“At times, in a patronizing way to curry favor with us, the English claim relationship, but none scarcely admit that we have anything except what we borrow, that is stolen from her, and even that we do not speak the English language. I have really been asked by educated Englishmen if we speak English in America.
“Whatever we have from England we owe nothing to her aristocracy or her government that should fill her with pride.
“I have lately read a book on the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The writer claims that they are found in the English, his own people. He goes to prophesy, which is convincing. There is such a similarity between Israel and the English that there should not be a doubt hereafter on the subject. The Jews believed in a God who belonged solely to them, looked after their interests and fought for them. Their wars were always righteous while those of their enemies were always wicked. The English also have their God and believe He is always on their side. The Jews consider all other people as Gentiles created for their benefit. Do not the English the same?
“As long as the United States were colonies there was not a factory allowed in them or the people permitted to make their own hats or shoes or clothing. The raw products had to be shipped to England for the profit of her manufacturers and the goods returned at a great cost to the poor colonists. Here is an interesting note that I made a few days ago; ‘To help their manufacturers of woolen goods a law was passed in 1678 that all dead bodies should be wrapped in woolen shrouds.’ One of their writers says of England, ‘It formed colonies that the mother country might enjoy the monopoly of their trade by compelling them to resort only to her markets.’ It is only a few years since Ireland was allowed to spin and weave her own flax or to manufacture anything. It is not long since India was permitted to establish its first factory, and is it not true to-day that although India has an abundance of iron, coal, cotton, timber, everything needful, yet all the government supplies must be indented for from England for the benefit of her manufacturers and commission men? Is not England jewing India at every turn for her own benefit? Did not the Jews believe in subduing the nations for the glory of God and their own pockets? Do not the English have the same belief? Moses and his band believed they were to spoil the Egyptians by ‘borrowing’ from them and then claimed that their God had taught them this trick of amassing wealth. Do not the English believe also in spoiling the Egyptians? But they reverse the order and instead of borrowing, they loan to the dwellers by the Nile at exorbitant rates of interest like an uncle with brass balls, and then like a Shylock, demand the pound of flesh and blood nearest the heart of their victims; but unlike him they take the interest and on the plea of securing their bonds, seize upon the government of that country with an army of occupation, and further increase the burdens of poor Egypt by fostering upon it a horde of English place-hunters to do nothing, at high salaries, and besides make the wretched natives, groaning under an intolerable burden of taxation support a theatre for the special pleasure of the usurpers. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; the English make merry while the miserable Egyptians are toiling and starving.
“The Jews believed in their divine right to live off the Gentiles, and the English follow their example. In short, there is so much of the Jew in the English nation I wonder that the Ten Lost Tribes were not found long ago.”
After a pause and some conversation on minor matters, I asked a question about the Republican form of Government. He said: “We believe in the rights of man, that as an individual he should be free to act for himself, for his own good, the only restriction that he should not interfere with the rights of his neighbor. We believe that all men are equal, with the same political and social privileges, that each should govern himself, and all acting together, the majority to rule for the good of all, or, as President Lincoln tersely put it, ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’
“For ages it was supposed that mankind were not capable of self-government. Thence came into life, chiefs, tyrants, kings, emperors and monarchs. This was followed by the creed of the divine right of kings to place their feet on the necks of humanity. Men were enslaved, in accordance with divine laws, as it was claimed. They were made serfs, bought and sold with the land, and kept like cattle. A strong-willed man by intrigue, force and bribery, acquired an ascendency over his fellows, became the chief of a tribe, or the head of a nation, and his descendants claimed a right, by the grace of God, to what he had obtained by the number of scalps he could hang at his belt, or the number of human skulls over his gate-way; by the amount of cruelties he had inflicted, by the cities he had burned, or the lands he had devastated. The farce of it is that civilized, Christian people, appeal to Heaven, and claim that all this is by divine right and the grace of God. Is it not contrary to reason and common sense to say that any one man or family has any right to rule over another against his will? Take Napoleon? Who was he? How did he obtain his power? By what right did he acquire a privilege to rule over his fellow men, and lead four millions of them to destruction? Why should he make other nations food for his powder?
“It is passing strange that vast numbers of people, many of them very intelligent, will submit to be used by tyrants for their aggrandizement, and to gratify their personal and vain ambition! It is also strange that intelligent men, will like sycophants, toady to these self-made gods, worship and bow down before them, and consider it one of the greatest favors to be admitted to their presence and receive but a word or a look from them. They say that ‘Britons never, never never will be slaves,’ but they are the worst of toadies to those above them. This toadyism to royalty or aristocracy is one of the conundrums of modern life. Another is the cheek or impudence with which these royal aristocrats receive the homage of men, not only of the illiterate, but of those who are far superior to them in every respect. For almost without exception these ruler gods have been noted for their immorality and vices, that would make the lowest peasant blush. But few of them have been men of intellectual power, or known by their virtues, and history tells us that few of them came to their thrones like gentlemen, without violence, plundering of the public treasury, and other such refined acts. Inheriting their positions, they have been kept in their places by men of ability, whose interest or vanity it was to surround these state figureheads with an aureole of kingly glory to dazzle the masses. There is not a monarch to-day, but is in his place by might, rather than by right or by the will of the people. With all of them it is always the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, but the Gideon part of it is always to the front.”
With this interesting voyager, whatever the others thought of him, he was so breezy and full of good things, the days were very short to me. He became so well acquainted with me that he related a little incident touching that old subject which could not be dropped, though far away and out of India. He said that when walking alone the morning previous, one of the English officers accosted him with the remark, “You have become quite intimate with that Eurasian.” “With whom?” my friend inquired, not quite understanding the word. “O, that half caste,” said the gentleman. “Why, what about him?” asked the other. “He seems to be very much of a gentleman in his manner, thoughts and education, so I have taken quite a fancy to him and find him very interesting. What have you against him?” Replied the gentleman, “Nothing against him personally, but he is an Eurasian, a half caste, you know, and in India that class of people are not in society, and we never meet them in a social way, you know.”
This much my friend told me, but he said that they had quite a talk on the subject, in which he did not butter his words in denouncing such an unjust social custom and the crime that produced it. He said it was own brother to the deeds of the slave owners of the southern states of America, begetting children by their slave women, and then selling their own offspring as slaves. He remarked that one evening in a hotel at Calcutta, a planter told him that many of the planters led the freest kind of a life; that few of them were married, as they did not care to be bothered with families of their own. He mentioned a number of prominent planters by name, all of them connected with well known families in England. The planter said there were a number of titled men among them, living the most riotous, lustful lives; that nearly all these men had children by coolie women employed on their plantations; that it was customary for these planters as they went about during the day to make their selections and then order their peons to bring the women selected to their bungalows at night. He said this was so common that nothing more was thought of it, than if a man had ordered some grain for his horse. One of them, of a very aristocratic family in England, who would blush with shame if they knew his manner of life, when asked if he was married, replied, “Married! No. What the devil do I want with a wife?” Yet he had a number of children by his coolie women. When asked what would become of his children, he carelessly answered, “I have nothing to do with them. When I leave I shall give the mothers a few rupees and let them scratch for themselves.”