The effects of that awful misfortune may be found vividly described in Mr. Maguire's book, from which the above extract is taken, on the long line of march of that desolate army of immigrants, leaving its thousands of victims at Grosse Isle, near Quebec, at Pointe St. Charles, a suburb of Montreal, in Kingston, in Toronto, Upper Canada, and, finally, at Partridge Island, cpposite St. John's, New Brunswick.
America was thus destined to witness some of those scenes so often enacted on the soil of Ireland, to compassionate the people of the holy isle, to open her friendly bosom for the reception of the unfortunate beings, who in return gave her all they possessed—their faith.
But what M. de Beaumont so emphatically insisted upon, although at first seemingly contradicted by the event, was nevertheless true. England, the mighty mistress of the seas, did not possess ships enough for the purpose of transportation; and her entire navy added to all her merchant-vessels would scarcely have sufficed. Ships had to be built, steamers chiefly, in order to effect the transportation speedily, and diminish the dangers of the passage.
Then Providence worked upon the ingenuity of worldly-wise men, and set them planning and studying the question in all its bearings, to devise new schemes of transportation on a scale not dreamed of hitherto. Watt, the Stephensons, Brunel, A. Maury, and others, rose up to perfect the various steam-machines already known and in use; to investigate the currents of the ocean, the different qualities of its waters, its depth and soundings, in order to make the paths of the deep easier and surer to navigators. The ingenuity of ship-builders effected a revolution in naval architecture, and rendered possible the construction of vessels of from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand tons burden. Merchant companies and capitalists arose to embrace the whole world in their mighty speculations, studying the capabilities of all countries for trade, the most desolate as well as the most inviting, the meanest as keenly as the mightiest, linking the whole world in one vast commercial circle, that the European race might be borne on to the mercantile conquest of the universe; and all this came about, doubtless, to effect its deeper and more permanent moral conquest by the despised, doom-trodden, starving, dying Irishman, who laid claim to one arm, one possession only—his faith and the blessing of the Church.
Was not the Irish exodus intimately connected with all those events? Was it not one of the mightiest causes of all those gigantic enterprises?
But where were the funds to be found for such immense undertakings? The treasury of nations is continually drained of vast sums at home, and dare not draw away a part of its metallic basis sufficient for such a purpose. Moreover, it is limited, and needs the precious metals as a solid foundation whereon to rest, or the fabric built upon it will be the fabric of a dream, as was that of Law in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru seem exhausted; the new ones of the Ural Mountains in Northern Asia, of the Atlantic coast of North America, were not adequate to meet the demands of such mighty operations.
Suddenly, in the year 1846, a Swiss captain, transformed into a California settler, while endeavoring to turn a water-fall in his new home to some account, discovers gold-dust in the sand. As if by magic, the coast of California, hitherto neglected, difficult of access at the time, and consequently ignored by mankind, notwithstanding its wealth in mineral and vegetable productions, becomes at once the cynosure of all eyes, the hope of all hearts, the most renowned of all countries. Thither they flock in crowds prom all parts of Europe and America, and a steady flow of seventy million dollars annually is secured as a basis for the new designs of capitalists and merchants.
Other gold-fields are soon discovered all along the American coast, on the Pacific, from Lower California to Alaska, inviting men to go thither and settle, just opposite to the Asiatic Continent, separated from it only by the broad but easily- navigated Pacific Ocean.
Soon also, far away south in the antipodes, opposite to another portion of Asia, rich gold-fields are opened up in the newly- discovered Continent of Australia, attracting immigration toward another spot, whence the Asiatic nations may also be reached with greater facility and dispatch.
Whoever believes that Providence has something to do with the affairs of men; whoever is wise enough to see that this universe is not the result of chance, and that its destinies are ruled by a superior power, must admit that when events as unexpected as they are unprepared by man come to pass—events which are so connected together as to reveal the workings of a single mind and a great object at once, foreshadowed if not positively foretold, God is the designer, and a stronger hand is at work than the combined power of men and devils could successfully oppose. This is a truth which was not unknown to Homer, centuries ago, when he described Jove holding our globe suspended in space at the end of a chain, and defying all the inferior gods to move the world in a direction contrary to that given by his mighty arm.