Newton Forster; Or, The Merchant Service

by Frederick Marryat

Honestly, again you say; by treaty, by surrender, by taking from those who would have destroyed us, the means of doing injury. Honestly! say it again, that heaven may register, and hell may chuckle at your barefaced, impudent assertion.

No! by every breach of faith which could disgrace an infidel; by every act of cruelty which could disgrace our nature; by extortion, by rapine, by injustice, by mockery of all laws or human or divine. The thirst for gold, and a golden country, led you on; and in these scorching regions you have raised the devil on his throne, and worshipped him in his proud pre-eminence as Mammon.

Let us think. Is not the thirst for gold a temptation to which our natures are doomed to be subjected—part of the ordeal which we have to pass? or why is it that there never is sufficient?

It appears to be ordained by Providence that this metal, obtained from the earth to feed the avarice of man, should again return to it. If all the precious ore which for a series of ages has been raised from the dark mine were now in tangible existence, how trifling would be its value! how inadequate as a medium of exchange for the other productions of nature, or of art! If all the diamonds and other precious stones which have been collected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they once were, like all sublunary matter, they too yield to Time), why, if all were remaining on the earth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep would shake about those gems, which now are to be found in profusion only where rank and beauty pay homage to the thrones of kings.—Arts and manufactures consume a large proportion of the treasures of the mine, and as the objects fall into decay, so does the metal return to the earth again. But it is in eastern climes, where it is collected, that it soonest disappears. Where the despot reigns, and the knowledge of an individual’s wealth is sufficient warranty to seal his doom, it is to the care of the silent earth alone that the possessor will commit his treasures; he trusts not to relation or to friend, for gold is too powerful for human ties. It is but on his death-bed that he imparts the secret of his deposit to those he leaves behind him; often called away before he has time to make it known, reserving the fond secret till too late; still clinging to life, and all that makes life dear to him. Often does the communication, made from the couch of death, in half-articulated words, prove so imperfect, that the knowledge of its existence is of no avail unto his intended heirs; and thus it is, that millions return again to the earth from which they have been gathered with such toil. What avarice has dug up, avarice buries again; perhaps in future ages to be regained by labour, when, from the chemical powers of eternal and mysterious Nature, they have again been filtered through the indurated earth, and reassumed the form and the appearance of the metal which has lain in darkness since the creation of the world.

Is not this part of the grand principle of the universe? the eternal cycle of reproduction and decay, pervading all and every thing, blindly contributed to by the folly and the wickedness of man? “So far shalt thou go, but no further,” was the fiat; and, arrived at the prescribed limit, we must commence again. At this moment intellect has seized upon the seven-league boots of the fable, which fitted every body who drew them on, and strides over the universe. How soon, as on the decay of the Roman empire, may all the piles of learning which human endeavours would rear as a tower of Babel to scale the heavens, disappear, leaving but fragments to future generations, as proofs of pre-existent knowledge! Whether we refer to nature or to art, to knowledge or to power, to accumulation or destruction, bounds have been prescribed which man can never pass, guarded as they are by the same unerring and unseen Power, which threw the planets from his hand, to roll in their appointed orbits. All appears confused below, but all is clear in heaven.

I have somewhere heard it said, that where heaven may be, those who reach it will behold the mechanism of the universe in its perfection. Those stars now studding the firmament in such apparent confusion, will there appear in all their regularity, as worlds revolving in their several orbits, round suns that gladden them with light and heat, all in harmony, all in beauty, rejoicing as they roll their destined course in obedience to the Almighty fiat; one vast, stupendous, and, to the limits of our present senses, incomprehensible mechanism, perfect in all its parts, most wonderful in the whole. Nor do I doubt it: it is but reasonable to suppose it. He that hath made this world and all upon it, can have no limits to His power.

I wonder whether I shall ever see it.

I said just now, let us think. I had better have said, let us not think; for thought is painful, even dangerous when carried to excess. Happy is he who thinks but little, whose ideas are so confined as not to cause the intellectual fever, wearing out the mind and body, and often threatening both with dissolution. There is a happy medium of intellect, sufficient to convince us that all is good—sufficient to enable us to comprehend that which is revealed, without a vain endeavour to pry into the hidden; to understand the one, and lend our faith unto the other; but when the mind would soar unto the heaven not opened to it, or dive into sealed and dark futurity, how does it return from its several expeditions? confused, alarmed, unhappy; willing to rest, yet restless; willing to believe, yet doubting; willing to end its futile travels, yet setting forth anew. Yet, how is a superior understanding envied! how coveted by all! a gift which always leads to danger, and often to perdition.

Thank Heaven! I have not been intrusted with one of those thorough-bred, snorting, champing, foaming sort of intellects, which run away with Common Sense, who is jerked from his saddle at the beginning of its wild career. Mine is a good, steady, useful hack, who trots along the high-road of life, keeping on his own side, and only stumbling a little now and then, when I happen to be careless,—ambitious only to arrive safely at the end of his journey, not to pass by others.

Why am I no longer ambitious? once I was, but ’twas when I was young and foolish. Then methought “It were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon;” but now I am old and fat, and there is something in fat which chokes or destroys ambition. It would appear that it is requisite for the body to be active and springing as the mind; and if it is not, it weighs the latter down to its own gravity. Who ever heard of a fat man being ambitious? Caesar was a spare man; Bonaparte was thin, as long as he climbed the ladder; Nelson was a shadow. The Duke of Wellington has not sufficient fat in his composition to grease his own Wellington-boots. In short, I think my hypothesis to be fairly borne out, that fat and ambition are incompatible.