Josiah Quincy, then junior, father of the late President of Harvard University, has noted some curious facts, in his journal, as reported by Gordon, i. 438. In a conversation between him and Col. Barré, who, though he opposed the Stamp Act, in 1765, supported the Boston Port Bill, in 1774. Col. Barré said to Mr. Quincy—“About fourteen or fifteen years ago, I was through a considerable part of your country; for, in the expedition against Canada, my business caused me to pass by land, through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Albany; and, when I returned again to this country, I was often speaking of America, and could not help speaking well of its climate, soil, and inhabitants; for you must know, sir, America was always a favorite with me. But, will you believe it, sir, yet I assure you it is true, more than two thirds of this island, at this time, thought the Americans were all negroes.” Mr. Quincy replied that he did not in the least doubt it, for, if he was to judge by the late acts of Parliament, he should suppose, that a great majority of the people of Great Britain still thought so, for he found that their representatives still treated them as such.
The ministry had decided, that “the punishment of a few of the worst sort of traitors, such as Hancock and his crew, might be sufficient to teach the rest their duty, in future.”—“Some men of rank in the army,” says Gordon, i. 457, “treated all idea of resistance, by the Americans, with the utmost contempt. They are neither soldiers, nor ever can be made so, being naturally of a pusillanimous disposition, and utterly incapable of any sort of order or discipline; and by their laziness, uncleanliness, and radical defect of constitution, they are disabled from going through the service of a campaign. Many ludicrous stories, to that purport, were told, greatly to the entertainment of the house.”
Jonathan turned out, at the end of the Bull baiting, to have been neither a fool nor a coward: and the American Congress received a memorable compliment from Lord Chatham—“For genuine sagacity, for singular moderation, for manly spirit, for sublime sentiments, and simplicity of language, for everything respectable and honorable, the Congress of Philadelphia shines unrivalled.”
In the war of 1812, Bull was the very identical Bull, that he had been before: Frenchmen were frogs; Yankees were cowards—there was nobody that could fight, on the land or the sea, but Bull.
“It has always,” says that wittiest, and, I fear, wickedest of wags, William Cobbett, while addressing Lord Liverpool, “been the misfortune of England, that her rulers and her people have spoken and have thought contemptuously of the Americans. Was there a man in the country, who did not despise the American navy? Was there a public writer beside myself, who did not doom that navy to destruction in a month? Did not all parties exceedingly relish the description given, in a very august assembly, of ‘half a dozen of fir frigates, with bits of striped bunting tied to their mast heads’! Did not the Guerriere sail up and down the American coast, with her name, written on her flag, challenging those fir frigates? Did not the whole nation, with one voice exclaim at the affair of the Little Belt—‘Only let Rogers come within reach of one of our frigates!’ If such was the opinion of the whole nation, with what justice is the Board of Admiralty blamed, for not sending out the means of combatting this extraordinary sort of foe? and for issuing a privilege to our frigates to run away from one of those fir things with a bit of striped bunting at its mast head? The result of the former war, while it enlightened nobody, added to the vindictiveness of hundreds of thousands; so that we have entered into this war with all our old stock of contempt, and a vastly increased stock of rancor. To think that the American republic is to be a great power is unsupportable. Of the effect of this contempt I know nobody, who has so much reason to repent, as the officers of his Majesty’s navy. If they had triumphed, it would only have been over half a dozen fir things, with bits of bunting at their mast heads. They were sure to gain no reputation in the contest; and, if they failed, what was their lot? The worst of it is, they themselves did, in some measure, contribute to their own ill fate: for, of all men living, none spoke of poor Jonathan with so much contempt. There are some people, who are for taking the American commodores at their word, and ascribing their victories to the immediate intervention of Providence. Both Perry and McDonough begin their despatches by saying—“Almighty God has given us a victory.”
This is keen political satire; and it is well, that it should come to neighbor Bull’s ears, from the mouth of an Englishman. It is more gracefully administered thus. That it was entirely deserved, no one will doubt, who has any recollection of Bull’s unmeasured and unmitigated impudence, during the war of 1812, in its earlier stages. May God of his infinite mercy grant, that Peace Societies may have these matters, hereafter, very much their own way; though I have a little misgiving, I confess, as to the expediency of any sudden, or very general conversion of swords into ploughshares, or spears into pruning hooks.
No. CV.
Modus in rebus—an admirable proverb, upon all common occasions—is inapplicable, of course, to musical matters. No doubt of it. The luxury of sweet sounds cannot be too dearly bought; and, for its procurement, mankind may go stark mad, without any diminution of their respectability.
Such I infer to be the popular philosophy of today—while it is called today. The moderns have been greatly perplexed, by the legends, which have come down to us, respecting the melody of swans. The carmina cycnorum of Ovid, and the Cantantes sublime ferent ad sidera cycni, of Virgil, are perfectly incomprehensible by us. Cicero also, in his Tusculan Questions, i. 74, says, they die, cum cantu et voluptate. Martial, xiii. 77, asserts the matter, very positively—