But even in these our own days there is a party in England, there are Englishmen, citizens, writers, and members of Parliament, and most of them truly honourable men, who, while they declare that the British Whigs of those times were patriots and martyrs, do not hesitate rashly to condemn the “rebellious” Parliaments and political parties of the continent. No Englishman, not the most conservative, would dare to deny to Lord Russell one single ray of that glorious crown of martyrdom which the English people and its historians have placed upon his bleeding head.
“It cannot be denied,” they say, “that Lord William Russell conspired against an illegal Government; but to conspire against such a Government was his duty; he was justified in so doing.”... But if the Russells of those days were justified in vindicating the people’s rights against the King, how then can you so smoothly and glibly apply the word “rebels” to the continental Russells of our own days? If armed opposition is treasonable, was it less treasonable in days gone by? Do the rights of mankind dwindle away as century follows century? Or has the great nation of England so small a mind that it cannot distinguish between the merits of a cause and its success?
The Russells of the last centuries shed their blood for this generation. England is free, happy, undisturbed, mighty, strong, tranquil and reasonable; she develops a brighter future from the benefits she at present enjoys. The English know it; and in this knowledge is the secret of their pride. The sanguinary conflicts of the continent, which have hitherto had no results, provoke in Englishmen a smile of mingled pity and derision. “Those people don’t know what they are driving at,” say some; “if they would be happy they ought to imitate England.” And others say, “They want freedom, but they are not practical enough; they do not turn their revolution to advantage as our ancestors did, and as we would do in their place.” But I say, it is easy to find fault with others, and a happy man has all the wisdom of Solomon. These English sages do not consider how much easier it was to their ancestors to bring the contest with the power of the crown to a successful issue. The English patriots were not opposed by large standing armies; the contest lay between them and a single family and its faction, and—this is a point which has never been sufficiently dwelt upon—they had no reason to fear a foreign intervention. For England, as the greatest living author[B] says, never fought as France did for the freedom of the world, but for its own freedom. Hence the continental powers paid little attention to the battles of the Puritans, and the contests between Charles and Cromwell. Clarendon indeed considered their non-intervention a great grievance. But this non-intervention of Spain or France was the greatest blessing for royalty in England. If those countries had interfered, the contest for the principles of constitutionalism might have been prolonged to this very day, or perhaps royalty would have been killed outright on the English battle-fields.
[B] Macaulay’s Essays, vol. ii.
The history of England—says Macaulay—is a history of progress. Who would gainsay it? At the commencement of the twelfth century, a small and semi-barbarous nation, subject to a handful of foreigners, without a trace of civilisation—large masses enslaved—the Saxons still distinct from the Normans—superstition and brutality everywhere, and the law of the strong hand the supreme law of the land—such was England seven hundred years ago. Then came the bloody civil wars—brain-scorching, land-spoiling, men-consuming, sectarian wars—contests abroad and contests at home—a series of vile, hypocritical, dissolute, and narrow-minded monarchs—and at intervals bright epochs of great times in history and politics, and day was changed into night and night into day, until England attained its present position among the nations of the earth. From one decade to another there may have been periodical retrogressions, but each century gave clear and irrefragable evidence of the progress of England.
If, therefore, in the next years, France should happen again to attain those giddy heights of freedom, which she gained three times already, and which three times have vanished beneath her feet, then let not France, as she is wont to do, wax proud in the scanty shade of her newly planted trees of liberty, and let her not look down contemptuously on the cold, thickblooded, clumsy tree of liberty in England. At the end of the century the two nations may compare their charters; it will then be seen which of them has really and truly had the greatest gains. The blood of France has manured the mental soil of all the world; England should be the last to forget what her liberty has gained by the ideal conquests of France. France, on the other hand, might make the most useful study in considering the consistent carrying out of great political maxims on the British soil.
When two nations express their opinions of one another, and reproach each other with their faults, they are in the habit of paying too little attention to the circumstances which promote or obstruct the advance of freedom. In this respect, the peculiarities of the countries and their geographical position cannot be too highly estimated. Who can tell what would be the condition of Germany, if our country were secure from foreign intervention; and if, as is the case with England, the sea protected it from the violence of its enemies or the insidious advances of its political friends.
CHAP. IV.
Up the Thames.—Vauxhall.
THE RIVER-SIDE.—VIEWS OF THE RIVER.—THE TIDES.—THE BRIDGES.—THE TEMPLE AND SOMERSET HOUSE.—ENTRANCE TO VAUXHALL.—BRITISH DECORATIVE GENIUS.—SOMEBODY RUNS AWAY WITH DR. KEIF.—MAGIC.—NELSON AND WELLINGTON.—THE CIRCUS.—THE BURNING OF MOSCOW.—AN EPISODE AT THE TEA TABLE.
IF you leave King William-street just at the foot of London-bridge and turn to the right, you will find your way into a set of narrow and steep streets, few only of which admit of carriage and horse traffic. The lower stories of the houses are let out as offices, and the upper as warehouse floors; the pavement is narrow and the road as bad as broken stones and long neglect can make it; dirty boys in sailors’ jackets play at leap-frog over the street posts; legions of wheel-barrows encumber the broader parts of these thoroughfares; packing-cases stand at the doors of houses, and cranes and levers peep out from the upper stories. Such are the streets which lead down to the banks of the Thames. It is altogether a dusty, filthy, “uncannie” quarter. A few steps through a black, cornery, nondescript structure of sooty brick and mortar, covered all over with immense shipping advertisements in all colours, and we stand on the bank of the river. An entirely new scene is opened before our eyes.