Volume Two—Chapter Four.
England and the United States.
Captain Hamilton has, in his work, expressed his opinion that the Americans have no feeling of ill-will against this country. If Captain Hamilton had stated that the gentlemen and more respectable portion of the Americans, such as the New York merchants, etcetera, had no feeling against this country, and were most anxious to keep on good terms with us, he would have been much more correct. You will find all the respectable portion of the daily press using their best endeavours to reconcile any animosities, and there is nothing which an American gentleman is more eloquent upon, when he falls in with an Englishman, than in trying to convince him that there is no hostile feeling against this country. (See note 1.) I had not been a week at New York before I had this assurance given me at least twenty times, and I felt inclined at first to believe it: but I soon discovered that this feeling was only confined to a small minority, and that the feelings towards England of the majority, or democratic party, were of deep irreconcilable hatred. I am sorry to assert this; but it is better be known, that we may not be misled by any pretended good-will on the part of the government, or the partial good-will of a few enlightened individuals. Even those who have a feeling of regard and admiration for our country do not venture to make it known, and it would place them in so very unpleasant a situation, that they can scarcely be blamed for keeping their opinions to themselves. With the English they express it warmly, and I believe them to be sincere; but not being openly avowed by a few, it is not communicated or spread by kindling similar warmth in the hearts of others. Indeed it is not surprising, when we consider the national character, that there should be an ill feeling towards England; it would be much more strange if the feeling did not exist. That the Americans should, after their struggle for independence, have felt irritated against the mother country, is natural; they had been oppressed—they had successfully resented the oppression, and emancipated themselves. But still the feeling at that time was different from the one which at present exists. Then it might be compared to the feeling in the heart of a younger son of an ancient house, who had been compelled by harsh treatment to disunite from the head of the family, and provide for himself—still proud of his origin, yet resentful at the remembrance of injury—at times vindictive, at others full of tenderness and respect. The aristocratical and the democratical impulses by turns gaining the ascendant it was then a manly, fine feeling. The war of 1814, the most fatal event in the short American history, would not have been attended with any increase of ill-will, as the Americans were satisfied with their successful repulse of our attempts to invade the country, and their unexpected good fortune in their naval conflicts. They felt that they had consideration and respect in the eyes of other nations, and, what was to them still gratifying, the respect of England herself. In every point they were fortunate, for a peace was concluded upon honourable terms just as they were beginning to feel the bitter consequences of the war. But the effect of this war was to imbue the people with a strong idea of their military prowess, and the national glory became their favourite theme. Their hero, General was raised to the presidency by the democratical party, and ever since the Americans have been ready to bully or quarrel with anybody and about everything.
This feeling becomes stronger every day. They want to whip the whole world. The wise and prudent perceive the folly of this, and try all they can to produce a better feeling; but the majority are now irresistible, and their fiat will decide upon war or peace. The government is powerless in opposition to it; all it can do is to give a legal appearance to any act of violence.
This idea of their own prowess will be one cause of danger to their institutions, for war must ever be fatal to democracy. In this country, during peace, we became more and more democratic; but whenever we are again forced into war, the reins will be again tightened from necessity, and thus war must ever interfere with free institutions. A convincing proof of the idea the Americans have of their own prowess was when General Jackson made the claim for compensation from the French. Through the intermediation of England the claim was adjusted, and peace preserved; and the Americans are little aware what a debt of gratitude they owe to this country for its interference. They were totally ignorant of the power and resources of France. They had an idea, and I was told so fifty times, that France paid the money from fear, and that if she had not, they would have “whipped her into the little end of nothing.”
I do not doubt that the Americans would have tried their best; but I am of opinion, (not withstanding the Americans would have been partially, from their acknowledged bravery, successful) that in two years France, with her means, which are well known to, and appreciated by, the English, would (to use their own terms again,) have made “an everlasting smash” of the United States, and the Americans would have had to conclude an ignominious peace. I am aware that this idea will be scouted in America as absurd; but still I am well persuaded that any protracted war would not only be their ruin in a pecuniary point of view, but fatal to their institutions. But to return.
There are many reasons why the Americans have an inveterate dislike to this country. In the first place, they are educated to dislike us and our monarchical institutions; their short history points out to them that we have been their only oppressor in the first instance, and their opponent ever since. Their annual celebration of the independence is an opportunity for vituperation of this country which is never lost sight of. Their national vanity is hurt by feeling what they would fain believe, that they are not the “greatest nation on earth;” that they are indebted to us, and the credit we give them, for their prosperity and rapid advance; that they must still look to us for their literature and the fine arts, and that, in short, they are still dependent upon England. I have before observed, that this hostile spirit against us is fanned by discontented emigrants, and by those authors who, to become popular with the majority, laud their own country and defame England; but the great cause of this increase of hostility against us is the democratical party having come into power, and who consider it necessary to excite animosity against this country. When ever it is requisite to throw a tub to the whale, the press is immediately full of abuse; everything is attributed to England, and the machinations of England; she is, by their accounts, here, there, and everywhere, plotting mischief and injury, from the Gulf of Florida to the Rocky Mountains. If we are to believe the democratic press, England is the cause of everything offensive to the majority—if money is scarce, it is England that has occasioned it—if credit is bad, it is England—if eggs are not fresh or beef is tough, it is, it must be, England. They remind you of the parody upon Fitzgerald in Smith’s humorous and witty ‘Rejected Addresses,’ when he is supposed to write against Buonaparte:
Who made the quartern loaf and Luddites rise,
Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Carraccas,
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos?