Among other things, was a large supply of beer; for the settlers had brought with them, and successfully practised, the art of brewing, with which they had been familiar at home. Wine they had not as yet attained to, though they had begun the cultivation of the vine, as well as of several other European fruit-trees. The savages indulged in the liquor with characteristic excess; and, while they were lost in intoxication, set fire, either accidentally or intentionally, to the wooden houses and stacks with which they were surrounded. The fire raged fiercely in all directions; and most of the men were too much stupified with liquor to escape the flames, and were either stifled or burnt; a considerable number, however, were rescued by the settlers, who had by this time come together, and who at once saved and took prisoners most of the survivors, who were too helplessly drunk for either resistance or flight.
This event, which at once and for ever broke the power of their enemies, has been ever since annually commemorated in the colony; a day of solemn thanksgiving being concluded by the lighting of large bonfires in the evening, by parties who pass round among themselves a spear, such as the natives use, and a cup of beer, of which each tastes, in memory of their deliverance. This festival which the Müllers instituted, accompanying the celebration with apposite reflections on drunkenness and its effects, has probably tended, along with other circumstances, to keep up an almost universal habit of sobriety throughout the colony.
This interesting portion of their early history, thus impressed on their minds and familiarized to their thoughts from childhood, creates an indelible association of the idea of drunkenness, not only with those of helplessness and disaster, but also with that of the character of brutish and stupid savages. Indeed, in several other points also, our travellers found the idea of savage life so associated with some others in the minds of these people, as to influence considerably their conduct and habits of thought. They have a deep-seated and habitual contempt for every thing which, according to their notions, savours of barbarism; and this shows itself in many points, which to a modern European would be likely to appear whimsical. The younger Müller, though indefatigable in his kindness towards the native tribes, appears to have cherished this feeling in his own people. He laboured strenuously to reclaim and civilize the savages, and was equally anxious to guard against the reverse process—the approximation of the white men towards the habits of the savages: and, as he seems to have been a very able though eccentric man, and possessed boundless influence over the colonists, who were under his government for above half a century, he succeeded in effectually stamping his own character on the nation, and perpetuating his institutions.
The hostile tribes, after the above event, surrendered at discretion; and they consented (those of them who had a considerable proportion of able-bodied men remaining alive) to remove beyond a certain specified boundary, far beyond the then limits of the colony; but several tribes, which now consisted almost entirely of women and children, and were consequently hardly capable of providing for themselves, were, at their own entreaty, received as subjects, and incorporated, along with the previously-allied natives, into the body of the settlers.
The European and aboriginal races became in time completely blended together; for it appears to have been one of the principles most earnestly maintained and inculcated by their extraordinary leader, to allow of no hereditary degradation; no subjection of one race of men to another on the ground of colour or caste, but to make all subjects of the state necessarily admissible to the rights of citizenship. Yet, on the other hand, he was well aware of the actual inferiority of the aborigines as individuals and as a race, and was fully alive to the evil of placing inferior men on a level with those morally and intellectually superior. The maxim, accordingly, which he continually dwelt on, and laboured to embody in practice, was, that it is not the colour of the skin, but the heart and head, that makes a man savage or civilized. Education, accordingly, was the means adopted for reclaiming and for preserving men from barbarism: and examinations, to ascertain how far each had profited by the education bestowed, were made the test for admissibility into the highest public stations.
This principle has been in great measure adhered to in the several states into which the settlement was afterwards divided, though differing from each other in many respects in their forms of government. And yet, as Müller used himself to observe, one man may be much superior in fitness for certain public offices to another, who may be far beyond him in proficiency in a prescribed course of studies, and in everything that can be ascertained in any regular examination; but then, he used to add, when you come to a greater number, one hundred men well taught will always be superior to a hundred untaught, and fitter to govern the community. In all the states, accordingly, their senates are always required to consist of men who have given proof of their proficiency in a prescribed course of study; but these are left free to choose, and sometimes do choose, for the discharge of important offices, men who are inferior in this respect, but qualified by natural sagacity and practical habits of business.
CHAPTER II.
Increase of the Settlement.—Separation of the States.—Ecclesiastical Communities.—Concord among Sects.—Houses and Towns.—Penal Colonies.—Southlanders’ Hospitality.—Mode of receiving Company.—Feasts.—Animal Food.—Tame Animals.—Surprise at English Customs.—Carnivorous Propensity.—Lighting the Streets.—City of Bath.
The settlement, on being thus (about five or six years from its commencement) freed from all external molestation, increased in prosperity, and extended itself rapidly in several directions inland. Towards the sea they had no temptation to advance; being separated from it by an extensive district of great sterility, and of difficult passage. Inward, the abundance of fertile land, and the numerous lakes with which our travellers had been struck, and which afforded easy intercourse even between settlements at a considerable distance, invited them to overspread the country as fast as their rapidly-increasing population required. Their numbers seem to have advanced at about the same rate as those of some of the North-American settlements.
The division into separate states was not, as the travellers found to their surprise, the result of discord, but had been planned and commenced by their founder himself. He had, it seems, foreseen, or fancied that he foresaw, an ultimate necessity for such a separation; and he judged it best that it should begin even in his own lifetime, before there was any advantage in it, except that of setting an example and establishing a precedent for amicable separation. He founded, accordingly, within forty years from their first settling, a second perfectly independent community, on the opposite side of the lake, near which the first had been located. The original settlement still forms one of the states, and retains the name of Müllersfield, which it received from the founders: the new one, from its singular beauty of situation, he called Eutopia (fine place), probably with something of a covert allusion also to the well-known fabulous Utopia (no place). The most perfect friendliness and freedom of intercourse continued between the two states; and, without owning any common authority, they consulted together, like any two individual neighbours who are on friendly terms, respecting any matters in which they had a common concern: and the principles of the procedure having been clearly laid down, and practically established, the example was afterwards repeatedly followed as the colonization extended itself; and fresh swarms, as it were, issued forth, till the number of the separate states amounted to eleven.