And, best of all, there is the quiet, simple Church of St John's, English in feeling as in origin. Though rebuilt a hundred years ago, on the site of an earlier church, it has remained loyal to its history, and is the true child of the eighteenth century. Is it not fitting that the communion-plate presented by Queen Caroline should be treasured here? That the sexton should still show you, even with a cold indifference, the stately prayer-books which once contained prayers for the king? That a bell, captured at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, should summon to the worship of God a people long forgetful of that proud achievement? Such are the evidences of an innate conservatism which has kept alive the old traditions of New England.
Thus for three hundred years Portsmouth has lived the happy life of a country town, and its historian sadly notes that until 1900 its population did not rise to 10,000. The historian need feel no regret: it is not by numbers that we may measure the stateliness of a city; and the dignity of Portsmouth is still plain for all to behold in the houses, to cite but two examples, of Governors Wentworth and Langdon, And then after this long spell of fortunate obscurity, Portsmouth became suddenly the centre of universal interest. By a curious irony this little, old-fashioned town was chosen to be the meeting-place of Russia and Japan, and the first experiment in modern diplomacy-was made in a place which has sacrificed nothing to a love of that intoxicant known as the spirit of the age. It was, in truth, a strange sight that Portsmouth saw a brief two years ago. Before its troubled eyes the stern conference of hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eager reporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange for information to the highest bidder. The representative of a great country was heard boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists of another age be ashamed of their confrère could they hear him brag of a rudimentary and long since dishonoured finesse? But the mere fact that M. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof that the New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. The congresses of old were gay and secret. "Le congrès," said the Prince de Ligne at Vienna, "ne marche pas; il danse." It danced, and it kept inviolate the obligation of silence. The Congress at Portsmouth did not talk—it chattered; and it was an open injustice to the unbroken history of New England that President Roosevelt should have chosen this tranquil and ancient spot for a bold experiment in diplomacy by journalism.
Across the river lies Battery, even more remote from the world of greed and competition than Portsmouth. Here at last you discover what so often eludes you in America—the real countryside. The rough pleasant roads like English lanes, the beautiful wooden houses half hidden amid towering trees, and the gardens (or yards as they are called) not trim, like our English gardens, but of an unkempt beauty all their own,—these, with the memory of a gracious hospitality, will never fade from my mind. At Kittery, as at Portsmouth, you live in the past. There is nothing save an electric trolley and the motor engines of the fishing-boats to recall the bustle of to-day. Here is Fort M'Clary, a block-house built two centuries ago to stay the incursion of the Indians. There is the house of Pepperell, the hero of Louis-burg. Thus, rich in old associations, happy in its present seclusion, Kittery has a kind of personal charm, which is intensified by an obvious and striking contrast.
It was from Newport that I went to Kittery, and passed in a few hours from the modern to the ancient world. Not even New York gives a more vivid impression of the inappropriateness which is America's besetting sin, than Newport, whose gay inhabitants are determined, at all costs, to put themselves at variance with time and place. The mansions, called "cottages" in proud humility, are entirely out of proportion to their site and purpose. On the one hand you see a house as large as Chatsworth, bleak and treeless, with nothing to separate it from its ambitious neighbours but a wooden palisade. It suggests nothing so much as that it has lost its park, and mislaid its lodges. On the other, you see a massive pile, whose castellated summit resembles nothing else than a county jail. And nowhere is there a possibility of ambush, nowhere a frail hint of secrecy. The people of Newport, moreover, is resolved to live up to its inappropriate environment. As it rejoices in the wrong kind of house, so it delights in the wrong sort of costume. The vain luxury of the place is expressed in a thousand strange antics. A new excitement is added to seabathing by the ladies, who face the waves in all the bravery of Parisian hats. To return unsullied from the encounter is a proof of the highest skill. Is it not better to preserve a deftly-poised hat from the mere contact of the waves than to be a tireless and intrepid swimmer?
Newport, in fact, has been haunted by a sort of ill-luck. It has never been able to make the best of itself. There was a time when its harbour bade fair to rival the harbour of New York, and when its inhabitants fondly believed that all the great ships of the world would find refuge under the splendid shadow of Rhode Island. And when this hope was disappointed for ever, Newport still possessed in herself all the elements of beauty. Whatever exquisite colour and perfect situation could give, was hers. What more can the eyes of man desire than green lawns and an incomparable sea? And there lies the old town to link the prosperity of to-day with the romance of yesterday. And there grow in wild profusion the scented hedges of honeysuckle and roses. And all of no avail. The early comers to Newport, it is true, understood that a real cottage of wood was in harmony with the place. They built their houses to the just scale of the landscape, and had they kept their own way how happy would have been the result! But beauty gave way to fashion; wealth usurped the sovereignty of taste; size was mistaken for grandeur,—in a word, the millionaire disfigured Newport to his whim.
And so it ceased to be a real place. It became a mere collection of opposing mansions and quarrelsome styles. If the vast "cottages," which raise their heads higher and higher in foolish rivalry, were swept away, no harm would be done. They are there by accident, and they will last only so long as a wayward fashion tolerates their presence. Battery, on the other hand, cannot be abolished by a caprice of taste. It is a village which has its roots in the past, and whose growth neither wealth nor progress has obscured. Above all, it possesses the virtue, great in towns as in men, of sincerity. It has not cut itself loose from its beginnings; its houses belong harmoniously to itself; and it has retained through two centuries the character of the old colonial days. Nor is it without an historical importance. Great names cling about it. The men of Battery fought on many a hard-won field against French and Indians, and, retired though it be from the broad stream of commerce and progress, it cannot dissipate the memory of loyal devotion to the crown and of military glory.
Its hero is Sir William Pepperell, soldier and merchant, whose thrift and prowess were alike remarkable. The son of a Tavistock fisherman, who pursued fortune in the New World with equal energy and success, he still further advanced his house in wealth and circumstance. Accustomed from boyhood to the dangers of Indian warfare, he was as apt for arms as for arts, and it is characteristic of the time and place that this prosperous merchant should be known to fame as the commander of a triumphant expedition. It was in 1745 that his chance came. For many years Louis-burg had afforded harbourage to French privateers, who had harried the coast of New England and captured rich cargoes of merchandise. At last Governor Shirley of Massachusetts resolved to attack it, and we may judge of the esteem in which Pepperell was held, by the fact that he was appointed to lead an expedition against a fortress deemed impregnable by the French, and known as the Dunkirk of America. His selection was a tribute not merely to his courage but to his tact. No man of his time was better fitted to control the conflicting tempers of the colonial militia, and he set forth at the head of his 4000 men under the best auspices. Being a Puritan in command of Puritans, he quickened the bravery of his comrades by a show of religious zeal. He made it plain that he was engaged in a war against papistry, and he asked George White-field, then in America, for a motto. "Nil desperandum, Christo duce," said the preacher; and thus heartened, the little fleet set sail on its triumphant journey. At first sight the contest seemed unequal. On one side was Duchambon, an experienced soldier, defending a fortress which had long been thought invincible. On the other was a plain merchant in command of no more than 4000 militiamen. But the very simplicity of Pepperell's attack ensured its success. He sailed into the harbour without warning and without fear, in the very eye of the French artillery, landed his men, and began a siege which resulted, after six weeks, in the reduction of Louisburg. It was a gallant feat of arms, marred only by the fact that a foolish Government declined to take advantage of a colonial victory. Three years later Louisburg was wickedly restored to France in exchange for certain advantages in India, and a foolish policy obscured for a while at least the eminent services of William Pepperell.
To-day the victor of Louisburg is not without fame—save in his own country. Fortunately for himself, Pepperell died before the War of the Revolution, and did not see the ruin which overtook his family. The property which had passed into the hands of his grandchildren was confiscated. They were guilty of loyalty to the crown and country for which their ancestor had fought, and the third generation was saved from the poorhouse "by the bounty of individuals on whom they had no claims for favour." In other words, Pepperell's memory was dishonoured, because in serving New England he had worn the king's uniform. In the eyes of the newly emancipated, treachery was retrospective. Pepperell's biographer explains his sin and its punishment with a perfect clarity. "The eventful life of Sir W. Pepperell," he writes, "closed a few years before the outbreak of the Revolution. Patriotism in his day implied loyalty and fidelity to the King of England; but how changed the meaning of that word in New England after the Declaration of Independence! Words and deeds before deemed patriotic were now traitorous, and so deeply was their moral turpitude impressed on the public mind as to have tainted popular opinions concerning the heroic deeds of our ancestors, performed in the King's service in the French Wars.... The War of the Revolution absorbed and neutralised all the heroic fame of the illustrious men that preceded, and the achievements of Pepperell, of Johnson, and of Bradstreet are now almost forgotten." These words were written in 1855, and they have not yet lost their truth.
For us this forgetfulness is not easily intelligible. It is our habit to attach ourselves closely to the past. If there have been conflicts, they have left no rancour, no bitterness. The winner has been modest, the loser magnanimous. The centuries of civil strife which devastated England imposed no lasting hostility. Nobody cares to-day whether his ancestor was Cavalier or Roundhead. The keenest Royalist is willing to acknowledge the noble prowess and the political genius of Cromwell. The hardiest Puritan pays an eager tribute to the exalted courage of Charles I. But the Americans have taken another view. They would, if they could, discard the bonds which unite them with England. For the mere glamour of independence they would sacrifice the glory of the past. They would even assume an hostility to their ancestors because these ancestors were of English blood. They seem to believe that if they forget their origin persistently enough it will be transformed. The top of their ambition would be reached if they could suppose that they were autochthonous,—that they sprang into being fully armed upon American soil. It irks them to think that other races have had a hand in creating "God's own country," and they are happiest when they can convince themselves that a man changes his heart and his mind as well as his sky when he leaves Europe for America. And so they pursue the policy of the ostrich. They bury the head of their past in the sandy desert of the present, and hope that nobody will detect the trick of their concealment.
In the Church of St John at Portsmouth there is, as I have said, an English prayer-book from which the page containing prayers for the king has been violently torn. This incident symbolises very aptly the attitude of America. The country has not yet recovered from the hostility which it once professed to George III. It assumes that a difference of policy always implies a moral taint. The American Colonies broke away from the mother country; therefore George III. was a knave, whose name may not be mentioned without dishonour, and all the brave men who served him in serving the colonies are dishonoured also. It is not quite clear why this feeling has been kept alive so long. Perhaps the violent rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence has aided its survival. Perhaps, too, the sense of gravity, which always overtakes the American public man when he considers what These States have achieved, is not without its weight. But whatever the cause, it is certain that shame and animosity still exist on the other side of the ocean: shame for noble deeds accomplished by brave men; animosity against a loyal antagonist, who long ago forgot the ancient quarrel and its consequence.