the nation.
To identify the interests of the army with the
stability of the one and the prosperity of the
other, the apportionment of France into military*
districts appears a singularly sagacious precaution.

The mere pronunciamento, as in former

times, of merely one city, or even of one or
two provinces, will suffice no longer for the
success of any possibly revolutionary movement.

FRANCE.

185

The general opinion of the country must for the
future be consulted, and, more than that, the
general force combined, before the government
could, under any circumstances, be removed
with that somewhat farcical rapidity peculiar
to the trained scene-shifters of the old Parisian
political stage.

Whatever contributes to the

security of France, is of the highest interest and
importance both to England and Europe. There
is reason, therefore, for congratulation in the
prospect glanced at.

But it is under circum-

stances of this kind, where so much is dependent
on the will and the skill of a single individual,
that the character and moral tone of one man
becomes, at times, a matter of immense, almost
immeasurable, significance; because such considerations notoriously and seriously influence
the cause of international policy.

In this pre-

dicament is the reputation of Napoleon III.
To form a just estimate upon this important
subject, it will be found necessary to assert

186

FRANCE.

either that the events of the time have manifestly belied themselves, or that the British
public generally have been under a false impression ; and that the press of this country in particular, always argumentative, never logical,
starting from premisses without foundation,
have committed themselves to conclusions utterly irreconcilable with reason.
hear the voice of prophecy.

Let us first

The prophets of

our press have predicted, now any time that
can be named during the last ten years, that
Louis Napoleon would embroil aU Europe ; that
his empire would be the empire of the sword;
that he was bent on avenging Waterloo; that
he would invade England; that he would betray
England some night under cover of a fog; that
he would seize Belgium for the French army,
just to keep their hands warm; that he would
seize the Bhine, probably to cool them; that
he would seize Etruria for his cousin; that he
would seize Sardinia for himself; that he would

187

FRANCE.

snatch Morocco from the jaws of Spain, as
the sea-eagle snatches from the fish-hawk the
prey which an admiring hemisphere was about
to see equitably gorged by the original depredator; finally, that he would seize Syria, in
order that he might figure again, it is to be
supposed, as the Old Man of the Mountain.
None of these things has he done.

But far

from being discouraged by this circumstance,
they have been at the trouble to invent for him
a variety of imaginary misdeeds, which it would
be gratuitous cruelty to recapitulate.

The

reckless untruths, indeed, uttered upon this
head form one of the most astounding and
melancholy phenomena of the times in which
we live.

The fact appears to be this, that

Europe generally during the last ten years has
been at peace; but that in the two wars which
have taken place, one was chiefly at the instigation of England, and in this, along with
France, she took an active part; in the second,

188

FRANCE.

which was commenced by Austria, England
gave to France her passive support.

In the

first case England can boast of having had an
ally, and the only one during her long career,
whom it was not necessary for her to pay.

The

sum and value of all the other predictions it
were needless to characterise.
But of course there is a cause, even if there
be not a reason, for everything.

The ostensible

cause is the alleged violation by Louis Napoleon
of his oath—"Je lejure "—to uphold the republican constitution.

But it is patent to any one

desirous of directing to the matter a calm and
clear intelligence adjusted to that point of
view in which other considerations connected
with the main object show equally clear,
that the violation of that oath was a more
sacred duty than the keeping of it.

Without

alluding to proverbial views of propriety in
certain cases, it is admitted that it may, and
not unfrequently does, become the duty of an

FEANOE.

189

individual to forfeit his word, where the change
of circumstances has so altered the relative
position of the parties to the engagement, that
not the most deliberate or sacred vow could
require or even justify the literal fulfilment of
the contract.

Through the mouth of the Presi-

dent the nation no doubt took, as it were, byproxy, the oath at the same moment.

But the

world knows what the career of the Legislative
Assembly proved to be. Never, therefore, was
there a more solemn act of absolution, virtually
administered by a people who were, and are,
the only real judges of the necessity of the case,
than when, in those assemblages, comprising
much of the opulence, intelligence, and moral
worth of the community, which gathered together
at all the great points of the President's tour
through Prance, it became manifest that one
universal understanding animated the immense
masses—not always, it is true, articulate, but
always sensible—to the effect that the hour was

190

FRANCE.

at hand in which they looked for the total and
triumphant abolition of that cumbrous parody
of constitutional government over which the
man then before them had the misfortune to
preside, and under which it was their disgrace,
their involuntary disgrace, to live.

Never was

there a happier or more salutary awakening
than that which France was one morning made
conscious of, when the spectral and gigantic
incubus which so long had weighed upon her
tumultuous bosom, at the resolute touch of a
stern friend, no longer to be restrained, vanished
at one bound into its righteously predestined
annihilation.

Europe herself, wearied and fe-

vered with watching over that frightful trance,
breathed audibly her sense of relief, as each
successive symbol and incitement of the pernicious illusion, which had so fatally usurped
the faculties of that melancholy but still majestic
victim, was by the same strong hand cautiously
but unsparingly stripped away; and while order,

FBANCE.

191

dignity, and power, took the place of turbulence, and weakness, and contempt.
George IV. confessedly violated his oath,
according both to his own and his father's conception of it, when giving his assent to the Bill
for the Emancipation of the Catholics ; and probably no one loved him less on that account—
Lords Winchilsea and Eldon perhaps excepted ;
but few, indeed, considering now the beneficial
consequences of that measure, have looked
with much squeamishness on the transaction:
nay, it will doubtless be sincerely hoped by
many, that if this be his greatest offence, as may
almost be inferred from the lofty virulence
with which a similar act is treated by the purists
of the British press in the case of a contemporary sovereign, even this may ultimately be
forgiven him.

The Emperor, moreover, is ac-

cused of being a sphinx, whatever that may
amount to; a false character is attributed to
him, and the complaint spreads that his conduct

192
is mysterious.

FRANCE.

He is accused of increasing the

army while actually diminishing it; of having
the army entirely at his disposal, as if this were
not the usual prerogative of the executive; of
being entirely himself at the mercy of the army;
of ruining the country by the personal extravagances of his court, while France was never so
rich, so prosperous, so contented, as at the
present moment.

So much for prophecy.

It

might seriously be feared that we are living
near the end of the world, or certainly in quite
antepenultimate times, since it is written of
such periods, that " whether prophesyings, they
shall fail;" but that systematic and unexceptional failure leads to a reasonable suspicion
of intentional deception.

To mislead the public

mind by keeping up an eternal alarum that never
runs down has been, it must be feared, the intention and the practice of the self-appointed
monitor of the people.

That the organs of all

political parties have coalesced upon this object,

193

FRANCE.

proves only, if it proves anything, that the prosperity of the fourth estate is naturally of more
importance to itself than the welfare of the
third, or the tranquillity of the whole.
So much has been said upon this topic, not
only from a due sense of the value of the press
as an institution, in which it is obvious, nevertheless, from the necessary operation of natural
causes, fear and interest mutually stimulating
each other, that public opinion is occasionally
at least, on most important matters, refracted
rather than reflected; and that by an agitation,
which it is its duty to calm and not to exasperate, the objects of national consideration are
much too frequently distorted or inverted; but
from a conviction that if ever the amicable
relations between the two nations are interrupted, such interruption will be traceable to
that anonymous, irresponsible, and therefore
inconsiderate organ.
The probabilities of such an event are, it is
o

194

FRANCE.

true, from the close and increasing ties between
the two nations, and from the unwonted union
of their governments upon questions of foreign
policy, daily and happily diminishing.

Some

few points of divergence, however, it is necessary to touch upon.
war with Eussia.

First, as regards the late
In that war England con-

fessedly played a secondary part.

The greater

number of troops, the greater sacrifice of life,
was on the part of the French.

The French

had, practically, the direction of the hostilities
by land.

The English were justly to have

had the lead in the naval campaign; but it
was precisely here that boastful failures were
all we could show;

and after

one or two

grand but unsuccessful manoeuvres, and just as,
it is alleged, our admirals were on the point of
exterminating the Eussian marine, the Emperor Napoleon accepted proposals of peace.
Now if we agree at all to act with allies, it is
obviously requisite to look at things with a

195

FRANCE.

binocular glass, so as to have one eye for
our friends; and the objects of the war being
gained, it appeared unwise and unnecessary to
prolong it merely for the greater glory of the
English naval service; nor was it assuredly to
the interest of France or of Europe that the
Eussian fleet should be annihilated.

Various

reasons might be assigned to the contrary.
But on a comprehensive survey of things, the
propriety of the issue adopted can scarcely now
be disputed, and indeed is generally acquiesced
in; for on the whole it is better that dignity
and honour should not be totally lost in any
contest by either party.
Alarm has even been sought to be created
by a rumour of alliance between France and
Eussia.

But so long as France gives to England

her right hand, there can be no objection to her
appropriating her left to Eussia.

The interests

of these two Powers in certain matters of contio2

196

FRANCE.

nental policy, as distinguished from European,
and in which England is not so intimately concerned, run parallel to a considerable extent;
in some other matters each approaches nearer
to England than the other; but France holds
unquestionably the determinative position between the two.

Great Britain can never be

attacked with effect except by a combination,
at the head of which these two Powers must
stand; a condition of affairs not very likely to
occur.

In the mean time France at peace and

on terms of amity with Eussia, equals, in other
words, the quiet of Europe assured.
Between the French and German nations
but little affection subsists; and except in literary and scientific circles where individuals of
either family have won for themselves by their
genius, their labours, or their discoveries, a cosmopolitan renown; and whose achievements for
the advantage of mankind are happily viewed

197

FRANCE.

through the colourless light of pure intelligence,—and except in occasional instances of
reciprocal benevolence or social connection,—
their opinion of each other is in fact by no
nleans daintily disguised or charily expressed;
nor is there much more between Germany and
Eussia.

But in view of the somewhat debili-

tated condition of Austria, there is a manifest
disposition on the part of France to cultivate
friendly relations with the North of Germany,
and under certain conditions to agree even to
an aggrandisement of Protestant power.
The relations of France with Prussia are
certainly somewhat peculiar.

The traditional

assertion by France of the Ehine as her natural
boundary maintains an uneasy feeling in Prussia that still contributes to the good effect of
preventing an open rupture with Austria and
compelling respect to the minor states of Germany.

For in any other disposition either the

aid they might solicit would be accorded to

198

FBANCE.

them by France, or the condition she would
insist upon would be secured without much
trouble.
Now that the struggles of party and the
crotchets of individuals respecting the cession
of Savoy have ceased, it is plain to every one
who reflects upon the matter dispassionately
that that province pertains as naturally, and
analogously, to France as Monmouthshire to
England; considering Wales as representing
an independent state.

The passes and the

slopes of the Alps on her own side unquestionably belong to France; but the truth is that
in the day of her humiliation the Great Powers
at the Congress of Vienna, considering her
probably in the condition of a house to be let,
ordered the key to be left at the next door.
Whether this was likely to continue when a
responsible tenant was once in occupation, may
be left to the imagination of even a centaur to
discover.

FRANCE.

199

Eegarded merely as an infringement of the
treaties of 1815, it is somewhat too late in the
face of such instances as are supplied by Belgium, Cracow, and the generally lauded issue
of the war in Lonibardy, to invoke against
France alone the maintenance of public instruments which all the Powers of Europe, greater
and less, have successively lent their hand to
invalidate. France, too, has had her heptarchy
as well as England, and Savoy was the last of
these petty states. As to its being the cradle
of the Sardinian royalty, there is no doubt that
after the conquest of Lombardy the new king
was as content to abandon his cradle as all the
other European dynasties have been.

The

cradle of the Hapsburgs, for instance, was in
Switzerland; of the Bomanoffs, in Sweden;
of the Hohenzollern, in the township " of that
ilk;" of the Guelphs in Germany ; of the Bonapartes in Corsica.

On the other hand it cannot

200

FRANCE,

be denied that the race, the language, the political and commercial interests of the Savoyards
were manifestly French; and the real injustice
which they suffered was their forced union with
a state,, from which they were physically divided
by a lofty and laborious barrier, which afforded no
encouragement for their industry; and in whose
representative assembly their own deputies
could neither understand the language of their
colleagues, nor make themselves intelligible.
The annexation of Nice was a matter clearly
distinguishable, in the opinion of many, as a
matter of policy and propriety from the former
question.

Its position, however, between the

two nations is analogous to that occupied in our
own island by Berwick-upon-Tweed, long the
object of contention between two rival kingdoms.
The habits and other superficial characteristics
of the population, the language chiefly spoken,
and the aspects of the city are Italian; but

FRANCE.

201

in this case also the more important interests
of the city, military and commercial, are undoubtedly French.
With regard to Naples, the conduct of the
Emperor of France, far from being, as was
asserted, enigmatical, appears perfectly simple
and clear.

For it is quite certain that in the

face of the anti-national farce nicknamed a plebiscite, and which, being theoretically the most
solemn and peculiar act of citizenship, seemed
to the Piedmontese authorities appropriately
and gracefully to be placed under strict military
supervision—particularly as the people themselves, those actuated by interest or compulsion
excepted, as is evident from the number of
votes which amount rather to a deficit than a
minority, signalised in most places their opinion
by their absence—it is quite clear that for a
long time the Emperor, as well as many others
anxiously interested in the welfare of the
Sicilies, awaited a more direct and trustworthy

202

FRANCE.

manifestation of the national will; but seeing
that the country was entirely prostrated to the
military occupation of Sardinia, and haying
hitherto in the politest and most complimentary
manner forcibly subordinated his policy to that
of England on the Neapolitan question, reserving the Koman for himself exclusively, it
became obvious that he must in due time withdraw even his fleet from Gaeta unless prepared
to demand the withdrawal from Neapolitan
territory of the invading troops of his ally.
In the mean time those troops increase, and
public opinion is totally stifled.
In all speculations current in France upon
the Eastern question, Egypt and Syria are
intimatelyinvolved.

French policy has always

been to effect the severance of Egypt from
the Porte, and secure its independence from even
the restrictive jealousy of the tutelary Powers.
By her possession of Algeria she has thought
to secure its subordination to herself.

The

FRANCE.

203

canalization of the Isthmus is one means to
this end.

Anything which tends to increase

the importance, increases at the same time the
probability of the future independence of
Egypt, and such tendency favours the preponderance in Egypt of French influence.

French

ideas are more prevalent in Egypt than English.
Although the commerce of the latter may be
much more extensive and has sufficient partisans in commercial quarters, yet the Egyptians
believe the English do not take that interest in
their general welfare and advancement that
the French do, but simply regard them as a
territorial convenience for the transit to India
of goods and passengers via Suez. As all contingencies relating to the event before referred
to are boldly and unfeelingly alluded to everywhere, it may be affirmed that in the interests
of universal commerce the safety of that passage would have to be secured, even if Great
Britain should be compelled to add to her

204

FRANCE.

known partiality for commanding straits the
privilege of fortifying the solitary isthmus in
question; and, if the canal should be in existence, of exercising over it the same sublime
superintendence which she exercises from her
little crater at Aden and her ," Kooke's nest"
at Gibraltar.
In Syria there is little doubt the French are
better liked than ourselves; for, besides their
fortunate assumption of the protectorate and
championship of the Christians of the Western
Church, their exertions are known to have been
in favour of the national independence of the
natives whether of Mohammedan or other
belief.

But although the Arabs hate the

Turks passing well, and although it may be
opined that should the latter ever be expelled
from Europe—and they could not be expelled
from everywhere—they would probably in such
case centralise their power round Damascus or
Jerusalem, it is not certain which of these races

FRANCE.

205

would be most obnoxious to the French, who
have, like ourselves, their own national weakness—an undisguised propensity for the occupation of foreign capitals, the seats and centres of
ancient civilisation and historic renown.
In Further India France is apparently following a plan which, as with England in the
dominions of the Mogul, will likely end in the
subjugation gradual but total of immense territories.

In China the policy of France has

been entirely subsidiary to our own, which ever
since the opium war may be, in the opinion of
many honourable men now, and possibly will
be by impartial history, characterised as one
unequalled, unvaried, unmitigated iniquity;—an
iniquity now shared by our allies, who with
ourselves have appropriately closed our political relations with the Celestials—who, whatever
their claim to that title will be ready enough to
apply to us its opposite—by an act of wanton
barbarism, devastation, and outrage, associated

206

FRANCE.

for ever with a name now known from the
iEgsean to the Pacific, as synonymous with
a passionate regard for all that is venerable
in art, or beautiful in its combination with
nature.
Much has been said and written concerning
the augmentation during late years of the
French navy; but there does not appear to be
anything in this fact, rightly considered, to
arouse the hostility or the jealousy of England.
After the long and disastrous naval war in which
the narine of France had been notoriously reduced to a very low and inadequate condition,
but little attention was paid to it during the
reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.

After

the accession of the Orleans line, a Eeport,
sanctioned and headed by the Prince de Joinville, was made to the Government, recommending an immediate and continual increase,
calculated to extend over at least the twenty
years succeeding, of that branch of the warlike

207

FRANCE.

forces of the State.

The recommendation was

adopted by the republic, and has been simplycontinued by the Emperor.

And if it be borne

in mind that a just proportion is requisite to be
maintained between the two arms into which
the material forces of a State requiring both
means of defence are divided, it is necessary
also to remember that France has, in addition,
another law of proportion to observe—namely,
that if England takes of right the headship of
the world in this matter, France, with the
largest and most important seaboard of any
nation in Europe, feels herself perfectly justified,
there can be no question, in assuming as her
proper station, in point of naval strength, the
lead of the continental Powers.

Nor has she,

nor has Europe forgotten, that during the
Crimean war France was compelled to borrow
of England the means of conveyance for some
thousands of her troops ; a circumstance which

208

FRANCE.

it is quite certain, from the tone adopted towards
her recently by the English Parliament and
press, she would not wish to see repeated; and
any future necessity for which it is her just
object to avoid.

GREAT BRITAIN.

P

GREAT BRITAIN.
O F all countries England is the most truly
representative, not only socially with regard to
races, but constitutionally with regard to principles of government.

Comprising within her

moderate limits a more notable variety of race
than in a similar space can be found in any
single State, she is consciously productive of
their combined virtues and distinguishing characteristics.

There is an absolutism in this

country more perfect than that obtained under
any despotic Power of Europe, but it is the
absolutism of law; there is a democracy, more
honourable to the advancing intelligence of the
world than either Athens of old or New York
P2

212

GREAT BRITAIN.

in modern times has furnished as an example
to history, for it is the only democracy that has
proved itself reasonable.

Where constitutional

freedom, the crown of the subject, is held in
reverence by an executive, still conscious that
the eye of liberty has ere now tamed the lionlike glare of even royal prerogative, and where,
at the same time, loyalty to the sovereign, like
a law of nature, unwrit but universal, pervades
all classes of society, there is necessarily attained
and exemplified the perfection of civil government.

It is true this has been achieved only

by stern, laborious, and painful processes; so
much so that Englishmen frequently feel a kind
of incredulous contempt for nations who have
essayed or who desire to occupy a position commanding similar immunities, without sufficiently
dignifying themselves by preparatory sufferings.
And in this there is some reason.

This mental

attitude is indicative of a certain mastery
achieved—of a certain truth realized.

It may

GREAT BRITAIN.

213

be doubted whether a simultaneous upheaval of
the political surface of all nations to one level
would be desirable, were it possible.

The con-

stitutions of nations are almost as various as the
productions of nature ; and while, materially, the
populations flourish by the cultivation and interchange of their own peculiar produce,—their
political welfare, it is also apparent, is better
secured by each one striving to perfect its appropriate institutions than by vainly endeavouring
to naturalise others of an alien growth, and
perhaps uncongenial habit.

These institutions

it is pretty safe to consider in the light of political optimism, and at periods of ordinary quiescence as not far from the best applicable to
their possessors.

Exact uniformity of govern-

ment is not only, of course, impossible, but it
may be credited that even a very near resemblance is undesirable.

Uniformity is always

dear to despotism; and now that the sanction
of Divine authority is so ready to be propounded

214

GREAT BRITAIN.

in favour of every autocratic government, the
greater the varieties by which communities are
demarked the better; for variety involves, more
or less, covert antagonism; antagonism, selfreliance ; self-reliance, safety.
It is undoubtedly an advantage to a State to
have a clear and definite line of policy; so that
not only its own principles and practice may
coincide, but that other nations may know what
it is prepared to do—what to defend, and to
shape accordingly their own course.

Up to the

close of the great revolutionary war in 1815,
this was manifestly the case with Great Britain.
The supremacy of the seas and the independence of the continental nations, as opposed to
the aggressive domination of France, were the
objects for which she strove, and which to a
certain extent, in concert with others, she
gained.

This was a conservative policy.

From

the period immediately succeeding, owing to
the cessation of war and the introversion of the

GREAT BRITAIN.

215

national mind exclusively on its own domestic
affairs, a great reaction took place; and during
the next ten years, under the auspices of Mr.
Canning, who seemed more ambitious to make a
great name than to guide consistently the course
of government, a policy was adopted of a nominally liberal character, calculated apparently
to undo almost all that his country had been
labouring to establish previously.

Because

France was still suspected—that is, within five
years of her complete overthrow—of ambitious
views towards the Pyrenees, Mr. Canning conceived the brilliant idea of effectually preventing
the realization of any such designs by stripping
Spain of the best means of support she had, not
only against France individually, but of maintaining a superior position among the nations
of Europe generally.

So, to spite France,, he

humbled Spain. " If France," said Mr. Canning,
"is to get possession of Spain, it shall not be
Spain with the Indies."

Thus, although the

216

GREAT BRITAIN.

alleged intention on the part of France was
never proved, and although nothing has ever
transpired to warrant the idea that it was entertained,—her action in Spanish affairs being
repressive, not aggressive,—all the American
colonies of Spain were encouraged, instigated,
stimulated, to revolt, and the expenses of their
respective revolutions generously paid for by the
people of this country.

Led by a Conservative

minister of Liberal leanings, Englishmen appear
to have believed, without examination, reflection, or forethought, that revolutions were the
most natural expression of popular sentiment;
and that peace, progress, prosperity, general enlightenment, wise legislation, with no hostilities
more sanguinary than rival arguments might
furnish to conflicting politicians, were confidently to be looked for from a people so eager
to secure the enjoyment of public rights and
national independence.

Debts, it was urged,

were easy to be discharged where an unlimited

GREAT BRITAIN.

217

supply of silver was to be had for merely
mining.

The independence of the colonies was

proclaimed; and what has been the result?
Have they redressed, as the eloquent minister
announced, the balance of the Old World ? or
rather, while the mother-country has been
slowly but perceptibly improving for many
years, have not her degenerate offspring been
as sensibly receding into a lawless, unprincipled, denationalized condition?

Misled by

false notions of the value of political liberalism, and taking no security for the just influence of station and property, and the consecration and elevation of law, it has been the
policy of this country notably in recent times—
and of the United States uniformly and naturally, because their diplomatists knew what lay
before them—to support every successive change
of government that promised more liberality
than its rival.

But it is not liberality that

society wants in such conditions; it is stability.

218

GREAT BRITAIN.

Mexico, in little more than thirty years, has
passed through every form of which mis-government is capable, from military monarchy to
perfect anarchy.

An armed faction enters, say

by the south, a certain town, which it squeezes
like an orange, and departs; the following day
a hostile band enters by the north, and pares it
to the core. Doubtless the major part of the
Mexican people, at the present moment, to
judge from the satisfaction exhibited during
recent events by the inhabitants of Hayti, would
be glad enough to be taken again under the old
dominion.

In the mean time France, Spain,

and England, having each their separate and
crying grievance against this wilful, worthless, and incompetent creation—the triumph of
British liberalism, are unitedly despatching a
force, both military and naval, to Mexico, not of
necessity for the purposes of war, but of a certainty to administer a just reproof, by taking
from her the control of some portion of those

GREAT BRITAIN.

219

resources which she has so long neglected or so
industriously misapplied, and directing them to
more honest and useful ends.

If injudicious

counsels on her part should unhappily render
direct hostilities necessary, still it must be confessed that as in this case there cannot be a
scruple of doubt as to which party is in the
right and which in the wrong, warlike measures may be sometimes viewed as the expression of the reason of a nation; as it is not
unfrequently more rational to effect an object
by force than waste the world's time by a vain
appeal to unappreciated arguments.
That England should have employed her
influence in such a manner as only to bring
about a state of things in which revolution and
insurrection constitute the normal state of
society—where the only hope of the peaceable,
the orderly, and the industrious, lies in the administration of martial law, and where insult
and injury to their main benefactors have become

220

GEE AT BRITAIN.

a national custom—is a fact much to be deplored, and can only be accounted for on the
understanding that liberalism is a principle too
vague to supply a distinct policy, except at the
expense of its own consistency.
By the same species of policy it is, nevertheless, only fair to admit the independence of
Greece and of Belgium was subsequently
effected; but care was taken in those cases to
provide a more compact and duly graduated
political system, the result of which has been
so far and on the whole satisfactory.
But since the great contest between the aristocratic and democratic parties in this country,
which was closed by the passing of the Eeform
Act—a wise, just, and wholesome measure in
itself—the popular feeling and the Government,
or rather the successive Administrations,'naturally affected by it and the urgent adjurations
of the press, have tended perpetually and with
increasing velocity to a policy that can only be

GREAT BRITAIN.

described as " amateur insurrectionist."

221
Wher-

ever tidings arrive of a hostile feeling to any
government, of a threatening movement, of an
incipient agitation in any quarter of the world—
Ireland, India, and the Ionian Isles excepted—
to that quarter our sympathies are immediately
directed—though as destitute, it may be, of all
true direction as the gyrations of the needle in
a tropical storm—and loudly and unmistakeably
expressed.

Whether such ought to be the con-

duct of this country, and whether we are acting
in a worthy or dignified manner, or on a principle
we should approve of as applied to ourselves,
a very little reflection on the present course of
things will enable an impartial judgment summarily to decide.
In the solution of many important political
questions which mainly affect particular States
in certain relations, England, by means of her
vast social activity, public discussion, and open
press, will always be found to have a direct

222

OEEAT BEITAIN.

interest, if only of an internal character; for it
is the speculative opinions of multitudes, or of
eminent individuals on these points, which
demark parties and decide the incidence of
policy.

The greater, of course, is the necessity

in such matters both of caution and consistency.
With regard to the resuscitation of extinct
nationalities, for which the aid and sympathy
of Great Britain are so often invoked, it
may be worth while in the first place to ask
ourselves the question whether any combination of forces, territorial, general, or religious,
in presence of the virtual council of Powers
which presides over the international affairs of
Europe, could effect upon the whole a more just
or safe equilibrium of interests than that which
at present exists ? A negative answer will, it
is strongly suspected, be found necessary.
The resuscitation of Poland is one of these
political problems which, like perpetual motion

GREAT BRITAIN.

223

—on the theory that everything that is possible
has a comparative degree of probability, hangs
upon men's minds with a kind of uncouth
fascination, which is only lamentable when
they remember that at the time of its first
division England was squabbling with Spain
about the Falkland Islands; and at its second,
occupied in barren hostilities with France
about the possession of Corsica.
posing Poland

And sup-

made independent, does it

not occur that a vast deal might be said by
sympathetic Poles in favour of reviving the
extinct kingdom of Wales ? Did not his late
majesty King Edward, of glorious memory, perpetrate unheard-of enormities in the reduction
of that ancient and illustrious nation—a nation
possessing its own laws, literature, social institutions of the very freest character, perfect
independence, a long line of kings and sages
whose pedigrees of thousands of years are still
preserved, and in some cases perpetuated to

224

GKEAT BHITAm.

the present day ? And what could a barbarous
Power like England say in reply ?
Eussia is troubled with Poland.

The uni-

versal press of this country immediately adopts
the cause of Poland.

Nothing appears so pro-

bable from the temper of the democratic party
in Europe at the present hour as that an
attempt will be made to effect the resuscitation
of Poland; and although the moral assistance
of France, who has too long played the part
of a disturber of nations, and of England may
be assumed, nothing appears so unlikely to
succeed; and if we consider that that event
implies the successive or simultaneous overthrow of the military power of two empires and
one great Protestant kingdom; and when it
is remembered that the establishment of the
latter was acquiesced in by England at the
time, principally as forming a counterpoise
to the oppressive influence throughout the
Continent, of the Germanic Empire ; and

225

GREAT BRITAIN.

that the effect of such a change would be the
foundation of another Catholic Power as a
member of the great European Council of
States, it may be seriously doubted what would
be the ultimate gain to society in the sum of
constitutional government or moral and intellectual liberty.
Hungary is a trouble to Austria.

Imme-

diately our publicists, many members of Parliament, many provincial leaders of public
opinion, and others, issue or deliver stirring
appeals to the British people in favour of
Hungary as an independent Power.

Enough

has probably been said upon this question.

It

remains only to add that in their last movement the Hungarians have plainly taken up a
position where they will inevitably find themselves on the exhausted side of the process.
When passive resistance ends in the voluntary
abnegation of all government and machinery of
administration among a people, the wisdom of
Q

226

GBEAT BBITAIN.

such a course, or the sublimity of such a spectacle becomes very doubtful; especially when
it is remembered that this is done in a country
not of backwoods or deserts, where it might be
difficult to supply another administrative body
on the moment; but that side by side with it is
a government from the highest to the lowest
offices duly organised and prepared to fill up
immediately every vacant place that occurs.
Such conduct looks more like fatuity than anything else.
But has Hungary any grievance to complain
of which our Hungary would not be glad to
adopt by exchange for some of her own ?

Do

both complain that they are prohibited from
public meetings of a political character, and
from bearing arms, the distinctive ensigns of
freemen, which every boy in England or Scotland may bear ? Yet which of them is it that
has to complain of the last insult that can be
offered to a subjected state, their compulsory

&REAT BEITAIN.

227

support of a religion which is in their eyes
odious and heretical?—a mark of thoughtful
and humane legislation by which one of the
poorest peoples in Europe are called to pay
twice over for the exercise of their religious
duties,—a proof of civil and national equality
which would be in England unendurable, in
Scotland unattemptable.

Which of them is

it that has to complain that

a barbarous

outrage on the rights of humanity, in which
old men, women, and children were turned out
roofless from their homes on the bleak hillside ; which, if a specimen of episcopal Christianity, is carefully to be distinguished from
the hospitable duties enjoined on the Christian
episcopacy ; and which if it had occurred in the
steppes of Eussia, or the sands of Africa, or the
forests of Brazil, would have called forth indignation meetings in almost every town in England, only happening in Ireland, moved not
our sympathy at all ? It moved not the less^,
Q2

228

GEE AT BRITAIN.

let us remember, the sympathy of France.

It

moves not the less the kindly jeers of Austria
at British inconsistency.
It may not be denied that a distinction is to
be drawn between the policy advocated by the
public organs of opinion and the policy found
practicable by Government; for Governments
are responsible not only to their respective
peoples but to the free opinion of other Governments, and of the world generally.

But in

consequence of this inconsistency—and many
a home truth is administered in despatches
which if seen at all by a discerning public it is
fain to admire in the shape of blanks and
asterisks—the Government of this country has
lately almost confined itself to the so-called
policy of non-intervention.

This, if honestly

carried out, may be as justifiable in certain
cases as any other.

But non-intervention in

case of a flagrant invasion of another's rights
may be as radically base as the offence itself;

GKEAT BRITAIN.

229

and as utterly impolitic as can be conceived.
And again, non-intervention which is intervention under a disguised name, which is in fact
sub-intervention, can be neither honest nor in
any way satisfactory.

If indeed non-interven-

tion loses its genuine character of wise impartiality and entire abstinence, it may prove both
wrong and injudicious in any indefinite degree.
Attention has been previously directed to
Italy. The eyes of the world are still upon her.
Great Britain, adopting nominally this principle
—if such it can be called—of non-intervention,
has been aiding and abetting Sardinia in her
attack upon the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
First, let it be shown with what means; and
secondly, with what results.

At the outset it

was decided that our moral assistance was to be
accorded. But of course, as that did not amount
to much, certain legal authorities were fortunate
enough to discover, whether in Vattel or Blackstone does not appear, that moral aid meant

230

GBEAT BEITAIN.

volunteer forces, of which the Government were
supposed not to know.

However impressive

may be the effect under the most solemn circumstances of " winking Virgins," it cannot be
denied that this must have been at least rivalled
in the emphatic operations performed by the
nictitating membranes of certain official dignitaries at that time in our House of Commons.
Now volunteer forces such as these were—and
their composition need not be characterised—despatched abroad, appear open to every possible
objection.

They are unsatisfactory generally to

the people desiring aid; they are ill-assorted, illregulated, wanting in that common bond and
esprit de corps which is the foundation of military companionship and military honour; and
in fact they are mostly no better than the
lowest class of mercenaries, mere eondottieri.
The Government that permitted them is not
responsible for their conduct; and at the same
time the Government accepting their assistance

GREAT BRITAIN.

231

has not the direct control over them; being
hampered partly by unwillingness to incur the
displeasure of a friendly people, and other considerations, when correction and example might
be reasonably required.

These considerations

were thoroughly exemplified in the conduct of
those who so worthily represented England in
the hostilities which took place at Naples; and
which induced the great volunteer himself,
their leader, to exclaim, no doubt with the
heartiest honesty, when quitting the country,
" Thank God! I have done with the British
volunteers !"
It becomes a great nation either to engage in
war, if it should prove unavoidable, avowedly,
and for the recognised purposes of war; or to
keep peace altogether.

But this peddling,

shufflings underhanded, amateur revolutionism
is equally opposed to honour and to common
sense.
The results, in the next place, of this policy,

232

GREAT BRITAIN.

in which it must be admitted that the Government and the public frankly and wholly
coincided, may be worth considering.

Prance,

by her superior weight and activity, intelligence, and material resources, by all the
sympathies of the Gallo-Eoman race, of which
she is the head, with its subdivision of Kelt and
Iberian, by identity of religion and contiguity
of position, draws irresistibly along with her
wherever she may tend, both Spain and Belgium.

To these may now be added virtually

Italy. In case of a general war, such as Europe
has once seen, none of these separately could
resist; they must therefore in all probability be
looked upon as her subordinate allies.

In case

of a war between England and France, which
would be partly carried on in the Mediterranean,
Italy, exposed to invasion as she is by France,
must speedily choose her side; and which that
must be, her geographical position and various
other considerations leave no room for conjee-

GREAT BRITAIN.

233

ture.

It is necessary to go back for a year or

two.

When the war undertaken by the Em-

peror of France which issued in the independence of Northern Italy, and when, by the
absorption of Tuscany and the other duchies
into the Sardinian dominions, the undue preponderance of Austria in the Peninsula was
done away, and for the future effectually guarded
against, the Emperor had obviously fulfilled the
pledges indicated in his expression of " freeing
Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic."

For he

had no wish, it is manifest, either to destroy the
kingdom of Naples, or to render Italy one kingdom ; which was an event precipitated, contrary
to his own views, by the ambition of Count
Cavour; and as yet only nominally realised. It
may be that France was not desirous to see an
united Italy.

But whether that be or be not

the case, it is here where England may very
possibly feel first the consequences of the derangement of the balance effected by the recent

234

GREAT BRITAIN.

innovation, if it proves of sufficient strength to
perpetuate itself.
But seeing that the northern part of Italy,
having broken from Austria, has become attached
to France, and will indeed always be subsidiary
to that Power, it would have only appeared reasonable that England should have desired to
see the southern portion of the peninsula in an
independent condition. A few years ago Naples
was at all events a rival of, and might have been
at any time a check to, Sardinia, with an equal
army and a superior fleet; and the Government and people attached to us, and England
to them by mutual favours and reciprocal gratitude,—England always acknowledging the immense utility on a former occasion which the
ports of that Power, when friendly, were to her.
But now all these conditions are reversed, and
the whole weight of benefit, past and prospective, is transferred to France, whose policy it
has always been to extend her influence over

CKREAT BRITAIN.

all the Mediterranean States.

235

In this we have

teen generously aiding her. But suppose Italy
arrayed against her, what would be likely to become of Sardinia then, with the finest harbour
in the Mediterranean, and its inviting position
between Corsica and Algeria ?
Such have been and are likely to be the effects
of a supposed liberal policy towards Naples,—
a policy which is entirely independent of the
question whether Ferdinand was despotically
inclined, or whether the administration of the
laws was not grossly abused.

The withdrawal

of the constitutions granted to Naples and
Sicily at different times by Ferdinand and his
father was, it must be understood, a compulsory
act, for which history witnesses, on their part,
that the Austrian Government was responsible;
and which certainly in any just view of things
cannot be brought forward as a plea for the dethronement of their successor.

His faith was

unimpeached, his personal conduct was irre-

236

GREAT BRITAIN.

proachable; he had only just succeeded to the
crown, when his dominions were surreptitiously
and unwarrantably attacked by a horde of vagrant adventurers from every country, and an
ominously disproportioned contingent of deserters from almost every army in Europe.
Surrounded by treacherous advisers and an
incompetent ministry, he had had neither
time to mature nor opportunity to prepare
organic

improvements in the

constitution,

while Italy was still vibrating from the shock
of war.

The constitution, nevertheless, which

in spite of ministerial treachery and incapacity—in spite of the poltroonery of an army
which surrendered at the discharge of a feu
de joie, and of a navy which sold itself to the
enemy in the sight of its sovereign—the King
did offer to his country, wTas at least as liberal
as that which is found so satisfactory in Sardinia.

But this was refused, on the plea that it

also might be withdrawn.

The worthlessness

GREAT BRITAIN.

237

of this plea is manifest, as well as the fact that
the refusal was instigated at Turin, from the
consideration that Austrian influence being no
longer to be feared, it depended solely upon
the people themselves whether they thought
proper or not to guard and give effect to their
most cherished rights. Possibly the character of
our own King John was not all that his people
wished; but they having once got hold of their
Magna Charta were quite willing to accept the
responsibility of seeing it duly executed.

It

rested entirely with the Neapolitans themselves whether this constitution remained a
dead letter or not.

But the people, bewildered

by the glamour of a romantic outrage and a brilliant atrocity, signed away their heritage among
the ranks of royal nations to accept at the hands
of a guerilla captain the position of a state discrowned, and a subjugated and insulted province.
In this condition they remain for the present,
bitterly but hopelessly repentant, while no fewer

238

GKEtEAT BRITAIN.

than six Eoyal Lieutenants in twenty months
have testified to the grateful enthusiasm with
which the Sardinian authority has been accepted; and no fewer than sixty thousand
troops, under the leadership of a man distinguished for severity of discipline, are necessary
to moderate the transports of the people at the
sight of their Piedmontese deliverers.
I t can hardly be disputed that the influence
of all regularly-organised States, as any government is better than anarchy, ought naturally
to be exerted rather in favour of amending such
institutions, whether native or foreign, as require it, than in destroying, or in permitting
them to be wantonly destroyed, whether by
internal insurrection or outward attack.

If,

therefore, instead of abiding by this dubious
principle of non-intervention where a wrong was
being openly perpetrated before their eyes, the
two great Powers, truly liberal but justly conservative, had distinctly said, " W e will not

GBEAT BBITAIN.

239

allow this outrage to proceed at the instigation
of a rapacious monarch and a mendacious minister ; but if the population of these countries
be desirous, as they doubtless and with reason
are, of a free constitution, we take it upon usy
with their consent, in the event of their not
being able to enforce the observance of it against
any attempted fraud or force on the part of the
royal authority, to guarantee it as effectually at
least as the Austrians formerly ensured the despotic government of the kingdom," the people
would have been satisfied, the independent authority of the state preserved, harmony between
the national institutions secured, and an honourable, consistent, and judicious policy justified*
For after all, good government is a far more
important matter than theoretic unity. Nor are
all unions happy or fortunate;

witness the

union of Kolmar: while that of England and
Scotland, so often appealed to, was effected not
by force, but hereditary succession.

240

GBEAT BRITAIN.

Let a moment's regard be now paid to the
Papacy.

Viewed territorially or politically, the

Papal States occupy the innermost ring of a
series of concentric circles, the first of which
comprises its nearest neighbours, Sardinia and
Naples; the next Austria, France, and Spain,
all of which are Catholic Powers; the outermost
embraces England, Prussia, Protestant Germany, Scandinavia, and Eussia, the great heretical Powers of Northern Europe.

So far

from Eome being considered as essentially
opposed to civilizing influences, it must be
admitted that Eome is the original ganglion of
intellectual Europe, and that to her the continent at large is indebted mainly for its religion,
laws, civilization, and much of its art and literature.

The Pope is primarily a spiritual,

secondarily a temporal sovereign.

In Catholic

countries, whatever their constitution, he exercises a subordinate authority.

In Protestant

States, especially our own, the sovereign autho-

GREAT BRITAIN.

241

rity is primarily of a temporal character ; in a
secondary sense, of a spiritual.

There is no

reason to be found in the nature of things why
instances of each order should not be compatible
with good government.

But there are con-

siderable parties in all states who are not only
always anxious for change, but chronically indisposed towards any particular government
under which they may happen to live.

The

present Pope signalised his advent to the Pontificate by establishing a liberal and secular
administration of the temporal affairs of his dominions, provided for by a senate, which, with
nearly a hundred members^ comprised only four
ecclesiastics; but because he did not march
fast enough with the democratic tendencies of
an extreme section of his subjects—because he
would not consent to the inconsistency of declaring war against the Austrian empire, which
no sane man, in his position, could be expected
to do—his minister, Count Rossi, a man of
R

242

GREAT BRITAIN.

liberal, enlightened views, in favour of a substantial but moderate amount of popular control over public affairs, was brutally assassinated
on the steps of the Senate-house; and His
Holiness himself besieged in his palace, and
finally compelled to exile himself from the
scene of his benevolent but ill-met exertions.
The Eome of the republican revolutionists followed ; and quickly, but by no means too soon,
came to an end.

Since that time, as might

naturally be expected, but little encouragement
existed among the better-informed and peaceably-disposed inhabitants of the Eoman States,
to induce them to persuade the Pope to repeat
his former experiment.

The state, moreover,

of Italy generally has been such as to present
but few available opportunities of such an
attempt being made.

Nor can it ever be made

until Sardinia has definitively abandoned her
senseless and outrageous ambition, and, content
with the very considerable accessions to her

243

GBEAT BRITAIN.

dominion, which she has already acquired in the
north of the Peninsula, leaves her southern
neighbours in the peaceable enjoyment of their
just rights.

A threefold division only can be

looked forward to as a permanent arrangement
of Italian affairs.

The unity of Italy is, it is

almost unnecessary to say, a delusion, which,
even if forcibly effected for a season, could not
probably long endure.

It is contrary to the

interests of the Catholic world that the Head of
their Church should be dependent on another
Power.

The Pope cannot be a subject.

Nor

can there be any reasonable doubt of the views
entertained on this matter by the most important personage connected with it, and who is
as intimately acquainted with the necessities as
he is interested in the prosperity of the Catholic
Church.

It must indeed be apparent to all,

that the interests of Catholicism generally would
emphatically dictate the propriety of preserving
the Head of that religion, which succeeds to
R2

244

GREAT BRITAIN.

power by election, independent in the matter of
temporalities ; neither seeking aggrandisement
nor dreading diminution, nor covertly soliciting
subsidies nor active aid from rivals in its favour;
and it seems very doubtful whether the internal harmony of even nominally heretic States
would be increased by the threatened destruction of the Papacy as an European sovereignty.
Eeligious institutions are all of a conservative
character, whether viewed in their doctrinal or
administrative capacity.

Eeligious influences

are progressive only in the individual, and expansible solely in the direction of the spirit of
interpretation.
England, it is true, has no precise policy
towards the Papacy, having no direct relations
with it.

But the current, or rather the torrent,

of public opinion has been manifestly, on all
sides, in favour of its total demolition as a temporal power.

Many, including some Catholics,

who are desirous of such an event, have doubt-

GREAT BRITAIN.

245

less reasons satisfactory to themselves to adduce; but that the Conservative party should
join the cry, or even Liberal supporters of Church
and State adopt it, seems scarcely reasonable:
for in this very measure, so desired and lauded,
is obviously involved the principle of all Churchtemporalities, whether pertaining to the Episcopacy or the minor dignities of our ecclesiastical
system; and they who have a Pope in every
parish, originally endowed with such temporalities as he enjoys under the auspices of some
mediaeval Papal potentate, might rationally
request him to hesitate a moment before he
altogether sanctions the vote for the deposition
of his illustrious prototype.

For the democratic

party, already, perhaps, preparing its plans in
secret, and maturing an eventual and inevitable
triumph, will not be slow to adopt a precedent at
once so ready and appropriate.

The argument

may run thus, by easy stages:—The Head of
the Catholic Church, the Bishop of Eome, does

246

GREAT BRITAIN.

not require temporalities; neither, of course,
does any minor Bishop.

The Eoman Catholic

Bishops in a Protestant country, say England,
require no temporalities.

Why should a° Pro-

testant Bishop in a Eoman Catholic country, say
Ireland?

Why even a Protestant Bishop in a

Protestant country ? Let us begin with the secularization of all Church property, and let every
priest, as in France, whatever his persuasion,
be paid by the State a just stipend, graduated
according to his titular dignity.

These are the

known views of the advanced school of democrats ; and it behoves all cautious men to beware
how they play into their hands even for the
gratification of an almost national animosity.
For if in the political turmoil of the present
times such a movement as is now on foot should
by haphazard succeed, and if at any time the
revenues of the Church fall into the hands of
the vanguard of democracy, the ecclesiastical
dignitaries of all establishments and of all

GREAT BRITAIN.

247

grades may perhaps regret, when too late, their
ill-omened triumph over His Beatitude, the Pope
of Eome.

The great body of English Dis-

senters swell, as might be expected from their
antagonism to State churches, the outcry against
Eome; but Dissent is also as good as established by law, and has likewise its endowments.
But the kingdom of Italy, it is said, is an
accomplished fact, and all that any one has to
do is to put up prayers for its long continuance
and prosperity.

Let it be so assumed*

There

is a tendency of the times to accept all acknowledged facts, whether arising from piety, indifference, or criminal complicity with the actors,
as events illustrative of the Providential administration of mundane affairs; and since it
would be absurd to charge prophets with presumption, it will be advisable in those who think
otherwise, to suspend the controversy until some
decisive confirmation, in the shape of national
or general advantage, may have accrued, or an

248

GREAT BRITAIN.

appropriate rectification unmistakeably designated the finality of perfect justice ; for such is
the most tangible and least fallible test by
which is manifested the accordance of any event
with Divine decrees.
In the mean time, although it is distinctly
within the modern historic period that the
Cantons of Switzerland were seen, like mountains from the waters of the Flood, slowly and
one by one emerging from the obscurity of unrecognised existence, to open and majestic welcome as a sovereign State among the brotherhood of independent nations, yet neither is it
often that the very "incunabula gentis" have
been so closely observed nor so patently displayed through the many complicated processes
of diplomacy and war, as in the case of the
Italian kingdom.

For although it could not be

proved that the kingdom of Italy, like that of
Borne, was founded upon open violence and unmeasured falsehood; like that of Carthage, on

, GREAT BRITAIN.

249

consummate treachery and more than Machiavellian perfidy; like that of Macedon, on the
reckless infringement of all national treaties,
all rights, all courtesies of friendly governments; like one that shall be nameless, on a
plot which an European statesman would have
hesitated to believe capable of conception by
even a renegade Vizier: yet indications, it is
to be feared, both of force and fraud, as is too
probably the case in the early histories of all
nations, have somewhat gloomily illuminated
the initials of her career.
It will be fortunate, indeed, for some yet
living, and still more for the memory of others
now gone, if circumstances such as these should
prove able to vindicate for themselves successful exemption from a fate consecrated by
the almost universal experience of humanity in
every age; for otherwise, to the shadowy sovereignties of Cyprus and Jerusalem, already so
productive and enjoyable to the ambitious House

250

GREAT BRITAIN.

of Savoy, may be added the equally misty magnificence of the royalty of Italy.
The relations of Great Britain to America
at the present moment naturally occupy the
general mind.

In the war now raging between

the elder and younger of the two governments
into which the late United States are practically
divided, the elder assumes that our sympathies
ought to be directed exclusively to herself. But
it somewhat strangely happens that England
sympathises with both, and can yet conscientiously decline to assist either.

The American

contest does not represent a single question
only, but rather a chain of questions. Take first
the view of the Union politically.

The North

has always talked aggressively of Canada; the
South, of Mexico, Cuba, and the British West
Indies.

But by the disunion these questions,

if not absolutely dismissed from all apprehension, are deferred indefinitely. By disunion the
two Powers are calculated beneficially to mode-

GREAT BRITAIN.

251

rate each other's proceedings, and to render
impossible for the future any such things as
Ostend manifestoes.

Nor AYOUM there be any

cause for regret in such a circumstance to Americans themselves—nothing that would be inimical to their vast and destined progress. But
progress is as different a thing as possible from
conquest.

The balance of power was, in fact,

needed in America as distinctly as it is in
Europe.
In the commercial view of the question, the
North, it may be said, has succeeded for many
years in establishing for its exclusive benefit a
high protective tariff, of which the Southern
States were directly, and Great Britain indirectly, the appointed victims.

This protective

system of the Northern manufacturers formed
the only important question, besides Slavery^
upon which a libration of internal interests could
be established; and the twin lobes of the national brain—their Parliament and their Press

252

GREAT BRITAIN.

—discharge the perpetually accumulating batteries of thought and sentiment by which they
were supplied from the entire system of the
body politic.

For whether on the summit of

the mountain, or the side of the sea, or the
heart of the forest, these questions everywhere
confronted each other.

Both these questions

had long ago arrived at maturity.

It was time

their claims should be settled; they were incompatible with—indeed they were insufferable
of—each other; and it had long been evident
that no settlement, short ofthat to be effected
by an armed struggle, could be satisfactory.
That struggle, still pending, is partly a contest
of race.

Commercially, there can be no doubt

England sympathises with the South, both in
the abstract and in the practical view of the
matter of Free Trade ; for, with us, it involves
the material welfare of millions engaged in
manufacture, and indeed the general prosperity
of the country.

GREAT BRITAIN.

253

Socially, again, there can be no doubt that
our national regard towards the two great antagonists is about equally divided; for one is
fighting for unity of dominion, concerning which
a kind of craze has pervaded pohtical circles in
England and Europe generally during the last
few years; and the other for independence;
and though this appears to a judicial mind an
object, in a moral point of view, at least equally
worthy with the other, yet considerations connected with physical and superficial aspects of
things attract, as might be expected, a more
numerous class of supporters'.
But, morally, there exists another and deeper
cause of antagonism between the elder and
younger Powers, in which, it must be confessed,
neither is sufficiently humane or sincere to
secure the unqualified moral support of England.

Even the extreme Abolition party in

the North do not stand upon the same platform
as England in reference to this question. They

254

GREAT BRITAIN,

have neither made the same sacrifices, nor
shown the same disposition to meet the legitimate consequences of the sacrifice when made.
Either the coloured classes, for instance, must
be treated with consideration socially, and some
approach to civil equality, or emancipation is a
mockery.

A people which refuses to eat, drink,

sit, walk, talk, or worship with another does so
either because naturally and justly superior to
the other, or because they are hostile.

For if

equal, why endeavour to effect a theoretic level
which practically you will not recognise ? If
friendly, why assume such a repulsive and repressive attitude ?
But the truth is, there is insincerity on both
sides; for while one endeavours to justify practical inhumanity as an alleged necessary element of the institution, the other asserts the
institution itself to be incapable of reconcilement with Christianity, or piety indeed of any
description.

In this view of the case, it need

GREAT BRITAIN.

255

scarcely be added, the religious public of England unanimously coincide.

But they who have

listened—true, these are not many—to the arguments of any serious and intelligent Southerner
on this matter, have some difficulty in subscribing unconditionally to this, even when
dignified by the circumstance of its being known
to be the John Bull view of the question.

" If

Abraham," he says," and all the Hebrew patriarchs possessed slaves, the fact of ownership
cannot be considered as absolutely incompatible
with personal piety or acceptance with Deity.
In the Gospels, though the word slave is repeatedly introduced, slavery is never denounced
as an institution by the Saviour; and although
the English translation uses invariably the word
servant, yet the Greek doulos, if meaning anything, certainly means slave.

So too, it may

be said by the way, with the Latin servus. All
words indicative of a diminished force in the
original idea of servitude, which was slavery,

256

GREAT BRITAIN.

and suitable indeed to the artificial delicacy of
modern life, and the intricate classification of
existing society, are, so to speak, transparent
shadows of expression, which the ancients, if
ever, rarely, and the writers of the Sacred
Volume never, studied or attempted to convey.
But in the Pauline Epistles undoubtedly is the
most critical authority to be found for the regulation of opinion among Christians upon this
institution.

Now Paul, unlike the remainder

of his apostolic brethren, was, in all likelihood,
born a gentleman; speaking of him, therefore,
in his unregenerate days, it may be allowable to
say of him that he had received the advantages
not only of private tuition, but of a university
education; he might have been called, by an
approximation to our modes of speech, a Tarsus
man, or a Tarsonian; he had read the Greek
dramatists, and had probably been present at the
Olympic Games; he had seen something of the
world; he had travelled considerably, and had

257

GREAT BRITAIN.

suffered proportionately; he was the Ulysses of
the new dispensation; he knew mankind intimately—was familiar with all classes; he addressed alike unlettered multitudes and kings
and governors, priests and philosophers, the
learned, the powerful, the humble, with that
perfect self-possession, freedom, and effect which
is Jthe singular privilege of genius inspired by
faith, and tempered by the gracious air of a man
habituated to good society."
" "What, now," says our Transatlantic professor
of political theology, whose prolegomena we
have just listened to, " was the policy of Paul on
the point in question, at a future period of his
career?

That he was well acquainted with

the system of absolute servitude, as it existed
at the time in Greece and throughout the Eoman
empire, is obvious. But did he or said he aught
to discredit it as an institution?

Did he de-

nounce it as unholy, unnatural, or unchristian ?
By no means.

If a slave were a Christian, he
s

258

GREAT BRITAIN.

was more to Paul than a king; the king, if he
remained a wilfully ignorant pagan, less than
the meanest of his own converted followers.
Paul's policy, then, was simply obedience to all
legal and political authority, whether national
or domestic.

Weigh his conduct in regard

to Onesimus and Philemon.

Onesimus is the

slave of Philemon, and becomes, like many
others, a runaway—a fugitive slave. While in
this condition he hears the words of spiritual
freedom from the lips of the great Apostle,
to whom the distinctions of social position,
whether as Jew or Gentile, as slave or free, is
a matter of perfect indifference in relation to
the weightier interests of the immortal soul.
He instructs his convert in the way of life, and
treats him altogether in the tenderest and most
fatherly manner.

But he bids him return to

Philemon; remembering the social and legal
duties incumbent on each, he returns the now
Christianized slave to his master, with affection-

259

GREAT BRITAIN.

ate prayers for both.

The argument against

this peculiar institution as anti-Christian evidently falls to the ground."
Much of this defence is undoubtedly founded
on a true basis; but a satisfactory answer to it
is found in the fact that slavery in ancient times
and in the East, as a social, patriarchal, or domestic institution, is totally different in its main
features from the modern institution as exemplified in the West; where it is simply a cruel
commercial organization of human machinery
for purposes of traffic.

The moral feeling of

this country against it, there can be no doubt, is
therefore thoroughly justifiable; though it'sometimes happens that the opinions of strangers,
who are witnesses of the comfortable manner
in which the domestic slaves are not unfrequently lodged and treated, resembling in this
aspect the Eastern or patriarchal system, differ
from each other, and from the popular estimate
both as to its nature and the extent of the evil,
s 2

260

GBEAT BEITAIN,

Were it even granted, for the sake of argument, that the institution itself were not so
utterly condemnable on all the grounds assumed
by its general opponents in this country and
America, yet what may be justly complained of
is the total disregard in many instances—often
entirely at the option of the proprietor—often
at the ordinary junctures of commercial pressure—of those elementary rights which are the
distinctive marks of humanity as separable from
the inferior orders of nature; the rights of
marriage and parentage; the violation of which
to those who have any sensibility must be painful
in the extreme—to those who have none, bru-^
talizing in the same degree. If a certain respect
were shown to these natural rights, and one or
two others deducible from them, there would be
a ready disposition in the minds of Englishmen
to recognise to a given extent the exigencies of
a state of society for which the present generation is not exclusively answerable, provided that

GREAT BRITAIN.

261

the labouring and suffering race were not without
some attempted alleviation of their lot.

But at

present it cannot be disguised that an impression prevails on this side the water that both
sections of the great republic are equally guilty
of much needless and unjustifiable inhumanity
towards the black and coloured races; that with
a vast superiority of legal and constitutional
privileges peculiar to themselves,—with intelligence and education, more widely spread than
among any population on the face of the earth,
—with a deep and innate devotion to civil and
religious liberty,—the community as a whole
contrast unfavourably in their treatment of the
African and his descendants with the less free,
less liberal, less enlightened, and less moral
nations of Mexico and Brazil.
If the question of slavery, therefore, be the
root of the war—as there can be no doubt it is—
it becomes a reasonable inference to draw, that
the purification and general amendment of the

262

GBEAT BRITAIN.

Institution on the one side, and on the other the
more liberal and humane treatment of the interjacent classes, would constitute the best example
they could set each other of a desire to return
to a pacific order of affairs.

A peace effected

on such a basis would indeed be an honour to
the whole community, a satisfaction to the kindly
feelings of our nature, and a clear gain to universal humanity.

England would glory in such

a result; and one frequent cause of misunderstanding and bitterness between the various
circlets by which the moral and religious world
is intersected would be happily removed.
The first duty of the framers of all governments, whose horoscope was so cast as to promise
to the native an ordinary degree of longevity,
has been to save the people from themselves.
This can only be effected by the maintenance
of the natural elementary division of society
into classes, not necessarily the crude and glaring
systems of India or Egypt, but one in which an

GREAT BRITAIN.

263

efficient and self-regulating equilibrium speedily
manifests itself, and the primary distinctions of
which, as civilization, intelligence, and the moral
harmonies of the world expand themselves,
become more and more softened into secondary
and indeed innumerable varieties. But the distinctions still subsist; and it is no longer a truth
clamouring to be recognised, but one acknowledged and appreciated, that it is classes, not
masses, that form the true basis of all representative and constitutional government.

What

the English people would wish to see their
Transatlantic brethren enjoy would be a constitution in which there should not be illustrated
every imaginable relaxation of political law ; a
suffrage, for instance, compressed within such
limits as should render the holders of it distinguishable ; a mode of voting, by which the
elector's exercise of his right or trust should
be as clearly ascertainable by the public as the

264

GREAT BRITAIN.

opinions of the candidates; a house of representatives which should exemplify and interpret the opinions and views of the thoughtful,
educated, and intelligent classes of society—
those which ought to be the most influential in
the State, but whose natural authority is unhappily neutralised by the indiscriminate operation, politically, of the immense inorganic mass
of the community, full of impulse, void of conscience; and a senatorial institution which,
being based upon some more dignified foundation than a six years' tenure of office, might be
endowed with the courage and independence
requisite to fulfil the duties of its theoretical
position in rectifying the errors of passion, or
ignorance, or selfishness, to which the multitude
•—the majority, it is sad to think—have been
in all ages of the world, and always comparatively must be, liable; but who in this case, by
an anomaly of state polity which it is impos-

GREAT BRITAIN.

265

sible to justify, are themselves the original
source and ultimate judge of an authority it is
at their option periodically to depose.
* Doubtless a more general and more genial
regard exists between England and America
than between any other independent nations in
the world; and it is the sincerest wish of every
true Englishman that the issues of the present
contest may be overruled to the ultimate benefit
of the States themselves, and to the universal
appreciation by both countries of the blessings
and advantages of peace.

It is not Oregon,

San^Tuan, or Euatan, or any such name, that
stirs up deeply in its fountains the blood of
England or America.

If there is ever ill-feeling

simmering in the heart of either, it arises perhaps from the conviction on the part of one, of
the other's persistency in a guilty error, and
expresses itself in the other, in a refusal to
acknowledge as just the somewhat haughty
imputation of the righteousness of an inevitable

266
sacrifice.

GREAT BRITAIN.

But these feelings and the occasion

of them will probably pass away without more
serious manifestations than such as both have
become accustomed to, and which are invariably
closed, such is the goodnature of our parental
government, by the young republic's obtaining
every substantial concession she required.

Her

"manifest destiny" England acknowledges at
heart.

But the ways of statesmen are not

always the ways of Providence; these are, possibly, wiser than the speculations of the most
accomplished minister—more certain of completion than even the least ambitious projects
of nations, however intelligent or determined.
The ordeal through which she is now passing
may not improbably prove to her the process
of purification; her exaltation may be in the
house of suffering; the scars of sword and fire
that now sear her breast may peradventure
suggest prudential warnings against future dangers, and serve perhaps as an almost sacred

GREAT BRITAIN.

267

incentive to the entertainment of holier purposes, and the fulfilment of more venerable
obligations.
Having thus glanced at a fair proportion of
the higher and more prominent objects of public policy, as visible in the intercourse between
our own and other States, it Mil not be necessary, nor would it be agreeable, to enter
upon the vast sub-Alpine region of domestic
and colonial legislation.

There is only one

movement of any very noticeable

features

which has taken place within our borders recently, on which a few observations may not be
inappropriate, because expressive of a change
in the direction of national tendencies, not
only outwardly but inwardly.

Nations, as is

evident to even a cursory reader of history, do
not persevere perpetually in the same groove
of policy. Even Destiny seems to step out of her
way.

Accordingly as their change is directed

with wisdom and foresight is their prosperity or

268

GREAT BRITAIN.

decline insured.
always young.

The world is always old and
As in youth it is the physical

constitution which has first to be developed
and confirmed, all secondary advantages will
follow, God willing, but without health or
strength being but of dubious benefit to their
possessor;

so with nations exposed to the

jealousy or cupidity of surrounding Powers, just
sufficiently advanced to perceive the advantage
of those qualities which they do not themselves
possess, the consciousness of being inspired by
the purest sentiments, the nicest honour, the
justest and most generous motives, may eventually prove of no avail, unless capable of being
vindicated promptly and efficiently from any
possible insult by a correlative degree of simple
physical force—in other words, of naval and
military armaments.
Now, the naval force of Great Britain has
generally been, and possibly ought always to
be, such as is capable of bidding defiance to the

GREAT BRITAIN.

world.

269

Her policy has sometimes been, and it

may be again, to bid it, and to bide the brunt.
But her military forces, exclusive of those required for the distant possessions of the State,
are, naturally and properly, used purely for
defence.
England has no aggressive schemes in reserve
for Europe; she has her own secret sins to
answer for, but not that; and can probably
never be looked for on the Continent except
in the capacity of an ally.

But there appears

to be an instinctive feeling or premonition
throughout Europe, that times of general trouble
are in preparation.

What grounds exist for

such a sentiment do not distinctly show themselves ; nor can the quarter be predicted with
precision where the decisive outbreak is to
occur.

This vague sense of uneasiness mani-

fested itself, perhaps, with more acute symptoms in this country than elsewhere; but
fortunately, while studying experimentally, as

270

GREAT BRITAIN.

it were, the pathology of panics, England discovered at last an effectual and even agreeable
panacea in what may be called the Volunteer
tonic: a movement which is deserving of all
respect, as an expression of the national will,
not only to put itself out of danger, but to preclude anything in the guise of future fear.
How it has ramified through all classes, conquered all opposition, converted all scoffers, it
is unnecessary to relate.

The only novelty in

store for us, in connexion with the rifle-movement, that could now effect a " sensation/'
would be to read in the ' Gazette' of a corps of
Quaker artillery, commanded by the Honourable
Member for Birmingham.
Simultaneous with this movement, and with
the manifestly more warlike tone of the press
and of public opinion, as the offensive and defensive armaments of the country have kept
gradually but grandly expanding their already
colossal proportions, may be undoubtedly noted

GREAT BRITAIN.

271

the subsequent—perhaps it might be said con»
sequent—reaction in the minds of the middle
classes against further organic reform, which,
if attempted on any considerable scale, can
only be effected by the subordination of the
general interests of the elective classes to those
of one only, whose accession to more than the
most moderate degree of power has always
been fraught, as history now shows, both in
France and America, with the gravest perils.
The movement, indeed, may be looked upon
as a practical protest upon that matter of the
great electoral class; for such a body could
never consent to be ruled except by its own
representatives*
Thus fortified within and without, England
confessedly occupies a more fortunate and formidable position than she has probably ever
before held.

She has set an example ; she has

given due warning to the world; she is lavish

272

GREAT BRITAIN.

in her offers of advice; she is mistress of many
accomplishments: like Pallas, she wields at
home the distaff, abroad the spear.

She sur-

veys her well-peopled cities, and her richlycultivated fields, and is not wholly unconscious
of her charms, nor indisposed to cherish them
at present in their integrity.

"But a little

less spite in her speech," says a voice from
across the Channel; " and a little more congruity between her words and deeds," adds a
guttural-toned orator, still further in the distance, would much enhance her merits and
her attractions.

It is not enough that a

press should think openly; it should speak
consistently and judiciously.

Yet the English

press, after persisting without any authority in
ascribing to the pen or the immediate dictation
of the French Emperor every violent and reckless pamphlet which has appeared in Paris
during the last three years, now accuses him

273

GREAT BRITAIN.

of furious despotism in requiring the signature
of the writer to this mischievous class of publications.

It is not the act of an honest, or if

honest, not of a prudent spectator, when nations
are struggling with the embarrassments of external war or internal rebellion, when a people
are endeavouring to obtain the advantages of
constitutional government, to ridicule or depreciate their attempts. Was the constitution of
England satisfactorily adjusted at once ? Was
the representation immediately made perfect? Is
there any one ready to die for the belief that it
is so now? Nor is it thought kind or considerate
to assist in hounding on the pack of insurrectionary cries which usually beset a government
at such a moment. I t would be better for England, if tempted to such an act, to think of her
own condition and conduct in 1798 ; to reflect,
indeed, upon all she has done in Ireland since
the days of the truly pious and conscientious
T

274

GREAT BRITAIN.

Puritans, who desolated it from one end to
the other, with fire and sword, and rapine;
and then let her blame, with that haughty air
and bitter tone, so natural in one whose reputation is perfectly pure, so fascinating in
any whose career, like hers, is irreproachable,
the mild and dignified forbearance displayed
at the present moment by a great continental
empire towards a froward, fractious, and selfish
member of its dominions.

It were better that

the foreigners whom we so cordially despise—
every nation despises foreigners—each one in
his separate version of national events, should
not have to record, that while England never
hesitated to put down with a mercilessly rigid
arm the slightest uprising of rebellion in her
own domains, she never scrupled to instigate
and justify it in those of even friendly governments ; whereby her conduct, history, and propensities seem perpetually and diametrically

GREAT BRITAIN.

275

at variance with each other; for it is not such
recollections that will make her friends, when,
if ever—which Heaven forefencl!—the hour of
peril may come upon her.

THE END.

LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.