“Ha! I see,” replied Appadocca, controlling himself, “I see you have either not gone far enough into philosophy, or that you blind yourself to its lights. If I am guilty of piracy, you, too—the whole of mankind is guilty of the very same sort of crime.”
“What do you mean by this?” asked Hamilton.
“Simply, that which my words convey,” replied Appadocca.
“Perhaps you will explain yourself more amply?” suggested Hamilton.
“Well,” rejoined Appadocca, “what I mean is plain enough, and it is this, that the whole of the civilized world turns, exists, and grows enormous on the licensed system of robbing and thieving, which you seem to criminate so much. The barbarous hordes, whose fathers, either choice or some unlucky accident, originally drove to some cold, frozen, cheerless, and fruitless waste, increasing in numbers, wincing under the inclemency of their clime and the poverty of their land, and longing after the richer, and more fertile, and teeming soil of some other country, desert their wretched regions, and with all the machinery of war, melt down on the unprovoking nations, whose only crime is their being more fortunate and blest, and wrench from their enervated sway the prosperous fields that first provoked their famished cupidity. The people which a convenient position, either on a neck of land, or the elbow of some large river, first consolidated, developed, and enriched, after having appropriated, through the medium of commerce, the wealth of its immediate neighbours, sends forth its numerous and powerful ships to scour the seas, to penetrate into hitherto unknown regions, where discovering new and rich countries, they, in the name of civilization, first open an intercourse with the peaceful and contented inhabitants, next contrive to provoke a quarrel, which always terminates in a war that leaves them the conquerors and possessors of the land. As for the original inhabitants themselves, they are driven after the destruction of their cities, to roam the woods, and to perish and disappear on the advance of their greedy supplanters. Nations that are different only in the language with which they vent their thoughts, inhabiting the same portions of the globe, and separated but by a narrow stream, eagerly watch the slightest inclination of accident in their respective favours, and on the plea, either of religion—that fertile theme, and ready instigator—or on the still more extensive and uncertain ground of politics, use the chance that circumstances throw into their hands, make incursions and fight battles, whose fruits are only misery and wretchedness. A fashion springs up at a certain time to have others to labour for our benefit, and to bear ‘the heat and burthen of the day’ in our stead: straightway, the map of the world is opened, and the straggling and weakest portions of a certain race, whose power of bodily and mental endurance, renders them the likely objects to answer this end, are chosen. The coasts of the country on which nature has placed them, are immediately lined with ships of acquisitive voyagers, who kidnap and tear them away from the scenes that teem with the associations of their own and their fathers’ happiness, load them with irons, throw them into the cruel ordeal of the ‘middle passage,’ to test whether they are sufficiently iron-constituted as to survive the starvation, stench, and pestilential contagion which decide the extent of the African’s endurance, and fix his value. This, my dear friend is an abstracted idea of the manner in which the world turns. But, as we used to say when we were younger, and happier, ‘in generalibus latet fraus,’ allow me to descend to particulars, and to bring my observations more closely home to society as now constituted. In all the various parts which form its whole, you will be able to trace the same spirit to which I impliedly referred in viewing the conduct of congregated individuals,—nations. You find those whom fortune has called to the first place in the state, instead of exerting their intellect to the utmost stretch, and expanding their heart to its greatest width, for the wise and virtuous government, and for the development of the happiness of those who are subjected to their rule, wasting their time in the pursuit of the most shadowy gewgaws, squandering, in empty vanities, the tax-extorted treasures of their subjects—treasures that could have preserved the flame of many a light of humanity, whose doom it has been to flicker for a moment in a garret, and be for ever extinguished; or pampering their already over-fed bodies to the point that sensitive reason refuses to longer hold together with such masses of matter. Those again in secondary spheres, use the authority with which they are invested, not with the keen discernment of delicate justice, but on the spur and press of passion. Is there some conquered people to be governed?—they send their weak-minded, afflicted, and helpless friends or relatives to govern those whose ancestors gave philosophy, religion, and government to the world, but who must now themselves stoop, to cut wood, and to carry water, when, by the common rules of justice, they should be permitted to enjoy the land from which they have sprung, and to participate in its dignities.
“What villainous case is there, that with the ready fee, does not find the well-turned and silvery measures of the orator to palm it forth. The widow’s mite, or the prince’s prerogative, may depend upon the issue,—’tis all the same. Poverty and utter want may follow the words of the cunning speaker, and rascality and villainy may rise triumphant,—what matters it?
“At the side of suffering humanity stands the willing doctor, and plies, and plies the rich patient with make-show drugs.
“From the pulpit invectives flow, for the voice of religion; charity yields to controversy; the denunciation of other’s condemned and re-condemned errors supply the place of the practice of benevolence; and in the name of that Christ, who came with ‘peace and goodwill to man’, evil passions are roused, daggers whetted, and massacres sanctified; while he, who, with spectacles on nose, and twang in voice, moves the ready machine, grins in his closet over the glittering gold that his lectures, invectives, panegyrics, and homilies, bring in.
“This is not all. Are you hungry? the baker sends you bread compounded with pestilential stuffs, grows rich, visits the church, sympathises with heathen savages, and sends delegates to call them within the bosom of his sweet civilization. Are you thirsty? the herb that nature furnishes you for your refreshment is taken and turned, and painted, and fried till it becomes poison, and then given you with balmy smiles.
“The world can be compared to a vast marsh, abounding with monster alligators that devour the smaller creatures, and then each other.”