“My scheme, which Mr. Burke, in his last speech, of March 22, 1775, is pleased to term a childish one, is, To separate totally from the Colonies, and to reject them from being fellow-members and joint partakers with us in the privileges and advantages of the British Empire, because they refuse to submit to the authority and jurisdiction of the British legislature,—offering at the same time to enter into alliances of friendship and treaties of commerce with them, as with any other sovereign, independent state.”[453]
Then, insisting that his scheme “most infallibly cuts off all the present causes of dispute and contention between the two countries, so that they never can revive again,”[454] he establishes that commercial intercourse with the Americans would not cease, inasmuch as it cannot be shown that they “will no longer adhere to their own interest when they shall be disunited from us.”[455]
Among subsequent tracts was one entitled “Cui Bono? or, An Inquiry, What Benefits can arise either to the English or the Americans, the French, Spaniards, or Dutch, from the Greatest Victories or Successes in the Present War? Being a Series of Letters addressed to Monsieur Necker, late Controller-General of the Finances of France. London, 1782.” Here was the same ardor for separation, with the same bitter words for the Colonies.
Tardily the foresight of the Dean was recognized, until at last Archbishop Whately, in his annotations upon Bacon’s Essay on Honor and Reputation, commemorates it as an historic example. According to him, “the whole British nation were in one particular manifestly puzzle-headed, except one man, who was accordingly derided by all.” Then mentioning the dispute between the mother country and her colonies, he says: “But Dean Tucker, standing quite alone, wrote a pamphlet to show that the separation would be no loss at all, and that we had best give them the independence they coveted at once and in a friendly way. Some thought he was writing in jest; the rest despised him, as too absurd to be worth answering. But now, and for above half a century, every one admits that he was quite right, and regrets that his view was not adopted.”[456] Unquestionably this is a remarkable tribute. Kindred to it was that of the excellent Professor Smyth, who, in exhibiting the “American War,” dwells on “the superior and the memorable wisdom of Tucker.”[457]
The bad temper shooting from his writings interfered, doubtless, with their acceptance. His spirit, so hostile to us, justified his own characterization of himself as “the author of these tracts against the rebel Americans.” As the war drew to a close, his bad temper still prevailed, heightened by antipathy to republicanism, so that, after picturing the Colonies, separated at last from the mother country, as having “gained a general disappointment mixed with anger and indignation,”[458] he thus predicts their terrible destiny:—
“As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived, even by writers of romance. For there is nothing in the genius of the people, the situation of their country, or the nature of their different climates, which tends to countenance such a supposition.… Above all, when those immense inland regions beyond the back settlements, which are still unexplored, are taken into the account, they form the highest probability that the Americans never can be united into one compact empire, under any species of government whatever. Their fate seems to be—a disunited people till the end of time.”[459]
Alas! But evidently the Dean saw the future of our continent no better than the Ministry saw their duty with regard to it.
Unlike in spirit was Matthew Robinson, a contemporary friend of America, whose able and elaborate tracts[460] in successive editions are now forgotten, except so far as revived by the notice of Professor Smyth.[461] His vindication of the Colonies, at the time of the Boston Port Bill, was complete, without the harshness of Tucker, and he did not hesitate to present the impossibility of conquering them. “What expectation or probability,” he asks, “can there be of sending from hence armies capable to conquer and subdue so great a force of men defending and defended by such a continent?”[462] Then, while depicting English mastery of the sea, he says: “We may do whatever a fleet can. Very true; but it cannot sail all over North America.”[463] The productions of this enlightened author cannot have been without effect. Doubtless they helped the final acknowledgment of independence. When will the “Old Mortality” appear, to discover and restore his monument?
The able annotator of Lord Bacon was too sweeping, when he said that on the great American question all England was wrong, “except one man.” Robinson was as right as the Dean, and there were others also. The “Monthly Review,” in an article on the Dean’s appeal for separation, said: “This, however, is not a new idea. It has frequently occurred to others.”[464] Even Soame Jenyns, a life-long member of Parliament, essayist, poet, defender of Christianity, while upholding the right to tax the Colonies, is said to have accepted the idea of “total separation”:—